Europe faces strategic crossroads as US changes global priorities
Tensions were evident throughout the year. At the Munich Security Conference in February, the US Vice President criticized European governments sharply, questioning whether the continent’s values justified American defense commitments. He also accused Europe of media censorship, political conformity, and weakening democratic norms. Strains intensified with new US tariffs on EU imports and the December release of Washington’s national security strategy, which offered limited attention to Europe and warned of potential “civilizational erasure” if current regulatory and migration trends continue.
Observers noted that US unpredictability has heightened European concerns across defense, trade, and diplomacy. Ian Lesser, head of the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund, said, “Many people imagined that somehow this second Trump administration would be isolationist. It is not isolationist at all. In fact, it is quite activist on the international scene.” He added that Europe remains far from being able to defend itself independently, noting that credible deterrence without American participation could take many years to achieve.
Despite the strains, Lesser stressed that US commitment to European security has not collapsed.
He highlighted NATO as a stabilizing factor, pointing to continued American leadership roles and legislative limits on troop withdrawals. “The sensible approach, and I think it is the approach Europe is taking, is to plan for a less and less predictable American presence in European security,” he said, “but not a presence and participation that goes to zero.” Rather than building independent security structures, Europe should strengthen its existing role within NATO.
Lesser also noted cultural and political limits within Europe. Public support for defense spending is often framed in industrial rather than security terms. He emphasized that nuclear deterrence remains challenging without US conventional forces on the ground, describing them as a necessary “trip wire” to maintain credibility toward Russia.
Experts argued that Europe now faces critical decisions that could reshape its security architecture. Spyros Blavoukos, head of the EU Institutions and Policies Program at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, said that unlike 2016, Europe anticipated the turbulence of a second Trump term, allowing some preparation time. He stressed that balancing Washington’s transactional demands with continued US engagement is central to current European strategy. “At this point, we cannot afford to go alone,” he said.
Blavoukos warned that Europe must make difficult trade-offs, such as reducing energy dependence on Russia even if it increases reliance on the US. “We wanted peace, stability. We wanted economic competitiveness, which was based on cheap energy imports from Russia.
We wanted to have the security umbrella of the US. You need to choose. You need to make some very critical decisions,” he said. He cautioned that 2026 could see rising political and social tensions as governments weigh defense spending against social welfare priorities, and emphasized that public skepticism about deeper integration and military commitments adds pressure on policymakers.
Europe now faces a pivotal moment: failure to advance political and security integration could leave the continent more vulnerable to future crises, while decisive action may determine its strategic resilience in an unpredictable global environment.
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