After US vice-president JD Vance’s speech in Munich last month, most European leaders came to the conclusion that our world has fundamentally changed. The Pax Americana that long ensured peace, security and freedom in Europe is over. Anyone who still doubted this will hopefully now realise, after the disgraceful treatment Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy endured last Friday at the White House, that we can no longer rely on the Americans for our collective security.

We must hope for the best, but hope is not a policy. We – the Netherlands, the EU, and all western countries standing with Ukraine – must prepare for the worst. The question is this: how do we keep Ukraine free and independent, and how do we protect our economy, our freedom and democracy, and our borders?

This begins with the awareness that our security is already directly threatened by Russia. Trump wants to do business over our heads with this country. It appears that he and Vladimir Putin have divided Europe into spheres of influence like two mob bosses in a low-budget movie. As the saying goes: if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

The Netherlands is not an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; we are fully exposed when geopolitical and economic storms brew on our continent. It is the Russian aggression in Ukraine that has made our energy prices rocket. We cannot batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass. We are a medium-sized country with significant European and international interests. It is high time we acted accordingly.

But political divisions at the heart of our government are leaving us exposed. The biggest party in the coalition governing the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, has a history of pro-Kremlin rhetoric. While other parties, such as the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), formerly led by Mark Rutte, are staunch advocates of unwavering support of Ukraine. Combined with an unelected prime minister, Dick Schoof, who serves no specific political party, the coalition government is rudderless and unstable.

It is abundantly clear that our national scale is far too small to make a real difference. Today, we need the EU more than ever before. We must also work on closer ties with countries that share our sense of urgency and are not EU members, primarily the UK and Norway, but also Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The EU will also need to take a much firmer stance against member states such as Hungary that spare no effort in promoting Putin’s (and Trump’s) agenda.

The most urgent priority now is to support Ukraine. We must fill the gaps that Trump is leaving behind. Financially, this should not be too complicated, but in military terms, this is a different challenge. Russia will now intensify its attacks, so all available military equipment must be sent to Ukraine as quickly as possible. With additional financial support, we can also get the Ukrainian defence industry up and running at full capacity.

The Russians are struggling more than it appears at first glance; sanctions are damaging the country, the losses are significant, and the war economy is creating large gaps elsewhere. Sanctions need to be scaled up much further, and all frozen Russian assets in the EU must be transferred to Ukraine immediately.

EU member states must wake up and stop squabbling over trivial matters. The same goes for the Schoof cabinet. It is all hands on deck now. This means thinking creatively about European war bonds and finding the fastest possible way to bolster our defence in preparation for a confrontation in which the Americans may leave us to fend for ourselves. This requires investing in areas that the Americans currently cover within Nato. Moreover, it is vital for the overall resilience of Dutch society that defence investments do not come at the expense of our social safety net.

In the longer term, we must first establish a partnership that provides the collective security guarantee of Nato without having to rely on the US. Crucial to this is the involvement of Britain and possibly Canada, and European countries that are not members of the EU. Therefore, it should go beyond the EU and perhaps also exclude countries, if these, such as Hungary or the nominally neutral Austria and Ireland, for example, do not want to participate.

Second, it is of national security interest to make progress on a genuine energy union. High energy prices constitute the primary economic threat to this continent. This requires much more collective investment in energy networks, renewable energy, and also joint procurement of gas for as long as we need it.

The Netherlands can play a leading role in all these areas, but it is not doing so. Because the coalition is deeply divided, the prime minister speaks too hesitantly, too late, and too ambiguously. Because the coalition is not allocating additional funds for Ukraine and is implementing utterly nonsensical cuts to the contributions to the EU, the words of support are literally and figuratively cheap. Because the largest coalition party is at best ambiguous and usually sides with Trump – who is now also siding with Putin – our government is adrift.

Fortunately, there is still hope. The rudderless government may be on the brink of despair, but the people are not without hope, and our country is certainly not without prospects. The Dutch people see that the world order is changing. In such extraordinary, dangerous times, they deserve a decisive, united government.

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