Tag Archive for: Europe

The transatlantic world will never be the same

Once upon a time, the United States saw the contest between democracy and authoritarianism as a singularly defining issue. It was this outlook, forged in the crucible of World War II, that created such strong transatlantic bonds. For many decades, the US-European alliance was not only about security, but ideology and shared values. That is why the relationship endured for 80 years.

But now, thanks to US President Donald Trump, the world of just two months ago has already come to feel like distant history. The very nature of the West is changing at lightning speed before our eyes. So sudden and disorienting is the disruption that many have been left grasping for an anchor. The new reality became apparent when the US joined Russia and a few other outcast authoritarian countries to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion. That was a watershed—a date that will live in infamy.

Obviously, the implications of the new US foreign policy are profound. No one can deny that the transatlantic security alliance is fraying. Political leaders might feel a duty to insist publicly that the old mutual defence commitments remain solid; but they are not fooling anyone—not even themselves. The credibility of the alliance depends on the person in the White House, and that person has no credibility when it comes to matters of transatlantic security.

Moreover, we are witnessing a marked departure from the first Trump administration, which at least kept the transatlantic ideological alliance largely intact. Vice President J D Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference indicated that this time is different. His message sent shockwaves through European security, defence, and foreign policy circles. Not only did he dismiss as irrelevant the security issues that have anchored NATO for three-quarters of a century; he completely redrew the ideological map in such a way as to pit Europe and the US against each other. Suddenly, the US looked not like an ally, but like an adversary.

The MAGA fundamentalists at the core of the Trump administration are engaged in a culture war that aims to transform US society. Their project is largely a reactionary counterrevolution against liberal tendencies that they believe have subverted their country. MAGA wants to return to a more martial, conservative and semi-isolationist version of American exceptionalism. As such, its defining struggle has nothing to do with the contest between democracy and authoritarianism. Those words hardly figure in its narratives.

Given the nature of its culture-war project, MAGA sees Europe as an adversary. Vance, who has aligned his rhetoric with European right-wing extremists, argues that Europe is ‘at risk [of] engaging in civilisational suicide.’ Similarly, Elon Musk, Trump’s top financial backer and aide, has openly campaigned for far-right parties in Germany and Britain. Looking ahead, we will almost certainly see more of this advocacy in countries like Poland and Romania (where a court annulled a first-round election result last year, citing Russian interference). Since MAGA ideologues see open, liberal European societies as extensions of their enemies at home, their support for illiberal, anti-democratic forces is perfectly logical.

They also have a fundamentally different view of Russia. It is no coincidence that their rhetoric often echoes that of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime (sometimes almost word for word). MAGA and Putin alike espouse aggressive nationalism and hostility toward liberal values; they both carry on endlessly about sovereignty and the role of strong leaders and strong nations in shaping the future. Whether you are in the Kremlin or the White House, the so-called globalists are the enemy.

Whereas the Biden administration obviously wished for regime change in Russia—even if this was never expressed as an official policy goal—the Trump administration wants regime change in Europe. Europe is no longer an ally, but an enemy; and though Russia might not (yet) be a full US ally, nor is it an adversary. Putin’s regime has a closer ideological affinity with the current US administration than the Europeans ever will.

If there is any hope for the transatlantic world, it lies in the fact that the US is not uniform. Contrary to what he claims, Trump has no mandate to do what he is doing. But with US society so polarised, its political trajectory is not easy to predict. Even if a partial return to the old order is still possible, the forces driving the reactionary counterrevolution will be around for years to come.

The world must take note and shape its policies accordingly. Europeans can hope for the best, but they must prepare for the worst. What once seemed impossible—a rogue US—has become all too likely.

Unity is the answer to Europe’s defence woes

US President Donald Trump’s hostile regime has finally forced Europe to wake up. With US officials calling into question the transatlantic alliance, Germany’s incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, recently persuaded lawmakers to revise the country’s debt brake so that defence spending can be boosted. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for an €800 billion fund to strengthen the EU’s hard power. And British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to increase defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, hoping to hit 3 percent by 2030.

All of this is long overdue. As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk put it in early March, it is absurd that ‘500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians’. Tusk meant that Europe has enormous defence potential, much greater than Russia and even greater than the United States, which has been guaranteeing Europe’s security since the end of World War II.

Tusk is right, of course: EU countries, plus Britain and Norway, are home to more than 500 million people. And if we add Turkey, Ukraine and Canada, the figure approaches 700 million. These countries have about three million active soldiers and another 1–1.5 million reservists. Mathematically, therefore, Europe has nothing to fear even if Trump were to withdraw the US from NATO, or condition the US’s response to aggression against an ally on, say, the ally’s elimination of tariffs on imports from the US.

That is hardly a far-fetched scenario. Poland must take seriously Elon Musk’s rude remarks to our foreign minister. Nor can we afford to dismiss the incoming US ambassador’s threat of ‘retaliation’ if our government introduces a tax on Google and Apple. It is not lost on us that other countries with such a tax—but which do not share a border with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine—have faced no similar threat by the US.

Today, no one can guarantee that Trump will honour Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, according to which an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. Will the leader of an EU or NATO country attacked by Russia be publicly berated and bullied by Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office, as happened to Volodymyr Zelensky?

