US security strategy is first shot in Trump’s war on Europe

Last week’s release of the 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS) was not a routine recalibration of diplomatic lines – it was a rupture. It represented the most explicit declaration to date that the United States no longer regards Europe as a partner in a shared transatlantic project but as a challenge to be managed, a continent to be reshaped and a strategic liability to be mitigated. The Trump administration has accused entire nations and supranational institutions of steering the continent towards what it calls “civilisational erasure”, thanks to declining birth rates, mass migration, what it terms “regulatory suffocation” and increasing government control over speech and political opposition. The NSS gloomily predicts that “the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less”. The NSS explicitly calls for the US to cultivate “resistance” inside European states. It praises the rising influence of “patriotic European parties” – a clear reference to far-right and nationalist movements – and presents them as a source of “great optimism”. Equally consequential is the NSS’ reimagining of Europe’s role. Gone is the vision of Europe as a theatre of common interests and a shared front against authoritarianism. Instead, Europe is cast as a burden – politically, morally, militarily. The US has signalled its willingness to re-engage with rivals and rogue states such as Russia while privileging hemispheric dominance and regional priorities over global democratic commitments. The era of liberal internationalism that was predicated on alliances, international institutions and collective security appears to be ending. This shift did not emerge by accident. At the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, US Vice-President J.D. Vance laid out much of the same argument: Europe was betraying its own people, elites had suppressed free speech and national sovereignty and cultural identity were being erased by migration, regulation and fear-driven elites. At the time, the address seemed little more than a provocation, a troll in character for an administration often more Star Wars cantina than serious government. However, the NSS confirms it was not a troll. It was the first shot across the transatlantic bow of a new foreign-policy approach, best described as “Atlantic Fracture Doctrine”. This doctrine is not a coherent grand strategy but a recalibration of US power around sovereignty, cultural confrontation and transactional advantage. In this world view, alliances constrain more than they protect and Europe becomes less a partner than an ideological battleground. It combines selective disengagement from collective commitments, open political intervention on behalf of self-described patriotic nationalist parties and a willingness to treat rivals as negotiating conveniences rather than systemic threats. In place of Pax Americana – a framework built on credibility, deterrence and shared democratic purpose – the Atlantic Fracture Doctrine substitutes a hemispheric nationalism that recasts US leadership as leverage rather than stewardship while reducing the relationship between continents to a series of tactical bargains shaped by grievance rather than strategy. European diplomats and leaders swiftly condemned the NSS as overreaching and alarmist. If Europe hopes to defend itself against coercive US diplomacy, economic pressure and the internal erosion of democratic norms, it must go beyond criticism and actually act. That begins with confronting its most glaring structural weakness: a unanimity rule that allows a single member, one such as Hungary which is aligned with Washington’s new ideological course, to paralyse the European Union precisely when collective action is most urgent. As long as Europe remains hostage to Budapest or any other capital able to veto action for domestic political reasons, true strategic autonomy is impossible. The EU must therefore overhaul its decision-making architecture, extending qualified majority voting to foreign policy, security and critical economic decisions. Such reforms will be attacked as centralisation or overreach. However, the alternative is a bloc perpetually vulnerable to manipulation, incapable of decisive action and predisposed to paralysis precisely when unity and strength are more pivotal than ever. Autonomy requires more than institutional reform. It demands capabilities that Europe has long outsourced: unified defence procurement, credible conventional deterrence, interoperable command structures and an industrial base able to supply critical equipment without reliance on US supply chains. Governance must also be strengthened. Institutions must safeguard civil liberties while remaining accountable to citizens. Economically and technologically, Europe needs tighter oversight of strategic investments, resilient supply chains and deliberate support for critical domestic industries. Above all, it must recognise that its supranational system, once protected under the Pax Americana, is now a target. The NSS’ explicit support for European far-right parties – precisely to fracture EU consensus and prevent unified strategic action – is a structural attempt to weaken institutions and undermine the treaties binding the continent together. By design, it also legitimises the erosion of democratic norms that US President Donald Trump has been pursuing since the start of his second term, signalling that attacks on independent institutions, the free press and rule-of-law principles are acceptable tactics for those seeking national advantage. To resist this pivot, Europe cannot rely on habit, precedent, nostalgia or once again make the mistake of trying to wait out Trump. It must reckon with the hard truth that the transatlantic shield it once depended on has been repurposed as a tool of ideological leverage. There is no guarantee that this will end any time soon, or ever. If Europe truly values liberty – not as an abstract ideal but as the political architecture of its civilised existence – it must build the means to defend it and start finally seeing the world as it is, not as it remembers it.

US security strategy is first shot in Trump’s war on Europe

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}If Europe truly values liberty, it must build the means to defend it and start finally seeing the world as it is, not as it remembers it

If Europe truly values liberty, it must build the means to defend it and start finally seeing the world as it is, not as it remembers it