We alerted you. Now the new, shocking reality of unthinkables has arrived with hurricane force impact and damage.

Donald Trump’s first 28 days in office have crystallised the devastating scale and impact of unthinkables that our work has warned about for ten years.

The new Trump way is unchallengable. In just four weeks it has suddenly infected so much. His tendrils are penetrating everywhere.

This means that orthodox thinking and reactions now have no place. As a result – again as we have long warned – leaders need a new mind muscle to cope and handle the new realities. They will not be reversed.

But who in top positions of power and responsibility truly realises this?

The stability we have all long taken for granted is unravelling at a pace that few people are willing to come to terms with, let alone accept.

Just five days – yes only five – of unconventional policy making in the White House last week have suddenly turned to dust five decades of progress and agreements that were achieved largely by way of conventional thinking.

“Dizzying”, “head spinning”, “the darkest time in Transatlantic relations since World War 2” are some of the bleak reflections.

What happened last week after Trump revealed that he and Putin had spoken in a 90 minute phone call, confirmed the brittleness of the rules based system and the new instant disposability of conventions.

The courtesy of communicating with long standing allies – that is the other 29 NATO nations – or the President of Ukraine, was dead. None of that orthodox thinking matters any more in Trump’s Washington.

Trump is another Putin. They are two similar leaders of a dangerous new kind. Both have created unthinkables and unpalatables that will challenge normality and embolden other autocrats – or those of that tendency.

Putin smashed all the world’s hard won rules of reasonableness when he invaded Ukraine with his “special military operation” almost three years ago to the day.

Trump has done the same after driving the heaviest of political ballistic missile launchers through all conventions of consent and jointness among allies.

“The Donald” proudly revealed he had spoken to Putin for 90 minutes, then gave away two prime negotiating points on Ukraine before negotiations had even begun,

To use undiplomatic language: it was mind blowing. Literally.

I witnessed and heard this impact in the congested halls, lobbies and salons of the Munich Security Conference (MSC). The heads of top people were spinning as they struggled to find a grounding and foothold in the swirling mud slide of new, huge unthinkables.

The MSC is normally a stiff and staid gathering of the policy elites where attendees act and talk in line with well worn conventions.

Last weekend’s MSC was completely different. Unthinkables mercilessly upended the usual self control of diplomatic thinking and well established political tram lines.

There was audible panic in the cramped corridors and staircases of the giant Bayerischer Hof. The historic hotel reverberated with the fear and passion of snatched conversations and an unending stream of mobile phones ringing.

There was a mix of fury, exasperation and panic visible among security-geeks who I have always known as super controlling in their language and manner.

Munich was chilled by heavy snow. Suddenly the diplo talk matched the weather outside.

It was of Munich 1938 and the fear that Trump’s unthinkable unilateralism had opened the door to the kind of appeasement ‘peace’ agreement on Ukraine that Hitler had secured from Chamberlain to hand Sudetenland to the Nazis.

Surely not! In modern 2025? The prospect was unthinkable. Few could believe what they were now saying and having to contemplate.

But they were. In a matter of hours over just five days the unthinkable was unfolding at hyper speed. None of this had been on anyone’s agenda three days earlier!

It had been the same three years earlier when the MSC could not believe that Putin would order his military to invade Ukraine. He did a few days later.

Now US-Russian pre-negotiation talks on Ukraine were being proposed in Saudi Arabia. But on Washington’s order they would not include Ukraine.

Then Trump’s representatives made clear during the Munich conference that Europe would have no role. So no European representatives could attend, prompting the scrambling together of an emergency summit in Paris to discuss how to seal a new collective security without the US.

Trump’s Vice President J.D. Vance was in Germany. But a week before the general election he chose to defy protocol. Instead of meeting Chancellor Olaf Scholz he met the leader of the right wing AFD party.

So with each hour the unthinkables have continued. The first four weeks of Trump’s “mission disruption” are just a start.

How much will leaders in politics and business now stretch their mind muscles? It is a new and vital skill that must be mastered fast.

This requires bravery and boldness. Compromise and half measures will be an irresponsible cop out given what we all confront in Trump’s new world of counter realities.

Creating new mind muscle? France’s President Macron used the same phrase to the FT last Friday. Five years ago he had urged to the FT the need to Think the Unthinkable.

Macron is and was right. But few listened when they should have done. Now look where we are. The working assumption must be that there are many more unthinkables to come.