MThe immense mobilization of the Oscow military is clearly not aimed at Ukraine. Unless the Vladimir Putin receives a stopping stop with a significant security guarantee is infinitely in the sight of the war. If anything, we will see the expansion of Russian invasion beyond Ukraine. The bloody truth is that Europe is still facing an unprecedented threat and despite the signs of development for Ukraine in Jeddah talks, we face it.
Worse, we have to deal with it in the US working against us. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump appear to share a plan: a regime like Vichy in Ukraine and a European continent divided into spheres of influence, that Russia, the US (and perhaps China) can be colonized and reflected. Most of the public in Europe understand it. A critical mass of European leaders also gets it. They are starting to act.
Their response generates the basis for a different type of Europe from the one we have known for decades, Europe built in peace. That Europe binds peace inside (mainly through close economic and financial coherence). Externally, its security is further guaranteed by the US through NATO. Through the Defense Alliance, European countries act as loyal transatlantic allies. They allowed Washington to reap significantly obtained from the agreement, beginning with the US defense industry. The people who were also followed to follow Washington in its follies, such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
All in all, the EU can be slow and complex; There is no haste. It is smarter to painstakingly develop the “standard European home”, gradually weaving joint interest and believes that a common identity in Europe has slowly emerged.
The War in Europe however, and the US not relevant as an ally means we have to accept that the post-1945 and the post-1989 Europes have lost.
A new Europe is born however; And it’s easier to say what it’s no than what it is. This is not the EU, or not what we have long been. The 27-country union is simply not equipment to make speed decisions and levels of ambition needed to deal with the dramatic, life-or-death, rapidly changing the geopolitical and security moments facing citizens. In addition, the EU now includes Trojan horses such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the population of nationalist Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia, who clearly works on the Russian name of Putin and the US.
This is why we saw European leaders including Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer who became dominant voices, moving into crisis mode, which gathers emergency summits in their chapter; The invitation lists are carefully curated. But Eurosceptics, including those in the Trump administration hoping that it means that a dysfunctional EU is to be -sidelined and irrelevant, is on the mark.
Europe born is not completely separate from the EU either. The Brussels institutions, and especially the European Commission, the Bloc’s executive body, are deeply involved in the construction of the new Europe. Landmark relaxation of fiscal eurozone policies agreed last week to allow a massive increase in expenditure to “Rearm Europe”, the establishment of new financial instruments to support European defense, the completion of the EU single market, and the push for a larger EU budget, better in accordance Continent, everyone can ensure that Brussels institutions are in the driver’s seat. No wonder Trump studies to avoid contact with Ursula von der Leyen. This is certain because the commission is still important.
The new Europe is also not us. Not because Europeans turned away from it. But the US is. The US currently has more than 100,000 military personnel deployed in Europe, 10,000 in Poland only, with 40 military bases across the continent. We are likely to see a partial (or even total) removal of US forces from Eastern Europe, and perhaps beyond.
And given that the Atlantic Alliance relied on trust and convincing, the allies and opponents, that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty (which states that an attack on one is an attack at all) is for real, the question now is if we still have NATO. In the past decade at least, there has been a doubt whether the US has really defended a small European country under attack. But doubt is enough to act as a breakdown. Now, is there any doubt that if a small (or large) European country is attacked, Trump will do No. Sumagig?
But the new Europe born also cannot be described as “NATO”. NATO members outside the EU play a key role. The UK, first and most important, but also Norway, Canada and Turkey, all of which are expected to help provide security guarantees for Ukraine. In different ways and with different political sensitivity and even interests, they all share the awareness that a Putin-Trump scene in Ukraine (and beyond) represents a threat.
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So here we have a Europe and not the EU; is and we do not – it is a “coalition of desired”, combined with a shared sense of threat, ease and purpose but that cannot have a single figure of leadership.
The leader of a country will not be accepted by others in the coalition, while the figure of an institution, whether EU or NATO, will end representing some but not all countries involved.
This is a new Europe, fixed by leaders such as Macron, Starmer, German’s incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk of Poland. They share the threats of threats and the will to meet them. After all, European countries, combined, are among the richest and most powerful in the world. The European Commission, led by Von Der Leyen, can, is and should play a major support role. Saving Ukraine is a necessary condition for Europe’s securing. Can they succeed? If they can assemble a small portion of Winston Churchill’s strategic perspective, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s courage and Barack Obama’s hope, then, yes, they can.
