Davos is coming just in time for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump 2.0, and Europe is worried. Mr Trump is like an asteroid heading for Earth, argued Hubert Védrine, the former French foreign minister, and discussions of the strike will dominate the cozy, internationalist bubbles that gather each year in the expensive snow of the Swiss Alps.

Mr. Trump talks differently about huge new tariffs, about seizing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, about tying American involvement in European defense not only to Europeans increasing their military spending, but also to reducing their trade surplus with the United States.

Mr. Védrine and other analysts warn that Mr. Trump likes to talk big and then haggle, and that threats and problems come and go. Like his former national security adviser, John Bolton he once told USA Todaywork in the White House Mr. Trump was “like life in a pinball machine”, while Mr. Trump moved from one topic to another.

But one of the dominant topics in Davos will probably be Ukraine. Mr. Trump says he wants to end the war in one day, which virtually no one takes literally, not even his special adviser on Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. Mr. Trump or not, Ukraine is slowly losing the war, and negotiations to try to end the bloodshed are coming, probably this spring.

But on what basis, is the key question. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin faces high inflation and interest rates, but has put his country on a war economy in what he sees as an existential conflict with the West. Despite the very heavy losses, he has so far been able to offset his losses with large financial incentives: 70 percent of his forces are contract soldiers and only 7 percent are soldiers, said Zaki Laïdi, a French analyst who advised the former European Union high representative for foreign policy. Union, Josep Borrell Fontelles.

Mr. Putin believes he is winning the war and that Western resolve to continue supporting Ukraine at such high economic cost, with so little Ukrainian progress in the trenches, is waning, said Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. So even if Mr Putin agrees to Mr Trump’s request or even a request to enter into negotiations, he is seen as unlikely to agree to an unconditional ceasefire and insist on tough terms to end the war.

At his regular year-end press conference and televised spectacle, Mr. Putin repeated his claim that Ukraine is not actually an independent country. All negotiations, he said, will start from the “current reality on the ground” and be based on Russia’s position in talks with Ukrainians in Istanbul in 2022: that Ukraine agrees to abandon its NATO aspirations and become a neutral state, accept strict limits on the size of its armed forces and change some of its laws to respect Russian interests. It is unclear whether Mr. Putin will accept Ukraine’s membership of the European Union, but it is doubtful, given that his opposition to a much weaker association agreement between Kiev and Brussels led to the 2013 Maidan uprising.

“Putin wants a reordered world, with Ukraine under control and NATO withdrawn,” Ms Fix said. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Mr Putin wanted “not just a neutral Ukraine, but a neutered Ukraine”.

Mr. Putin’s stated intentions to reshape Europe’s security architecture, undermine NATO and divide Washington from Europe go far beyond Ukraine and should not be ignored, said Norbert Röttgen, a foreign policy expert and lawmaker with the Christian Democratic Union, the party expected to win. in the elections in Germany at the end of February. “The future of Europe is a security issue and we must make this war a failure for Russia,” he said. “Because even if it succeeds at all, the lesson is that war works.”

It is not clear how to ensure that Russia collapses without a sharp and rapid increase in European support for Kiev. European leaders talk about the need to do so and spend more on their defense. But they are divided on how urgent a threat Russia poses to them. They have their own financial difficulties, with low growth and an aging population, and they disagree on how much to spend on their own military, although Mr. Trump to demand that Europe also take on much of the burden to support Ukraine.

The lack of interest of Mr. Mr Trump’s penchant for multilateral alliances and his desire to focus on China means responsibility for European security “is now ours for the first time since December 1941, and Europe is not ready for this fundamental change”, Mr Trump said. Rottgen.

Mark Rutte, the new NATO Secretary General, who will be in Davos, argues similarly, that Europe must do more in its own defense to support Ukraine so that it can negotiate strongly and deter Russia in the future, no matter who the American is. president. European allies “must switch to a war mindset,” he said. He will call on NATO to set a new target for military spending at 3 percent or even 3.5 percent of gross domestic product at the alliance’s next summit this summer in The Hague.

Given that Russia is not about to collapse, Mr. Laïdi said: “We in Europe must deter Russia and strengthen our defenses and start cooperating seriously.”

Mr. Röttgen repeated that call. Europe simply has to do more and more effectively, through NATO, with less nationalism, he asserted. “Europe must understand that its defense industry is about security, not just about jobs,” he said.

Ukrainian leaders understand that negotiations are coming. For some time now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stopped short of insisting that the war can only be ended by fully restoring Ukrainian control over its 1991 borders, including Crimea and large parts of eastern Ukraine, long occupied by Russian troops. Mr Zelenski, who will visit Davos, is instead emphasizing security guarantees for his country after the fighting ends, insisting that only NATO membership will be satisfactory.

That is unlikely to happen, most analysts and officials in Washington and Europe agree. But many, including Mr. Rutte and key members of the outgoing Biden administration, argue that only another big push for Ukraine this year will bring Mr. Putin to more serious talks. But it is not clear where that big push will come from.

“We still hear that Ukraine is waging our war, but let’s tell the truth,” said Charles A. Kupchan, a former Obama administration official and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The United States has a policy without a strategy,” insisting that the West will support Ukraine as long as necessary and that Ukraine can decide for itself when and how to negotiate, as if Washington had no interests of its own, he said. “It is dangerous and turns Ukraine into a failed state,” he said.

Some see Russia and its desire to continue the war collapsing under economic and business pressure, Mr. Kupchan. “But I see the opposite: Russia is fine, and Ukraine remains without gas, without enough manpower or air defense, and it’s not that everything is sitting in Western warehouses – we don’t have it.”

But even if the fighting stops, the most pressing issue, everyone agrees, is Ukraine’s future security. Is there a possible form of NATO membership and collective security that covers only part of sovereign Ukraine? Would membership in the European Union, which is also considered far later, be enough? What would Russia tolerate and can promises not to invade again be trusted?

Some argue – and think Mr Trump may demand – that Europe should worry about Ukraine’s security and suggest sending European troops after the ceasefire. But would they be there to monitor a ceasefire or to monitor a truce? And if so, given the enormous size of Ukraine and its long border with Russia, how many thousands of troops would be needed? How much would it all cost? Would it draw troops away from the defense of NATO members and undermine their confidence in the alliance’s commitment to collective defense? And wouldn’t they need American air cover?

The proposal for European troops, originally sent by the Estonians and sometimes mentioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, has been met with considerable skepticism, including in Poland, which has its own long border with Russia.

A senior German official, who is also speaking anonymously as part of normal diplomatic practice, called the whole discussion premature and irresponsible, giving Russia an easy way to divide Europe and the United States. First, he said, we need to see how the war will end.

For Mr. Röttgen, the war is less about territory than about Ukraine’s sovereignty. “Ukraine must emerge as a sovereign, viable country,” he said. At least that seems feasible, but what remains unclear is how to ensure that an emerging Ukraine will not be attacked again.