EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — For more than three decades after the Cold War, Europe lived under the illusion that history had settled in its favor. Liberal democracy seemed ascendant, global markets expanded without friction, and American military primacy insulated the continent from hard-power competition. Under those conditions, the European Union could focus on enlargement, regulation, and internal integration rather than geopolitics.

That era is finished.

A new multipolar world, shaped primarily by the United States, China and Russia has taken hold, and Europe’s place within it is increasingly uncertain. The EU now faces a destabilizing combination of external pressures and internal constraints that call into question its long-term strategic relevance. The next decade will determine whether Europe becomes a genuine pole of power or resigns itself to being a geopolitical appendage.

The End of Post-Cold War Certainties

The post-1991 Western order rested on three assumptions: U.S. military dominance, deepening globalization, and the notion that political liberalization would eventually spread worldwide. Each of these pillars has eroded.

U.S. primacy is no longer guaranteed. Washington is now stretched between deterring China in the Indo-Pacific, supporting Ukraine, and managing crises in the Middle East. American policymakers—across both parties—increasingly resent Europe’s reliance on U.S. defense guarantees and expect the EU to realign its China policy with America’s priorities. Europe’s security depends on a partner whose long-term predictability it cannot ensure.

Globalization is fragmenting. The pandemic, geopolitical rivalries, and technological decoupling between Washington and Beijing have shattered faith in frictionless global supply chains. Europe, whose prosperity hinges on exports, advanced manufacturing, and access to global markets, feels the squeeze.

Authoritarian resilience has replaced Western convergence. China’s techno-authoritarian model and Russia’s militarized nationalism offer alternatives to liberal democracy. Across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, states increasingly hedge rather than take sides, reducing the EU’s ability to shape norms or export its model. The world is no longer moving toward Europe. It is moving away from it.

The New Power Triangle: Washington, Beijing, Moscow

1. The United States: indispensable, but increasingly impatient

The U.S. remains the only actor capable of deterring Russia on Europe’s behalf, and without American intelligence, logistics, and weaponry, Ukraine’s position would be far more precarious. Yet Washington’s strategic focus is shifting eastward. In every administration, the question recurs: Why should America subsidize European security indefinitely?

Growing U.S. skepticism combined with the possibility of future political shifts exposes Europe’s most dangerous vulnerability: dependence on an ally whose priorities are changing faster than Europe can adapt.

2. China: Europe’s vital economic partner turned systemic rival

China is indispensable to European industries from electric vehicles to renewable energy to pharmaceuticals. Yet Beijing’s industrial subsidies, strategic investments, and political influence operations challenge the EU’s economic model and internal cohesion. As Washington accelerates decoupling, Europe is pressured to follow suit at high cost to its own industry.

China is no longer just a market; it is a shaping force in a global system that Europe struggles to influence.

3. Russia: the security threat that will not disappear

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shattered Europe’s illusions of a “post-historic” continent. Even after the initial shock, Moscow’s ongoing militarization signals a long-term confrontation. Europe’s sanctions, energy diversification, and support for Kyiv have been substantial but the EU still lacks the military and industrial backbone to sustain a prolonged, high-intensity conflict without the United States.

Russia is not a temporary crisis. It is a structural challenge.

Europe’s Structural Weakness: Power Without Agency

Europe has economic weight, technological capability, and regulatory influence but struggles to convert them into geopolitical power.

1. Fragmented decision-making. EU foreign policy requires unanimity, making coherent action nearly impossible. France pushes for “strategic autonomy,” Germany for economic stability, Poland for deterrence, Italy for flexibility. Diverging priorities fracture the bloc at every major juncture, from China policy to Middle East diplomacy.

2. Military insufficiency. Despite increases in defense spending, Europe remains dependent on the U.S. for intelligence, logistics, command-and-control, missile defense, and advanced weapons. The continent’s defense industry is fragmented into dozens of incompatible national systems that a luxury Europe can no longer afford.

