Europe must act as though it is alone
The White House's National Security Strategy laid bare MAGA's animosity to Europe
Europe is running out of reprieves and time. An emboldened and increasingly US-supported Russia has made significant gains on its quest to splinter Europe and undermine, if not collapse, the European Union and NATO.
And the White House is ready to help.
The Trump Administration released its National Security Strategy on Friday. The 29-page document laid bare not just the Make America Great Again Movement’s total hostility to modern Europe but also its intention to reshape the continent’s politics in its own populist image.
The White House document claimed that Europe’s economic decline was ‘eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure.’
It blamed the European Union and other transnational bodies for what it said was undermining political liberty and sovereignty, migration politics, censorship of free speech, cratering of birthrates and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
‘The growing influence of patriotic European parties gives great cause for optimism,’ the document stated.
It then suggested that some European countries could become majority non-European (read that as non-white) and that this could affect the premise of NATO.
‘Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,’ the document stated.
‘As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.’
This is the equivalent of ‘it’s not you, it’s me, but no, it’s really you.’
The White House said its broad policy for Europe would include ’cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations’ and ‘ending the perception and preventing the reality of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.’
It is foreign interference in anyone’s book, and it is official White House policy.
The document claimed that it wanted to restore strategic stability with Russia whilst ensuring that Europe would not be dominated by an adversarial power.
It is not a stretch to imagine that ‘adversarial’ could be open to interpretation, given the way Russians are attempting to subvert the word ‘peace’ by insisting that this is what they are after as they rain missiles down on Kyiv.
This is the clearest and most coherent compilation of MAGA’s ideology toward Europe yet. And it should be taken seriously.
Trump’s animosity towards NATO has been well documented, but his monarchical way of governing, combined with his own desire to be loved and susceptibility to flattery by visiting world leaders, has concealed his wider movement’s open enmity towards modern Europe.
It is Trump that the European leaders have dashed to see, every time the US President starts sounding pro-Russian positions as a way of ending Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, because they can do business with him, through a mixture of presence, flattery and deference.
But these tactics have an expiry date. No European leader went to the White House after the pro-Russian ‘peace deal’ was lobbed onto the metaphorical table via a leak to the media and later backed by the Administration.
Instead, national security advisers rushed to Geneva to help the Ukrainians walk back some of the most harmful clauses that would have eroded Ukraine’s sovereignty. The talks remain in limbo. The Russians have felt no pressure to retreat from their demands, and Vladimir Putin is even threatening war with Europe.
This cycle is familiar — Trump and his team propose a Russian stance, European leaders plead for a change, concessions are granted, and everyone sighs with relief that danger has been averted once more. Meanwhile, the war grinds on.
But this strategy has involved costs for Europe. One source familiar with the dynamics told me that those around Trump were becoming angrier and angrier with what they saw as European obstruction of their attempts to get their peace deal past Trump.
But even when the Europeans and Ukrainians have been successful in wrenching Trump back from his Putin-friendly positions, the underlying trend has been subtly trending Moscow’s way.
For example, the starting premise of the current round of negotiations is that Ukraine is no longer the innocent and illegally invaded partner that should be compensated, lionised and supported for withstanding an illegal invasion, but that is a nuisance, smaller, weaker and deserves to have unfavaurable ceasefire terms imposed upon it because it is outmatched on the battlefield in terms of size and endurance.
On the contrary, the US-backed ‘peace plan’ proposed a total amnesty for Russia and rewards of business, restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and a carve-up between Washington and the Kremlin of the nearly €300 billion assets belonging to Russia that Western governments froze after the invasion of 2022.
When the initial peace plan was proposed, a sombre Volodymyr Zelensky told the Ukrainian people that they faced the ‘very difficult choice: either losing dignity, or risk losing a key partner.’
But this is Europe’s choice too.
It may be that ‘Daddy,’ as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte once referred to Trump, is Europe’s better friend in the Trump Administration. Vice President JD Vance’s speech to the Munich Security Conference in February and the show of support for the Alternative for Deutschland should have made MAGA’s animosity towards Europe clear, then.
But now there can be no doubt. With the White House’s National Security Strategy, MAGA’s intentions for Europe are stated, and it has an army of US social media and tech firms that monopolise information flows, led by sympathetic tech bros at its disposal.
On Friday, the EU fined X, owned by Elon Musk, €120 million for breaches of its Digital Services Act, including the deceptiveness of its blue check marks that serve as verifications but are actually purchased.
‘The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,’ both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in statements on X.
‘The days of censoring Americans online are over.’
Europe must confront its cold reality. It may already be alone. And if it is, the time for drastic action to deter Russia from trying to test Article Five is now.
On Friday night, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz dined with Belgian Prime Minister Bart DeWever, who is frightened of repercussions should he agree to seize and use the frozen Russian assets, most of which are held in Euroclear.
‘We agreed that time is of the essence given the current geopolitical situation,’ Von der Leyen said on X afterwards.
‘We noted that financial support for Ukraine is of central importance for European security.
‘Belgium’s particular situation regarding the use of the frozen Russian assets is undeniable and must be addressed in such a way that all European states bear the same risk.’
The money is essential and at this point, could be existential. The Europeans are running out of ways to fund Ukraine’s gutsy resistance, approaching its fourth year.
A victorious Russia would be perilous for wider Europe, given the Trump Administration’s newly stated doctrine.
A decision is due on December 18 when the European Council meets.
The risks are enormous. Russia will certainly retaliate. But there is another and far greater risk that in choosing caution, Europe is successfully immobilised by a threatening Russia and abandoned by a hostile America.