Fortunately, European politicians are recognising what needs to be done. French President Emmanuel Macron’s idea of extending France’s nuclear umbrella to cover all European NATO countries is a good starting point, as are discussions about constructing a European arms industry, which is virtually non-existent in many EU countries today. For example, the weapons and ammunition Portugal produces every year could pay for the purchase of only six or seven Abrams tanks.

The problem lies in the lack of genuine market unification in Europe. Imagine that I run a one-man company in Poland. To operate in another EU country, I would have to go through so many formal procedures—registration, opening a bank account, learning about national regulations (the labour code, workplace safety rules, environmental protection, personal data protection and more)—that it doesn’t make economic sense to try. In practice, a small company from one EU country cannot operate in another country.

The EU itself recognises this, which is why it has created a special corporate status, officially called the European Company. Such a company can operate according to a single set of regulations throughout the EU, but it must be large, with subscribed capital of at least €120,000. The giants can operate from Madeira to Bratislava, but for most companies the single market is still an unattainable goal.

The F-35 fighter jet and the Abrams tank are produced by many companies and subcontractors in different states across the US. In Europe, by contrast, politicians in individual countries protect entire industries, because their re-election hinges on the national economy, not the EU-wide economy. This is why Poland buys tanks from South Korea, even though Germany, Britain, France and Poland itself also produce tanks.

The subordination of Europe’s interests to the national interests of its member states is clearly visible today in the nuclear industry. Poland’s government wants a US-designed nuclear power plant in Poland, Hungary wants a Russian nuclear plant and Germans want no nuclear power at all. On paper, however, the EU is a leader in this field—the world’s second-largest producer of nuclear-generated electricity after the US, with China far behind.

Europe can be a global power. But as long as the governments of EU countries are accountable only to their own countries’ voters, that will not happen. Instead, Europe will continue to discuss the need for joint munitions production or research projects, but artificial intelligence will continue to be developed separately in centres in France, Britain, Poland or Germany.

We can then be happy that European countries have several million soldiers and a combined research budget exceeding that of China. But it will still be a paper tiger.

Europe can still prevent a Russian victory

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he knew that he was upending Europe’s security order. But this was more of a tactical gambit than a calculated strategy and he could not have predicted what would follow. Though Donald Trump’s return to the White House has caught Europe flat-footed, it can still keep Putin from walking away a winner.

For now, Putin seems to hold all the cards. The transatlantic relationship is fracturing, as Trump’s isolationist administration criticises its European allies and casts doubt on his commitment to NATO. Worse, Trump appears to be aligning the United States with Russia in the Ukraine war. While he has threatened to impose new sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire and peace deal are reached, he has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the fighting and suspended military aid and intelligence support for Ukraine (now apparently set to resume).

But Europe still has a chance to turn things around. Already, it is abandoning its post-Cold War ‘end of history’ mindset, according to which international law reigned supreme, European militaries were for keeping peace, not fighting wars, and the US could be counted on to safeguard Europe’s security.

Finland and Sweden were perhaps the first to realise that history is back, and their accession to NATO—in 2023 and 2024, respectively—provided a major boost to the Alliance’s northern flank. Now the European Union also appears to be coming to terms with its new security situation, having just announced an $840 billion rearmament plan. Even Germany, for which the return of history is particularly fraught, is preparing to rearm: incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his likely coalition partners have agreed to create a €500 billion infrastructure fund and loosen fiscal rules to allow for greater investment in defence.

The significance of this move should not be underestimated. Since the end of World War II, Germany has eschewed hard power in favour of the soft kind, serving as an engine of European integration and a bulwark of the rules-based world order. Beginning in the 1960s, this included the pursuit of constructive engagement—a foreign-policy approach known as Ostpolitik—with the Soviet Union and then Russia. This explains former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s embrace of Russian energy supplies, despite the objections of other EU members and the US.

Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine drove a stake through the heart of Ostpolitik. Within days, Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, announced an ‘epochal change’ (Zeitenwende) in Germany’s defence and foreign policy. But it is Merz who is set to oversee a true break from Germany’s postwar past—a change that will require the country to confront the most daunting, destructive ghosts of its history.

For starters, there is the fiscal revolution. Germany’s frugality has been a source of considerable tension in the EU, particularly during the eurozone debt crisis of the early 2010s. But Germans—not least Merkel—recalled all too well how hyperinflation had paved the way for the rise of Adolf Hitler, and in 2009 Merkel’s first government introduced a constitutional restriction on structural budget deficits to 0.35 percent of GDP annually, also known as the debt brake. Against this backdrop, Merz’s planned overhaul of borrowing rules—including the modification and possible elimination of the debt brake—represents a radical change in Germany’s priorities.

More broadly, Merz appears prepared to embrace European leadership. Despite being the EU’s largest economy, Germany has long been reluctant to assume a genuine leadership role in Europe, particularly in the security domain. The combination of Russian revanchism and US isolationism, however, has made this stance untenable. As Europe’s most populous country, situated in the continent’s ‘geostrategic centre’, Merz says, Germany must ‘take greater responsibility for leadership’ on defence.

Any effort to keep Europe secure starts with Ukraine. As it stands, Trump wants to have his cake and eat it: ‘negotiate’ a peace deal—which will almost certainly involve capitulation to Russia and an economic shakedown of Ukraine—then walk away and let Europe enforce it. But what good is a peace broker who offers no guarantees?

