Ruth Ben-Ghiat recently posted this on Substack Notes:
Predicting anything about the erratic and chaotic Trump Administration is tricky. But this is likely to be true for as long as he remains President.
Europe’s efforts to rearrange their security plans, particularly in relation to real and potential threats from Russia, has become the leading security policy issue for Europe and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. It will be a messy process. And it may or may not work out well. But it’s a big break from the NATO era.
This is a useful discussion on one of the major issues, the military buildup of Germany. (1) Military buildups are never unambiguously good, and this discussion illustrates that:
And it’s also becoming clear that, at least as long as Trump is in power, European democracies will have to give a high priority to protecting their democratic political systems from the open hostility being expressed by Trump and his loyalists. I just posted about a take on the new NSS that indulged in a kind of mirror-image Cold-War-paranoia version of Russia’s efforts to influence Europe politically. It’s important to be realistic about such issues, which actually are complicated. But not hopelessly so.
Countries try to influence other countries. What kind of influence efforts are considered legitimate will vary according to laws and political system. The US Constitution included a provision that the President of the United States must be a native-born (birthright) citizen. This was a barrier against European powers trying to install a foreign official as head of the US government.
There was some maneuvering after the Revolution to install a Prussian prince in exactly that role. Taking advantage of the US Civil War, France installed Archduke Maximilian of Austria as Emperador Maximiliano I de México from 1864-1867. He was the younger brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. The Mexicans didn’t much like this arrangement. And it didn’t end well for Emperor Max.
If the Mexicans themselves had not overthrown him, the US would have gone to war (again) with Mexico to remove him. The US was not going to allow France to government Mexico.
There’s nothing new about parties and governments trying to affect opinions and form friendly networks. The national representatives in the European Parliament form party blocs with other likeminded EU from other countries. The limits and boundaries of what is proper in such international politics are defined by elaborate sets of laws and practices. American political parties, for instance, are not allowed to accept donations directly from non-US-citizens.
As this report explains, European countries and parties and voters have to be aware about the practical implications of the kind of collaboration between the Trump regime and far-right parties in Europe. (2)
David Cattler of the (Estonian) International Cemtre for Defence and Security (EESTI) provides an analysis of the new NSS that doesn’t rely on paranoid clichees. (3) In international-policy-wonk mode, he writes:
The United States has released its new National Security Strategy (NSS), and for Europe—especially its frontline states—it marks more than a periodic policy update. It signals the emergence of a distinct US strategic doctrine: one that reorders global priorities, reframes Allies’ roles, and seeks stability in Europe chiefly so that Washington can redirect its focus to the Indo-Pacific and the Western Hemisphere. The document will be read in Washington as pragmatic. In Europe, it lands as a strategic inflexion point. [my emphasis]The shift in US priorities from Europe to power-balancing against China became official in 2011 under the Obama Administration. Formally, that policy isn’t new.
But the level of overt hostility being expressed by the US government against liberal democracies in Europe is new. We did see a preview of that hostility and scorn during the Cheney-Bush Administration and its reckless war in Iraq.
Notes:
(1) The New German War Machine-Lt Col Daniel Davis & Isaac Stanley-Becker. Daniel Davis-Deep Dive YouTube channel 12/08/20256. <https://www.youtube.com/live/ZWEMy5ia7jk?si=0C-pZOWUAFvPFf9X> (Accessed: 2025-09-12).
(2) The drastically changing relationship between US and Europe. DW News YouTube channel 12/09/2025. <https://youtu.be/6ShBHEjMrdQ?si=gUp742SyhnfohtIp> (Accessed: 2025-09-12).
(3) Cattler, David (2025): What the New US National Security Strategy Really Signals for Europe. EESTI 12/08/2025. <https://icds.ee/en/what-the-new-us-national-security-strategy-really-signals-for-europe/> (Accessed: 2025-09-12).
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