Which European should face off against Trump and Putin?

Aside from his gravelly baritone and his attempts at rearranging the world like Tetris pieces, Henry Kissinger is perhaps best known for something he probably never said: that he could never figure out who to call to speak to Europe. A question that was first (not) posed in the rotary-phone era remains unanswered in the age of Zoom. The time for Europe to put forward a single interlocutor for the outside world has come. Soon, under as-yet-unclear circumstances, peace talks over the war in Ukraine may take place. Given what is at stake, Europe desperately—and justifiably—wants a seat at the table. But to be included it will have to put someone up who can stand for photo-ops with Vladimir Putin (representing the interests of his despotic Russian regime) and Donald Trump (representing those of Donald Trump), and perhaps Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukraine). Working out who can’t sit in the European chair, in the eyes of some faction or other, is easy. Coming up with the name of someone who could is tricky.