3. Economic vulnerabilities. From semiconductors to critical minerals, Europe relies on external suppliers. In a world defined by technological blocs and industrial rivalry, the EU risks being squeezed between U.S. security demands and Chinese economic dominance.

4. Demographic decline. Aging societies and shrinking workforces reduce the EU’s long-term competitiveness and its ability to project power.

These vulnerabilities do not make Europe irrelevant—but they do make it reactive.

Three Possible Futures

Scenario 1: Strategic Autonomy Becomes Real

Europe could choose to become a coherent geopolitical actor—pooling defense procurement, adopting majority voting on foreign policy, investing heavily in its defense industry, and crafting a unified China strategy. This would give the EU real agency.

But achieving this requires political courage that Europe has rarely demonstrated.

Scenario 2: Renewed Atlantic Dependence

The EU may double down on the U.S. alliance, accepting a secondary role in global geopolitics while focusing on economic and regulatory power. This is the easiest path both politically and financially but it leaves Europe dangerously exposed to America’s domestic turmoil.

Scenario 3: Fragmentation and Decline

If member states continue to pursue conflicting national policies and U.S. attention continues shifting to Asia Europe risks strategic irrelevance. In this scenario, global powers shape Europe’s environment, while Europe merely adapts.

This path is unlikely to be dramatic. Decline rarely is. It is slow, quiet, and comfortable until suddenly it is not.

Europe Must Choose Power Over Comfort

The multipolar world will not wait for Europe to get its act together. The question is no longer whether the EU wishes to become a global actor; it is whether it can afford not to.

Europe’s future is binary:

A genuine geopolitical pole, capable of defending its interests. A subordinate ally, protected but strategically constrained. Or a divided continent, overshadowed by the ambitions of others. For three decades, Europe believed it had escaped history. Now history has returned with force. Whether Europe survives the new multipolar world depends on whether it chooses power over comfort, strategy over complacency, and unity over drift.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

OPINION — “What should the U.S. role in the world be right now? We're waiting for the [Trump administration] National Security Strategy to come out from the White House, which should come out in the next couple of months, which will be really interesting to see what they have to say. We are in the post-post-Cold War world. You know we had that brief period at the end of the Cold War when it was like, yeah, we won, everything's good -- and then no it's not. So now we're like accepting that it is a complicated world. So what role do we play?”

That was Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) last Wednesday as The Brookings Institution’s keynote speaker at the 2025 Knight Forum on Geopolitics. Elected to Congress in 1996, Rep. Smith has served on the House Armed Services Committee since 1997. He was committee chairman from 2019-to-2023, and today is the ranking Democrat. He has also previously served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Smith, who has focused on national and international security strategy during most of his 28 years in Congress, is someone I believe should be listened to in this controversial time in our history. And during his Brookings appearance, he not only touched on the key issues today, but also put them in an historic context that makes for a better understanding of them.

For example, Rep. Smith said, “We did a masterful job in my humble opinion post World War II of figuring out what is our role in the world and then playing that role to a very effective degree. It's not perfect. Certainly there were mistakes. I think we need to do that again. And the number one biggest theme for me is we have to get rid of the idea that we are going to dominate the rest of the world.”

Instead, he said, “We have to be engaged, but we have to embrace the idea of a multi-polar world that we can influence, but not control. And that I think was the biggest downside to the end of the Cold War -- it gave us grandiose ambition, delusions of grandeur, if you will, and the notion that our mission was to make sure that no pure competitor emerged. You remember that philosophy? That's a really hard thing to do. We're not going to be able to do it, just like we're not going to be able to defeat China.”

So how does Rep. Smith suggest we deal with China?

“We really need to talk with China,” he emphasized last week. “I think the relationship with China is the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world right now and will be for decades to come. The two most powerful economies [and] increasingly pretty close to the two most powerful militaries, as China has ramped up [militarily]. And I think we need to find a way to get along with China.”

However, he said, “The focus in Washington D.C. is very much how do we beat China? And that you see in Congress all the time. You certainly see it from the [House] China Select Committee. What I want to know is what is our plan for coexisting with China? Because that's what we're going to have to do. We're not going anywhere. They're not going anywhere.”

