FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Security Strategy and US disengagement: an opportunity that Europe cannot miss!
If a European leader had vision and read history with a strategic eye, he would clearly understand the analogy: Donald Trump as Frederick Barbarossa and Europe as the Italian cities of the Middle Ages that were liberated from the empire with the Battle of Legnano.
Today, Trump's national security strategy is a call to end the old vassal relationship between Europe and the US. A relationship based more on fear and dependence than on equality.
Trump no longer hides that he has no interest in carrying the burden of European security. His strategic document sheds any vestige of hypocrisy: “The West” is no longer a universal value, but an American sphere of influence that operates on Washington’s terms. The freedom of nations that is preached abroad does not apply equally at home: Europe today faces criticism from the US for the way it deals with migration, free speech, and identity.
Europe, a dish on the American menu
In the Trumpian vision, Europe is no longer an ally, it is a playing field, a geopolitical object. The US demands strategic loyalty, even economic and military support, while no longer offering real guarantees in return.
From internal division with support for populists, to the crackdown on German industry, to the use of Ukraine as a symbolic border against Russia, America has dictated the continent's agenda without facing any serious resistance.
While the US is setting the new rules of the global game, European elites automatically follow Washington's directives. Any attempt at European strategic autonomy has been called "anti-Western."
In the technology sector, America has dominated through its techno-oligarchs, without any counterbalance from the EU. In geopolitical matters, from the Middle East to China, European positions are almost photocopies of American positions.
Time to think differently
But it is precisely in the face of this challenge that an opportunity arises. Europe can begin to think about a real common defense, within existing structures like NATO, by building capacities that today depend on the US, such as satellite surveillance or missile defense.
It could also rebalance trade relations, opening up more to markets like India, ASEAN, or the Gulf countries.
Ironically, while the world is confronted with authoritarian regimes, such as China with its party-state and Russia steeped in autocracy, Europe has failed to position itself as a true champion of freedoms, whether for free speech, the media or economic freedom. Here too, the European bureaucracy is more concerned with control than liberation.
In the end, the lesson from history is clear: just as the Italian Communes challenged Barbarossa in 1176 in the name of freedom, today's Europe needs a new Lombard League, to emerge from strategic subjugation and act as a power in its own right. / Adapted from "Pamphlet" by "Inside Over"
Lini një Përgjigje