A Blunt Message from Washington: Europe Is Not Ready for the World Ahead

Every year, the US releases a National Security Strategy.

The 2025 report was released overnight. It is an extraordinary document.

Unlike previous iterations, it is blunt. Very blunt.

Rather than offering the usual blend of aspiration and reassurance, it sets out to describe the world as the United States sees it, and to define American interests in unusually direct terms.

That alone makes it worth reading closely.

For Europe and the UK, the report is startling. It reveals views from Washington that many on this side of the Atlantic will not recognise.

This comes from the top: the report is commissioned, introduced and signed by the President himself.

American officials have become used to thinking about European problems in terms of insufficient military spending and economic stagnation. There is truth to this, but Europe’s real problems are even deeper.

Europe’s share of global GDP has been sliding, note the authors. But that is not the only problem.

But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and starker prospect of civilizational erasure.

The European Union - as well as Europe as a whole (in other words, including the UK) - are responsible for adopting measures that:

undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.

This is not a statement of concern; it is a declaration of contempt.

Europe (as a whole) is seen as declining, paralysed, out-of touch and self-satisfied - all at the same time.

Europe’s decline, says the report, means the continent is less capable, less coherent and less reliable as a partner.

One reason this is so devastating, of course, is that this is not how Europe sees, or talks about, itself: most who live in Europe recognise obvious problems; but nevertheless see the continent as the home of functional democracy, as world leaders when it comes to respecting institutions, and as bearers of the gold standard of good governance.

Not only that, but many Europeans look at the US under Trump with a mixture of disdain and scorn and think that it is the US, not Europe, that is on a downward spiral.

The US, though, is a global military superpower; for all the talk of the ascent of China, its economy is globally dominant. US tech, biotech, innovation and much much more do not so much put Europe’s contribution in the shade as make it all but invisible.

The reality is that without the US, Europe is cooked: reduce or take away US hardware and software and we are up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

So the assessments in the National Security Strategy need to be taken seriously.

Take, for example, the view of Europe’s short-term relevance:

it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.

The reason? At the current rate of failing to deal with problems

The continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.

As the authors note, this is not good news for the US.

Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States. Transatlantic trade remains one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity. European sectors from manufacturing to technology to energy remain among the world’s most robust. Europe is home to cutting-edge scientific research and world-leading cultural institutions.

Europe is a key part of the global future, warns the report; but its ‘civilizational self-confidence and Western identity’ have been eroded - and worse may follow.

The analysis takes Ukraine as a case study.

European governments have had and continue to have unrealistic expectations about the war’s outcome and are limited by domestic political fragilities that leave them unable to translate public sentiment into coherent policy.

Perversely, the Ukraine war has increased Europe’s dependencies on others - rather than reduced them.

For example:

German chemical companies are building some of the world’s largest processing plants in China, using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home.

This is not just stupidity, nor even the venality of corporations putting profits before common sense; it is a sign of cognitive and even ‘civilisational’ decline.

Some readers will - no doubt - dismiss this document as grand-standing; or perhaps as a warning shot rather than a real indication of US sentiment; or perhaps as the work of the inner circle around Trump that reflects the thinking of those around the president but not beyond it.

I think it would be dangerous and foolish to do so.

For one thing, much has been said in Europe in recent years about reducing dependence on China. Far less has been said about dependence on the United States.

Yet Washington’s own strategy makes clear that this reliance is now seen as problematic - and should not be taken for granted.

Europe depends on the United States for energy security, for advanced defence technologies, nuclear guarantees, intelligence, cyber-capacity and for capital investment.

For decades, this arrangement has acted as a stabilising force in Europe - perhaps even its very lifeblood.

The new National Security Strategy should make clear that this dependence it itslf a chronic vulnerability - primarily for Europe, but also for the United States, which no longer wishes to shoulder such responsibilities unconditionally.

This is the part of the conversation Europeans tend not to hear.

The report argues that America wants a strong Europe not because of sentimentality, but because a capable and confident Europe is necessary for wider strategic competition.

Yet it also insists that Europe should take primary responsibility for its own defence, recover its economic dynamism, and regain what the report calls its ‘civilisational self-confidence.’

Europe’s transnational institutions are depicted as impediments rather than assets. Washington wants bilateral cooperation with European states that are willing to invest in their own security, open their markets more fully to US goods and services, and align with American priorities on technology, trade and global standards.

Europeans might not like that. Tough.

Most Europeans - and most in the UK - remain largely unaware of how sharply American thinking has shifted, not just under the new Trump administration, but over the last decade and more.

In Europe, political debate is dominated by concerns about China’s industrial power, the future of supply chains, or the costs of the energy transition.

These are real issues. But much less attention is paid to Europe’s dependence on the United States, or to the simple fact that Washington now views this relationship as unbalanced.

Whether this American view is right is a separate matter. But it is not obviously wrong. Above all, though, it is now deeply embedded in US strategic thinking.

European leaders, as well as ones in the UK, often speak as though the transatlantic relationship is still anchored in assumptions forged after 1945.

The National Security Strategy shows that those who believe - and rely - on those assumptions depend heavily on hope and faith.

The United States sees a world in flux. As the report notes at the start:

American strategies since the end of the Cold War have fallen short—they have been laundry lists of wishes or desired end states; have not clearly defined what we want but instead stated vague platitudes; and have often misjudged what we should want.

That is blunt, brutal even. But it is not wrong,

European leaders of all kinds should read this carefully, digest it, and recognise that the world is changing rapidly around us. Most of what we think and talk about in Europe is irrelevant. This is not.

This post is the first in a short series.

Tomorrow I will look at China, which is the single most consequential section of the entire document.

More soon.