To avoid a repeat of the Munich Agreement of 1938—when France and Britain forced Czechoslovakia to cede territory to Hitler, setting the stage for WWII—Europe must step up quickly to improve Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and, thus, at the negotiating table. Fortunately, substituting lost US financial aid will not be as difficult as Trump would have us believe: to date, Europe has provided far more support for Ukraine’s war effort in dollar terms than the US has. Fulfilling the weapons gap would, however, be far more challenging and probably impossible in the all-important short term.

Once a peace agreement is reached, Europe will have to act as its guarantor—and that means delivering effective deterrence against Russian aggression. A credible nuclear umbrella is essential. That is why Merz has suggested replacing US nuclear warheads in Europe with French and British alternatives. There is even talk of Germany becoming a nuclear power itself.

When NATO intervened in the Kosovo War in 1999, Germany’s then-chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, ruled that sending ground troops to fight in a country that had once been occupied by Hitler’s Wehrmacht was ‘unthinkable’. Today, as Merz seems to recognise, the unthinkable has become necessary. Only if Germany—and Europe as a whole—puts aside its moral and political inhibitions can it continue to perform its most important role: as a global force for peace and a defender of democratic principles.

Reaction isn’t enough. Australia should aim at preventing cybercrime

Australia’s cyber capabilities have evolved rapidly, but they are still largely reactive, not preventative. Rather than responding to cyber incidents, Australian law enforcement agencies should focus on dismantling underlying criminal networks.

On 11 December, Europol announced the takedown of 27 distributed platforms that offered denial of service (DDoS) for hire and the arrest of multiple administrators. Such a criminal operation allows individuals or groups to rent DDoS attack capabilities, which enable users to overwhelm targeted websites, networks or online services with excessive traffic, often without needing technical expertise.

The takedown was a result of Operation PowerOFF, a coordinated and ongoing global effort targeting the cybercrime black market. While the operation has demonstrated the evolving sophistication of international law enforcement operations in tackling cyber threats, it has also exposed persistent gaps in Australia’s cyber enforcement and resilience. To stay ahead of the next wave of cyber threats, Australia must adopt a more preventative approach combining enforcement with deterrence, international cooperation, and education.

Operation PowerOFF represents a shift in global cybercrime enforcement, moving beyond traditional reactive measures toward targeted disruption of cybercriminal infrastructure. Unlike previous efforts, the operation not only dismantled illicit services; it also aimed to discourage future offenders, deploying Google and YouTube ad campaigns to deter potential cybercriminals searching for DDoS-for-hire tools. This layered strategy—seizing platforms, prosecuting offenders and disrupting recruitment pipelines—serves as a best-practice blueprint for Australia’s approach to cybercrime.

The lesson from Operation PowerOFF is clear: Australia must shift its cyber strategy from defence to disruption, ensuring that cybercriminals cannot operate with impunity.

One of the most effective elements of Operation PowerOFF is its focus on dismantling the infrastructure of cybercrime, rather than just arresting individuals. By taking down major DDoS-for-hire services and identifying more than 300 customers, Europol and its partners effectively collapsed an entire segment of the cybercrime market.

This strategy is particularly relevant for Australia. Cybercriminal operations frequently exploit weak legal frameworks and enforcement gaps in the Indo-Pacific region. Many DDoS-for-hire services, ransomware networks and illicit marketplaces are hosted in jurisdictions with limited enforcement capacity, allowing criminals to operate across borders with little fear of prosecution.

Australia must expand its collaboration with Southeast Asian law enforcement agencies on cybercrime, ensuring that cybercriminal havens are actively targeted rather than passively monitored. Without regional cooperation, Australia risks becoming an isolated target rather than a leader in cybercrime enforcement.

Beyond enforcement, Australia must integrate preventative strategies into its cybercrime response. The low barriers to entry for cybercrime mean that many offenders—particularly young Australians—are lured in through gaming communities, hacking forums and social media.

Targeted digital deterrence, including algorithm-driven advertising campaigns, could disrupt this pipeline, steering potential offenders toward legal cybersecurity careers instead of cybercrime. An education-first approach combined with stronger penalties for repeat offenders, will help prevent low-level offenders from escalating into hardened cybercriminals, while helping to ensure that those cybercriminals face consequences.

Australia’s cybercrime laws must also evolve to address the entire cybercriminal supply chain, not just the most visible offenders. Operation PowerOFF showed that cybercrime is not just about the hackers who launch attacks, but also the administrators, facilitators, and financial backers who enable them.

Australian law enforcement should target financial transactions supporting cybercrime, using crypto-tracing and forensic financial analysis to dismantle cybercriminal funding networks. Harsher penalties for those who fund or facilitate DDoS-for-hire services could create a more hostile legal environment for cybercriminal enterprises, ensuring that they cannot simply relocate to more permissive jurisdictions. At the same time, youth diversion programs should be expanded, offering first-time cyber offenders rehabilitation options rather than immediate prosecution, preventing them from becoming repeat offenders.

Operation PowerOFF’s success is a win for international cybercrime enforcement, demonstrating that proactive, intelligence-driven disruption can dismantle even the most entrenched criminal networks.

But it is also a warning: without continuous vigilance, cybercriminals will regroup, rebrand, and relaunch. Australia must act now to strengthen its cyber enforcement, combining international cooperation, legal reform and preventative education to ensure that cybercriminals see Australia as a hostile environment for their activities, not a soft target.

The US is gone—Europe must replace it

Donald Trump and JD Vance’s verbal assault on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office will mark 28 February 2025 as an infamous moment in US and world history. The United States is rapidly destroying its good name and alienating everyone except the world’s most brutal dictators. The damage to the US’s credibility and reputation will take decades to repair—and may be irreparable.

More broadly, with the end of the postwar US-centred international order, we are witnessing the collapse of any global authority. As rogue states seek to capitalise on the chaos, Europe must step up and assume the role once played by the US. That starts by fully supporting Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

Yes, Europe is not as powerful as the US militarily; but that does not mean it is weak. In fact, it holds all the cards that it needs. Its combined military forces are among the world’s strongest, most experienced and most innovative. The Oval Office quarrel—which Trump and Vance seemed all too eager to provoke—should be the final impetus for Europe to get its act together, after decades of complacency. It has everything it needs to stand on its own, to support Ukraine and to deter Russia.

Moreover, Trump’s shameful behaviour is pushing the US’s dearest ally, Britain, closer to Europe, helping to bridge the post-Brexit divide. It is galvanising the forces of democracy and compelling political elites to wake up. Europe may soon have a moderate two-party ruling coalition in Germany and a committed democratic one in Austria. After a terrible year, French President Emmanuel Macron’s star is rising again.

Europe has a half-billion people and a GDP comparable to the US. We may not be as innovative, but the gap is not as large as pundits would have you believe. If we forge a coalition with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, we can close it soon—especially now that Trump, Vance and Elon Musk are destroying the pillars of US power with their own cultural revolution.

In addition to raising costs for US consumers with tariffs, the Trump administration is waging a war on immigrants—long a unique source of US strength. Europe should capitalise by welcoming the best and brightest—including those being hounded out of the US’s world-class federal agencies.

As for defence capabilities, Germany’s industrial base is sufficient to arm the continent, while France and Britain’s nuclear umbrella can replace the US’s. The five largest European countries and Britain all currently have responsible, predictable governments that make a mockery of those now in power in Washington.

Poland has an especially important role to play in what happens next. Economic trends are on our side. Our army is growing. We made the right arms purchases while there was still time. Not even Trump can find a bad word to say about us. All of Europe can see this. The French (slightly jealous) speak of le moment polonais. Poland’s current leaders are among the most experienced, respected and resolute statesmen to be found anywhere.

At the recent Munich Security Conference, I spoke with many US politicians—including those, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, who are bending the knee to Trump—and I did not see much self-confidence. Rather than saying what they really think, they debased themselves and toed the Dear Leader’s line. It was embarrassing to watch.

When the Trump administration’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, was asked backstage whether ‘we still have an alliance’, he admitted that he himself doesn’t know. Power in Washington is now completely concentrated in Trump. There are no longer any ‘adults in the room’, only sycophantic parrots competing to amplify their foolish master the loudest.

The historian Timothy Snyder struck the right note in arguing that 2025 is not about what America thinks; it is about what Europe can do. The Trump policy (a generous term) can only be profitable in the short term; for now, no one will dare to go head-to-head with the US. In the long run, however, the dismantling of the US state, the pointless tariffs and the alienation of friends and allies will cause lasting damage.

This is the moment to stand behind Ukraine. The treatment that Zelensky received was an absolute disgrace, loudly cheered by Russia. And no, he would not have gotten a better result if he had let himself be pushed around. This US government has shown where its loyalties lie. The same thing happened with the critical minerals agreement that Trump’s advisers have been forcing on Ukraine. The first version amounted to mafia-style extortion and Zelensky rightly rejected it. When a follow-up deal came, it was much better.

I will not be surprised if Trump and Vance’s disgusting behaviour provokes a backlash from the US public. But Europeans cannot afford to wait. With Trump back in the White House, Americans will have their own very big problems to worry about. Europeans must take our future into our own hands.

Independence under Merz is entirely possible

Could 23 February 2025 become known as Europe’s Independence Day? It might as well be if the winner of Germany’s election, Friedrich Merz, has his way.

It was striking that Merz, the quintessential German Atlanticist and fiscal hawk who many considered hopelessly stuck in the 1980s, should celebrate his victory by knocking away one of the fundamental pillars of German conservative politics since Konrad Adenauer, the country’s first postwar chancellor. ‘My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA’, he said in his first post-election interview.

Some other leaders are still trying to have their cake and eat it: talking about defending Europe while working with the United States. Not Merz, who has launched what amounts to a full-frontal attack on Germany’s closest ally, even going so far as to accuse the US of election interference, on par with Russia.

Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, US-Europe relations have been mired in a fundamental paradox. On one hand, Europeans are trying to demonstrate to Trump that they are willing to do more in exchange for US security guarantees. On the other hand, the US whose protection they seek is trying to force a NATO ally to give up its own territory and pressing Ukraine to consent to its own economic rape and plunder. Demanding that a desperate, war-ravaged country sign over half of its revenues from critical minerals and rare-earth metals in perpetuity is a shakedown that would make even a mob boss blush.

Perhaps this is why Merz has gone where angels fear to tread, insisting that Europe will need to find a way to move from total dependence on the US to some sort of independence.

At my think tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations, we have launched a European Security Initiative to explore what this might look like. Before Trump’s election victory, we talked about how we can defend Europe with less America. But Europeans are increasingly wondering how to defend themselves from America.

Merz seems to be clear-eyed about the fact that becoming the leader Europe needs doesn’t just mean recasting Germany’s relationships with France and Poland, but also working out a completely different relationship with Britain. Once British Prime Minister Keir Starmer returns from what will surely be an intensely frustrating first trip to Washington, he might see things this way as well.

But, to have any chance of success, Merz will also have to overcome the self-harm of German economic ultra-orthodoxy. Scrapping the constitutional debt brake, introduced by his predecessor and party colleague, Angela Merkel, is necessary not just to enable Europe to rearm but also to finance urgently needed investment in infrastructure, renewables and digitalisation.

Merz has been adamant that mainstream parties in Europe need to rethink their approach to immigration. But he has been much less clear about how to do that in a way that reflects Europe’s demographic challenges. Ultimately, what is needed is a set of policies that re-establishes control over borders and population flows, limits the negative impact of those flows on the most vulnerable members of society and simultaneously considers the workforce necessary for economic growth, innovation and public services.

Looking at green policy and the environment, the question for Germany and Europe will be how to avoid a zero-sum trade-off between reducing emissions and reducing prices. The only answer is to create an environmental policy which is also an industrial policy.

But how? A fundamental question behind all these issues, from immigration and the green transition to trade and defence, is how to make interdependence less risky. How do you give people who have been left behind the sense that the government will keep them safe in a dangerous world, without walling ourselves off?

The independence Merz is promising will force Europe to rethink many of its relationships, including with China, Israel, India and, of course, the US. And we will need a political class that is able to see things clearly and make radical changes. Merz will not be alone in leading Germany to a new consensus. He will almost certainly need to lead a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), which may actually help him to bring his party to a different place—especially on the debt brake. Germany’s coalitions have often been a source of government weakness, but in this case a grand coalition of the main centre-right and centre-left parties could be a source of strength.

Merz is an unlikely candidate for this shift. His main critique of Merkel when they were both vying for the Christian Democratic Union’s leadership was that she had strayed dangerously far from the party’s orthodoxy. But just as it took an SPD chancellor, the outgoing Olaf Scholz, to start increasing defence investment and cut the country’s ties with Russia, Merz, the uber-Atlanticist and fiscal conservative, might be the only German politician who can credibly bury the debt brake and pave the way for a truly independent Europe.

A Westless world

Each February, members of the transatlantic strategic community head to Munich to discuss the state of international security, making the Munich Security Conference a not-to-be-missed event on the foreign-policy calendar.

This was true even during US President Donald Trump’s first administration, when it seemed as though very little was still binding the West together. After watching the debates at the 2019 conference, when key figures talked past each other and failed to find common ground, I coined the term ‘westlessness’ to describe the new state of play. Not only was the rest of the world becoming less Western, but so too were many Western societies.

Eager to reverse the tide, those attending the Munich conferences in recent years took great pains to signal Western unity and determination, as if to suggest that westlessness had been just a passing phenomenon. Joe Biden’s election to the US presidency led Europeans to believe that the United States was back, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year later gave the West a new sense of shared purpose. But by the time that the 2024 gathering arrived, Western self-doubt had returned; and at this year’s conference, westlessness returned with a vengeance.

Following the news of Trump’s call with Putin and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments acceding to Russian demands before negotiations had even begun, the audience in Munich anxiously looked to Vice President JD Vance for clarity on the new administration’s transatlantic security strategy. But the speech that Vance gave did not seem to be about security at all. Instead, he used his time to scold Europeans for their alleged departure from shared values, condemning Europeans’ interpretation of freedom of speech even as his own administration uses lawsuits and other threats to crack down on the US’s free press.

With Germany’s federal elections just a week away, Vance then condemned European governments’ unwillingness to rein in ‘out-of-control migration’ and lambasted German liberal-democratic parties for refusing to work with the far right. ‘I’ve heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from’, he noted. ‘But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me and certainly, I think, to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you’re defending yourselves for.’

To those in attendance, these remarks looked like a direct attack on the values at the heart of the North Atlantic alliance. Vance offered up the illiberal-nationalist alternative to the liberal-internationalist order that has underpinned intra-Western relations—and debates at the Munich Security Conference—for many decades.

The Europeans in Munich duly pushed back. Shocked to find themselves being lectured to by a government that is waging war on the rule of law and freedom of the press at home, they rejected Vance’s attempt to interfere in their domestic political affairs. ‘We do not only know against whom we are defending our country, but also for what’, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius replied. ‘For democracy, for freedom of expression, for the rule of law, and for the dignity of every individual.’

These are the principles that once bound the West together. While members of the broad transatlantic community often disagreed (sometimes vehemently) about specific policies, their shared commitment to these values always allowed them to mend fences and overcome whatever crisis was at hand.

But now the ballroom in the conference hotel, not much larger than a basketball court, must accommodate two fundamentally incompatible worldviews. The Trumpists and their European critics each maintain that the other side has deviated from the norm. As Vance sees it, the biggest threat ‘is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within.’

Despite Vance’s insistence that ‘we are on the same team’, the majority view at the conference was that the US has become a free agent. Just a month after Trump’s inauguration, it has already abandoned its role as a benign hegemon and the leading power within a global community of liberal democracies. To Europeans’ shock and dismay, the US is behaving like a nineteenth-century great power, seeking territorial expansion and pursuing deals with other powers to carve out spheres of influence.

Four years after Biden announced that ‘America is back’, Europeans see the US abandoning transatlanticism and everything it stood for. Trump’s America is not only making deals with the liberal West’s enemies. It is also openly supporting illiberal, anti-democratic forces within the West.

If there is any silver lining, it is that the US’s volte-face has shaken European leaders out of their complacency. They agree that they must come together to increase defence spending and reduce their dependence on the US. If they follow through, we could well end up with a rejuvenation of the transatlantic partnership between two equal powers.

But this outcome is unlikely. The Trump administration’s support for illiberal, anti-European and pro-Russian forces within Europe will make it far more difficult for Europeans to focus on their own security together, even though that is ostensibly what the Trump administration wants.

In this respect, Europeans can agree with Vance: the greatest threat to the West is indeed coming from within.

Europe is only as weak as it thinks it is

Europe has just held a rapid-fire series of high-profile summits. Following the Paris AI Action Summit and the Munich Security Conference, European leaders gathered for two emergency meetings in Paris to address the disturbing signals coming from the new administration in the United States. In each case, a central question was how Europe can catch up with the US and China technologically and militarily.

By now, it is obvious to everyone that US President Donald Trump’s administration intends to treat Europe with contempt, and that Europeans must take responsibility for their defence and security fully into their own hands. The US is not only sidelining European governments to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine; it has also thrown its support behind European far-right parties and accused European liberals and democrats of betraying Western values.

Is there a method to this madness? Could the overture to Russia be an attempt to repeat president Richard Nixon’s strategy of breaking the alliance between communist China and the Soviet Union? We know that Trump is obsessed with China, and that Russians themselves have good reason to fear Chinese dominance. If sacrificing some part of Ukraine would allow Trump to strike a blow against his bete noire, he would surely seize the opportunity.

But this Nixonian manoeuvre is unlikely to succeed unless Trump secures Europe’s participation, and that seems unlikely. Paralysed by fear since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Europe has forgotten that it can say no. But the Trump administration has shaken European leaders from their slumber. They are now taking an inventory of their strengths and exploring their options. Ukraine is not up against a wall yet. With increased support from Europe, its battle-hardened, highly innovative military can continue to resist Russia’s aggression.

Moreover, the Trump administration has not done much of anything yet except talk. Its real focus is on the home front, where it is busy gutting its own state capacity by mass firings. Trump’s war on the civil service—presumably the prelude to installing a skeleton crew of political loyalists—will inevitably cost the US money and reduce his ability to carry out his policy agenda.

The European Union, for its part, should not respond with the usual search for unity. Given the parties in power in Hungary, Slovakia and elsewhere, that is neither possible nor necessary. The better strategy is to build a coalition of willing EU member states and other countries that Trump is pointlessly alienating, such as Canada, Britain and South Korea.

This seems to be what French President Emmanuel Macron has in mind, judging by his recent statements. Many of his past warnings are now coming true. He remains one of the only leaders, alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine or the surrounding area. And lest we forget, France and Britain both have nuclear weapons.

Lost in the coverage following the rupture with the US is the fact that Western Europe is more fearful than Eastern Europe. We are arguably more familiar with crises, but we also are not the ones in Trump’s crosshairs. We do not have a huge trade surplus with the US, and we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on US-made weapons. Unlike the Netherlands (ironically the home of NATO’s new secretary-general), which spent around 1.7 percent of its GDP on defence in 2023, Poland spends almost 5 percent.

Judging by the flurry of recent speeches and statements from Republican officials, one might think that there are actually two Republican parties. On one hand, there is the old party that always sought to raise defence spending, strengthen US military alliances, and confront autocrats such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the other hand, there is the party of Trump’s MAGA movement, which seems to believe that national greatness requires dismantling the US state and abandoning longstanding alliances, all justified with primitive blood-and-soil rhetoric and conspiracy theories.

While it feels as if the entire world has changed overnight, the truth is that nothing really has happened yet. If Europeans would only open their eyes, they would see that they have all the resources, talent, and instruments they need to secure their sovereignty and restore peace and stability. They do not need an invitation to the table. They should take inspiration from Ukraine, which has single-handedly halted Russia’s march of aggression through sheer willpower.

This is no time for Europeans to panic. On the contrary, Trump has given us what we need the most: a reason to get our act together.

Trump’s turbulence shifts Australia’s focus to Europe

The SS United States is the largest American ocean liner to be entirely built at home.  To this day, it holds the speed record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean, which it set on its 1952 maiden voyage thanks to its military-grade propulsion.

Informed by a wartime need to move soldiers and materiel to Europe, the luxury liner had been designed to be readily convertible to a troopship that could swiftly deliver a 14,000-strong US Army division anywhere in the world. 

