{"id":725145,"date":"2026-06-25T12:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/725145\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:51:09","slug":"the-trump-shaped-hole-in-the-european-security-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/725145\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump-Shaped Hole in the European Security Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.\u201d This famous final line of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein\u2019s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus\u00a0epitomizes the knot at the heart of the upcoming European security strategy<\/a>.\u00a0It will\u00a0essentially be about mitigating the risks tied to the United States\u2019 rupture with Europe.\u00a0But on this topic precisely, it will say\u00a0very little.<\/p>\n

The hostile policies<\/a> of U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s second term in office toward Europe are\u00a0the only geopolitical development that might justify drafting a new strategy.\u00a0But the EU institutions and member states will not openly acknowledge the deep crisis in transatlantic relations. Rather, like the wizards in Harry Potter books, who refer to the villain Voldemort as \u201che who must not be named,\u201d Europeans will avoid mentioning the current U.S. president altogether.<\/p>\n

The concern uppermost in their minds\u2014that Washington will no longer honor its commitments under the NATO treaty\u2014will barely be mentioned, despite it fast becoming a central security risk for the continent.\u00a0Many\u00a0EU actors fear that any public reference to U.S. disengagement from Europe could, by triggering Trump\u2019s anger, turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also,\u00a0European leaders\u00a0remain\u00a0deeply divided between those like Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez, who openly distance themselves<\/a> from the current U.S. administration, and others who believe\u00a0that accommodating the president<\/a> at almost any cost\u00a0remains\u00a0essential for national security.<\/p>\n

Excessive caution on the this side\u00a0of the Atlantic contrasts with\u00a0the\u00a0attitude on the other.\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0own National Security Strategy<\/a> of\u00a0November 2025 is full of vitriol toward Europe. It\u00a0accuses the EU of undermining political liberty,\u00a0warns of \u201ccivilizational erasure\u201d due to irresponsible migration policies, and commits to work with \u201cpatriotic\u201d parties to help Europe \u201ccorrect its current trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n

European leaders have their own thoughts about the United States\u2019 current trajectory, but no one would think of expressing them in an\u00a0official strategic document.\u00a0Despite the Greenland shock<\/a> and the\u00a0new\u00a0wave of\u00a0hostile U.S. rhetoric in the context of the\u00a0Iran war<\/a>, they\u00a0remain\u00a0collectively\u00a0unable\u00a0to call a spade a spade.\u00a0This\u00a0has\u00a0a political cost: It will be more difficult to persuade the European public to bear the burden of ramped up defense\u00a0spending if\u00a0its leaders\u00a0remain\u00a0in\u00a0official\u00a0denial about the true state of the transatlantic relationship.<\/p>\n

While the authors of the new security strategy will be dancing around the core problem of U.S. disengagement, they will have much more to say about the\u00a0need for remedial action. This includes\u00a0building defense and tech capacity<\/a>, reducing asymmetric dependencies<\/a>, and\u00a0shoring up European resilience\u00a0across the board, ranging from supply chains to infrastructure<\/a>.\u00a0Expect also a strong emphasis on supporting Ukraine and\u00a0moving the enlargement process<\/a> forward.\u00a0These are all\u00a0hugely important topics, but\u00a0they\u00a0have been part of the\u00a0European\u00a0debate for years\u00a0and have been dealt with in\u00a0numerous\u00a0strategic documents.<\/p>\n

But there are three\u00a0other\u00a0ways in which the new strategy could make a real contribution.<\/p>\n

First, a clear focus\u00a0on governance in dealing with security challenges\u00a0would be useful. Today, these\u00a0are often handled in a siloed and disjointed manner. Developing better methods\u00a0for\u00a0mobilizing\u00a0and coordinating\u00a0the various instruments at hand could help the EU respond more effectively to the multifaceted threats of the future, including those tied to the changing transatlantic compact.\u00a0The idea of linking the strategy to the union\u2019s next multiannual budget is also welcome.\u00a0After all, connecting the financial means to the ends must be at the core of any strategy.<\/p>\n

Second,\u00a0in today\u2019s fragmented geopolitical world, not everything can be done by the EU as such. There is a need for flexibility\u00a0and\u00a0differentiation, both internally and\u00a0in\u00a0engaging with international partners. But initiatives by\u00a0groups of\u00a0member states can create divisions and resentment, if they are not anchored in the\u00a0union as a whole. The strategy should\u00a0help\u00a0developing\u00a0the right formulae\u00a0for\u00a0ensuring greater flexibility without losing coherence.<\/p>\n

Third, it is now\u00a0broadly acknowledged\u00a0that the bloc\u2019s current foreign policy structures are not fit for purpose in this\u00a0radically changed\u00a0international situation. While full-fledged treaty reform\u00a0remains\u00a0out of reach, a great deal can be\u00a0accomplished\u00a0within the current legal framework.\u00a0This author\u2019s suggestions<\/a> for a European security council and for merging the European External Action Service\u00a0and the commission\u00a0are just examples of the steps that\u00a0could be\u00a0taken.\u00a0The\u00a0strategy, of course,\u00a0cannot provide a\u00a0comprehensive blueprint for a renewed foreign policy architecture. But\u00a0it can trigger\u00a0a reform process and provide orientation to it.<\/p>\n

With progress on these issues, the strategy will\u00a0prove\u00a0useful despite the gaping hole at its\u00a0core. The lack of a\u00a0common public acknowledgement of the true state of transatlantic relations\u00a0will continue to hamper the EU\u2019s progress toward real autonomy. However, Donald Trump and senior figures in his administration can be relied upon to further advance our understanding\u00a0of the depth of the\u00a0problem. Hopefully, they will also prompt\u00a0European leaders to draw the right conclusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.\u201d This famous final line of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-725145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}