Rep. Smith acknowledged that China, along with what he called the “cringe” people -- Russia, Iran and North Korea – are threats. But, he added, “of that group, China is the most invested in a global order. I mean, their economy is dependent upon it. They have slightly different views for how that global order should be run. But we are a lot closer to aligned in that than we are certainly with Russia or North Korea or Iran or your average ISIS or al-Qaeda [terrorist] group. So I think there was an opportunity there to have a dialogue with China that could bring the tension down and get to a better relationship.”

The Cipher Brief brings expert-level context to national and global security stories. It’s never been more important to understand what’s happening in the world. Upgrade your access to exclusive content by becoming a subscriber.

At another point, Rep. Smith said, “If China wants those [global order] rules to be changed to help them, they're going to have to show that they're something other than a belligerent aggressive actor just trying to gobble up as much as they can gobble up. Because people forget we had to do a lot of crap that was just helping other people, all right? You know, the Marshall Plan in Europe, we rebuilt Japan, earthquakes, tsunamis all over the world. You know, we've done that. You know, that's part of it. All right, China, you want to be the big global player. Part of it is not just looking at the rest of the world as a resource opportunity. Not that we haven't done that, too, but we've balanced that out with helping people.”

Rep. Smith described something he said “the Biden administration did really, really well… I know there are a lot of people who are critical of a lot of different things the Biden administration did, but the alliances that we built up around China during his Presidency were really consequential and very important. Certainly, the Quad with Japan, Australia, India and the U.S. was important. Japan has become a much better partner. South Korea, the Philippines, these are areas where we built partnerships that strengthened us.”

“China looks at the U.S. and sees us as having three great advantages,” Rep. Smith said. “One, we got partners and alliances that no other nation in the world has. Two, we do research better than anybody. And three, people want to come here. You know, we're damaging all three of those to one degree or another at the moment. But taking advantage of those partnerships and alliances to strengthen ourselves, I think needs to be part of the solution.”

He went on saying, “Maintaining and building on those partnerships is crucial. Obviously, [President] Trump has a slightly different approach, more confrontational. I worry about how that's going to impact it.”

Noting that President Trump “has a slightly different approach, more confrontational,” and was at that moment in Asia “trying to patch that up,” Rep. Smith advised, “I would say figure out how to get along with China, maintain and build alliances with as many other nations in that part of the world as possible.”

“But I would love to see a world 10, 20, 30 years from now,” Rep. Smith said, “where China and the U.S., if there's some disaster in the world, if there's a famine, if there's a natural disaster, if there's just a country that's infrastructure is crumbling, are sitting at the same table talking about how do we handle this? Okay, that is a better world. Now, to get there, we have to get off of this zero sum competition.”

It was in dealing with allies and partner countries that Rep. Smith said, “Trump came in with his uniquely bullying approach to try to get them [allies and partner countries] to do more. And what I worry about there is if you're just trying to get them to do more as part of a collective understanding of what our national security interests are -- great. You know, be as aggressive as you have to be, make it work. But there is considerable concern that isolationism is pushing Trump's viewpoint as much as a desire for greater burden sharing, which is to say, ‘We don't care. We're out. Good luck.’"

“That is where we don't want to go,” Rep. Smith said, “And that's where a lot of the Trumpian rhetoric is troubling to me because on the Trump side…is the argument that somehow the

United States of America has been taken advantage of for the last 80 years. All these European countries, these Asian countries, we provided security to them. I think [Defense] Secretary [Pete] Hegseth had the unique way of saying it, you know, Uncle Sam shouldn't be Uncle Sucker.”

Rep. Smith explained, “Those partnerships, those alliances that we built benefited us more than any other country in the world. We had the biggest, most powerful economy ever because we had a relatively peaceful world. We had a lot of partners and friends. We weren't doing it out of some generosity. We didn't want to be dragged into another world war, which would be costly to us. And we wanted a reasonably prosperous world to do business with. That's what we wanted.