Despite decades of rust and decay, the beauty and power of the now 75-year-old vessel was evident when I had a private tour of United States in Philadelphia some years ago. Once emblematic of US primacy and trans-Atlantic ties, the ship is soon to be an artificial reef off Florida. Its fate and destination—in the re-named ‘Gulf of America’—is a depressingly apt metaphor for what America is becoming. 

The domestic whirlwind sweeping the US is echoed in its foreign policy, with serious implications for Australia’s strategic interests.  President Trump not only has renamed a map feature, he also is opening a gulf between the US and its long-time partners and allies—and Moscow and Beijing are strategic beneficiaries. 

While Australia rightly will remain committed to the Alliance which has underpinned our national security for decades, we must recognise that other countries that share our principled strategic goals will become more important to our national and regional security. 

Regional partnerships remain critical, but European nations—with their own experience of an autocratic neighbour—can help buffer our region against Trumpian caprice and resist growing pressure from a would-be hegemon, China. 

In his first term, Trump’s goading and confrontational bluster was fuelled by his unquenchable thirst for publicity. This time, it is more visceral, informed by conviction (in more than one sense of the word), and underpinned by determined malice and vindictiveness. 

This has been especially evident in his disdain for Ukrainian sovereignty, his dismissive attitude and threats towards NATO and Europe, and his solicitous courting of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. 

Barely a month in office, Trump has shifted the strategic balance more decisively in Russia’s favour than the Kremlin had been able to since Putin started his full-fledged, illegal and unjustifiable war of choice against Ukraine in February 2022. Trump deludes himself about the real aggressor, denigrating Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while trying to monetise Ukraine’s existential war and extort an arms-for-minerals deal in a shakedown that would make Don Corleone blush. 

It is shameful that one democracy should be willing thus to abandon another to the predations of an autocracy. 

We are yet to see any strategic quid pro quo for Trump’s unilateral turn towards the Kremlin. His innately mercurial approach and pathological need to ‘win’ yet may disappoint Moscow, but Europe will scramble in the short term to compensate for any abrupt diminution in US commitment to trans-Atlantic security. Decisive leadership and vision will be vital, but the recent German election results underscore that this is not a given. 

In Who Will Defend Europe? Keir Giles, one of Britain’s leading Russia analysts, examines the self-imposed constraints that prevented the EU and NATO from adjusting fast enough to the end of the post-post-Cold War era and the return of strategic competition. At the core was Europe’s lack of military-industrial readiness and political resolve to confront a revanchist Russia. Those shortcomings must now be reddressed with long-overdue urgency. 

Giles usefully illuminates the wider malaise afflicting other nations grappling with the new world disorder and revisionist risk-takers who see strategic gain in near-term opportunism and confrontation. His arguments underscore an important consideration for Australia in coping with the turbulence and disruption emanating from Washington. 

Australia will need to maintain its natural focus on our Indo-Pacific region, but we will benefit at the same time from deeper collaboration with European counterparts in building national resilience here and elsewhere. By pooling our respective experience of autocratic efforts to subvert domestic cohesion and undermine trust in our democratic institutions, we will be better able jointly to contend with what’s become known as the Axis of Upheaval.

We can learn from the forthright approach of NATO’s newest members, Sweden and Finland.  Both use the concept of ‘total defence’, in which aspects of national strength, including social resilience and economic power, contribute to the defence of the nation, and from the honesty with which their governments articulate the challenges their societies face. 

Though varied in size and heft, Norway and the Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) have deeply relevant and valuable experience as frontline states that share not just a continent but a common border with an imperially-minded power whose strategic goals are misaligned with those of democracies that trust in, and rely on, the international rule of law for their security and prosperity rather than the application of military force. 

Poland is also a valuable exemplar.  Like Estonia and Sweden, it has been pushing back against disinformation for years.  It recently put one of its most seasoned diplomats in charge of countering subversion and is also hosting a multinational Communications Group to better co-ordinate efforts at debunking misleading Russian narratives. 

As the SS United States began its final voyage, Susan Gibbs, the grand-daughter of the ship’s designer observed: ‘The ship will forever symbolize our nation’s strength, innovation, and resilience.’  While we must hope that these qualities will endure in the Alliance, we would be prudent to cultivate them more assiduously in our relations with Europe. 

Poland’s path to remarkable prosperity

Browsing social media, I recently came across a map showing all the countries with GDP per capita higher than Poland’s back in 1990 and in 2018. The difference was striking. While 35 years ago there were quite a few such countries, not only in Europe but also in South America, Asia and Africa, in time their number has significantly decreased. In 2018 there were no longer any South American or African states highlighted on the map.

As of 2025, the group has shrunk even further. According to data from the International Monetary Fund, Poland’s GDP in 1990 was a mere US$6690 in current dollars. By 2024 it grew almost eight-fold to US$51,630 in terms of purchasing power parity. All that in just three decades, or one generation. And it goes on. According to the European Commission’s forecast, in 2024–25, the Polish economy will be the fastest growing large economy in the European Union.

How did it happen? Apart from the hard work of our citizens, two major factors—or, to be more precise, two institutions—contributed to our economic success: NATO and the EU.

The first, which Poland joined in 1999, provided security guarantees and helped overcome decades-old division between Eastern and Western Europe. The second, which we joined five years later, took the process of easing long-standing disparities one step further. It granted new member states access to ‘cohesion funds’ and most importantly to the common European market.

After the fall of communism in Poland in 1989 and the return of messy democratic politics, despite day-to-day political squabbles one thing remained constant no matter who was in power—Poland’s determination to join the two aforementioned organisations. Why?

We are a great nation but a medium-size country. We cherish our long history—this year marks a millennium since the coronation of our first king—but our population is much smaller than that of Beijing and Shanghai combined. Poland needs allies to boost its potential on the international stage.

What’s been true for Poland—in 1990 a poor country coming out of four decades of Russian domination and economic mismanagement—might well be true for many of the middle powers in Asia, Africa and South America looking for room to grow.

These countries often need what Poland desperately needed 35 years ago and still profits from: good governance, foreign investments with no strings attached, and above all political stability, rule of law and a predictable international environment with neighbours eager not to wage wars but work together for mutual benefit. In fact, these factors can benefit every country, no matter their GDP.

Today the international order is being challenged on multiple fronts, sometimes for good reason. Decades-old institutions—including the UN and its Security Council—are unrepresentative of the global community and incapable of dealing with the challenges we face. What they need, however, is to be thoroughly reformed, not entirely rejected.

To those desperate for change, force might look appealing. It would be a mistake. Abandoning forums for international dialogue and resorting to violence will not get us far.

Take Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. According to Kremlin propaganda, it is a justified reaction to western imperialism that allegedly threatens Russia’s security. In fact, it is a modern-day colonial war against the Ukrainian people who—just like us Poles 30 years ago—want a better life and realise they can never achieve this goal by going back to subjugation to Russia. That is what they are being punished for—an effort to free themselves from the control of a former metropolis. The Kremlin’s aggression is a desperate struggle of a failing empire to restore its sphere of influence.

A Russian victory—may it never come—would not create a more just global order. It wouldn’t benefit countries dissatisfied with where things stand now. It wouldn’t even bring about a more just and prosperous Russia. Suffice to say there are now more political prisoners in Russia than there were in the 1980s when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. There are many more casualties as well.

War is hardly ever a shortcut to prosperity. Over the past millennium, Poland experienced its share of invasions and uprisings against occupying forces. What finally brought us prosperity were three decades of peace, predictability, international cooperation and political stability.

That is why on assuming the presidency of the Council of the European Union, Poland made its priority clear: security in its many dimensions, including military, economic and digital. A Europe that is safe, prosperous and open for business can benefit not only Europeans but a greater global community. Just as it benefitted Poland over the past three decades.

It may sound dull, but it worked. Just look at the numbers.

Tag Archive for: Europe

Europe steps up, with Constanze Stelzenmüller

Constanze Stelzenmüller, expert on German, European, and trans-Atlantic foreign and security policy and strategy at the Brookings Institution, gives Stop the World her short take on the remarkable sense of urgency that Europe is displaying in building its own security capabilities: “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

Her longer answer is a superb dissection of the radical reorientation coming out of the Trump administration—what she calls a “Yalta 2.0”; the likelihood that much of the world might have other ideas, leading a frustration of Trump’s instincts; Europe’s shortening patience for the skulduggery of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán; its need to keep the US engaged in Europe’s security; and ultimately the proper sense that Europe has accepted the need to step up to defend Ukraine and itself over the longer term.

Her conclusion: “I think we might all have to sort of buckle our seat belts.”

The Economist’s Shashank Joshi on Trump, Ukraine and Europe’s rearmament

Donald Trump has upended US foreign policy—in particular his nation’s role in supporting Ukraine’s self-defence against Russia’s unprovoked invasion, and its traditionally close relationship with its NATO allies in Europe. As a consequence, Europe is scrambling to lift its defence investment and capability with a sense of urgency not seen in the post-War years.

The Economist’s Defence Editor Shashank Joshi gives us his expert take on the latest developments, what they mean and where the world is headed from here. Shashank helps us to understand what Trump is trying to do, how Europe sees the threat from Russia in a possible future in which Putin’s aggression is rewarded rather than penalised, and the increasingly positive signs of strong European leadership to take up the role defending a liberal international order. Finally he gives his view on what it all means for Australia and the Indo-Pacific.

Stop the World: Why Ukraine matters to the Indo-Pacific

Today on Stop the World, the conversation on Ukraine continues, with ASPI’s Alex Bristow speaking to Jakub Zajączkowski and Saroj Kumar Aryal from the University of Warsaw. They discuss the EU and US approaches to peace in Ukraine, the security guarantees Ukraine needs, and the links between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic, including through NATO and the Indo-Pacific Four.

They discuss Poland’s increased interest in the Indo-Pacific, the value of minilaterals such as the Quad, and India’s relationships with Russia, Europe and Quad countries.

Guests:
Alex Bristow
Jakub Zajączkowski
Saroj Kumar Aryal

Stop the World: A new world order? Ukraine’s Ambassador on Russia, the United States and Europe

In this special episode of Stop the World, ASPI’s David Wroe speaks with Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, on the morning after US and Russian representatives met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Ambassador responds to the blizzard of recent developments affecting the prospect of a peace agreement to end Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against its democratic neighbour as we approach the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion. He talks about signs of a turning point in the world order, Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO, recent remarks from the Trump administration, a security guarantee for the Ukrainian people, and the grim future the world faces if aggression is allowed to go unchecked.

Guests:

David Wroe

Vasyl Myroshnychenko