Europe After the American Century

For most of the last eighty years, Europe has lived inside a system it didn’t have to fully carry.Security came from the United States. Growth came from globalisation. Stability was assumed. The arrangement wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough that Europe could prioritise prosperity over power.

That arrangement is now breaking down.

What’s happening is often framed as a reaction to Trump, as if a change in leadership might restore the old order. That misses the point. The shift began well before him. The U.S. pivot to Asia, the growing reluctance to act as global policeman, the increasing focus on domestic priorities—these have been building for over a decade. Trump didn’t start it, he simply accelerated it and, more importantly, normalised it.

He proved that stepping back from long-standing commitments was politically viable. That matters. Because once something becomes politically viable in the United States, it rarely disappears. Future presidents may soften the tone, but they are unlikely to reverse the direction.

Europe is going to have to adjust to a world where American support is conditional, not guaranteed.

That is a fundamental change.

For a long time, Europe operated on the assumption that economic interdependence would reduce conflict and that rules would govern behaviour. Both ideas now look optimistic. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed that hard power never went away. China’s use of trade, technology and supply chains as tools of leverage showed that interdependence can be exploited. Even the United States has become more willing to use its economic weight—through sanctions, export controls and industrial policy—in explicitly strategic ways.

The world has not become lawless, but it has become more transactional. Power has moved back to the centre.

Europe, by contrast, has spent years emphasising norms without always maintaining the means to enforce them. That gap is now exposed. It is one thing to set standards and issue statements. It is another to shape outcomes.

The uncomfortable truth is that Europe is economically significant but strategically underpowered. It has scale, but not always cohesion. Capability, but not always speed. Influence, but often indirect.

Closing that gap will require more than rhetoric. It means spending more on defence and doing so consistently. It means building industrial capacity that is resilient rather than simply efficient. It means making decisions faster and accepting that not every risk can be regulated away. Most of all, it means letting go of the idea that stability can be outsourced.

At the same time, the rest of the world has not been standing still.

Across Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia, a more fluid and competitive landscape has emerged. China has spent years embedding itself through infrastructure, financing and long-term commercial relationships. The United States continues to project influence through security partnerships, capital markets and control of key technologies. Regional players, from India to the Gulf states, are becoming more active and more confident in pursuing their own interests.

These markets are not aligning neatly with one side or another. They are navigating between them, taking what they need from each. That makes them less predictable, but also more important.

For Europe, this presents both a risk and an opportunity. The risk is that it becomes marginal—present, but not decisive. The opportunity is that it can position itself as a credible alternative, but only if it changes how it engages.

That means moving at a different pace. Being more commercially aligned. Accepting that influence often comes from execution rather than positioning. And recognising that partnership in these markets is not about exporting a model, but about showing up with something that works.

None of this requires Europe to abandon its values. But it does require a clearer understanding that values without capability carry limited weight.

The deeper issue, though, is psychological.

Europe has grown used to operating in a relatively benign environment. Security was largely taken for granted. Globalisation was assumed to be positive-sum. Alliances were stable. That environment allowed for a certain way of thinking—one that prioritised process, consensus and risk minimisation.

That environment no longer exists.

The United States is still an ally, but no longer an unquestioned anchor. China is not converging with the Western model, but offering an alternative to it. Russia is not a temporary disruption, but an ongoing challenge on Europe’s doorstep.

In that context, the question is not whether Europe wants to become a more assertive strategic actor. It is whether it can afford not to.

The pieces are there. Europe has economic weight, technological capability and, when it chooses to act collectively, significant influence. What has been missing is urgency.

That is beginning to change. Defence spending is rising. Industrial policy is shifting. There is more serious discussion about autonomy, resilience and capability than there has been in decades.

But the pace still matters.

Because the risk for Europe is not that it misreads the world. It is that it reads it correctly, but responds too slowly.

And in a world that is moving back toward power, timing matters almost as much as direction.