And that's what we got. Now how we divided that wealth back here at home has certainly raised some issues, but the basic point is that we generated a very robust global economy that we benefited from.”

Are you Subscribed to The Cipher Brief’s Digital Channel on YouTube? There is no better place to get clear perspectives from deeply experienced national security experts.

Pointing out that after WWII, “we didn't want those countries [Germany, Japan] building up their militaries and doing more, because we saw how that had played out over the course of the previous thousand years,” Rep. Smith said. But, he added, “We're right now in the midst of a huge debate over the U.S. presence in Eastern Europe, and are we going to maintain it? A lot of mutterings…[are] that we're going to be pulling out, which can undermine the [NATO] alliance. So, I'm worried about it.”

His worry, he said, “is this administration going to remain committed to the concept of why these alliances are important, not just for our partners, but for us as well?”

But Rep. Smith explained, “Now is not the time to signal weakness to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe. Now, that's kind of hard to argue with, so why are they doing it? And that gets back to sort of the concern about their world view. The way they [the Trump administration officials] try to pitch it is we can only do so many things at once. So we're trying to prioritize in different places.”

Rep. Smith went on, “I guess the argument there would be they're prioritizing in Asia. But the world is connected. Sorry, but what's happening in Europe has a profound impact on what's

happening [in Asia]. In fact, you know, if we want to stop China from being overly aggressive in terms of taking the territory of other nations and militarily, the single best thing we can do is make sure that Putin fails in Ukraine, to make it clear that that type of aggression to expand territory doesn't work. So, we're not helping Asia by looking weak in Eastern Europe.”

Rep. Smith also looked at other parts of the world.

He said, “Israel's consistent effort, with our help through multiple administrations, [led to] weakening Hezbollah, you know, weakening Hamas and weakening Iran, certainly put them in a vastly weaker position as a regional player. And [that] has created the opportunity to get a stable government in Syria and a stable government in Lebanon and an increasingly stable government in Iraq.”

He added. “That's where we want to get to. And we've made a large amount of progress on that. Now again, Donald Trump is going to take absolutely 100% of the credit for that. and he deserves maybe five percent of the credit for that. But that puts us in a better position on that.”

Closer to home, Rep. Smith said, “I do worry about the Trumpian Monroe Doctrine approach here. We're spending a heck of a lot of money out of the [U.S.] military to secure a border that Trump says is already secure. That is a distraction financially. Then, picking a war with Venezuela and Colombia and randomly blowing up people down in the Caribbean, in the Pacific -- that's expensive, destabilizing, and I don't see it having the positive impact that they claim it is. And it also undermines our credibility if we are engaging in what most of the world views as extrajudicial killings.”

I must add here as a closing, something Rep. Smith said two days later during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations. It’s the best summation I’ve seen of all the issues involved in the Trump administration’s self-started drug war.

“Basically,” Rep. Smith said, “the President of the United States has decided that he will institute the death penalty for drug dealing. Now that’s an interesting policy question. It’s been debated. There are some countries that have gone to different places on it, but it is not a policy question that we’ve had in the United States of America. That’s not legal. That’s not something we’ve decided to do. Not only has the President of the United States decided to circumvent all of that, and say, ‘Yes we’re going to have the death penalty,’ but he’s decided to do it without any due process. He’s appointed himself judge, jury and executioner. And who are they targeting? From what we can glean from the briefing yesterday [last Thursday by Pentagon officials], and what they have said publicly, there are 24 different narco-terrorist groups, as they called them. We have no details on who’s in the 24. But it’s also, not just the people who are part of the 24 drug cartels, but anyone who is affiliated with the drug cartels which also comes with not much of a definition.”

Rep. Smith concluded, “So the President basically empowers himself to use the United States military to do lethal strikes against tens-of-thousands of ill defined people without the oversight [needed]. That is a clear abuse of power and a massive expansion of the power for the President of the United States and I believe that undermines the Constitution and the rule of law to people who care about those things anymore.”

I fully agree.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief