The North Atlantic relationship is experiencing fundamental transformation as American strategic priorities shift from alliance-based internationalism toward sphere-of-influence arrangements among major powers. This reorientation, reflected in recent policy statements and diplomatic actions, raises critical questions about transatlantic security architecture sustainability and implications for both American and European interests.
From Alliance Leadership to Power Balancing
The current American administration is pursuing world order vision centered on great power spheres of influence rather than alliance networks and shared democratic values. This framework positions the United States, China, and Russia as primary organizing poles, with other states and regions falling within their respective spheres rather than participating in rules-based international systems.
This represents departure from post-World War II American strategy. The United States emerged from WWII as principal victor in European and Pacific theaters, subsequently prevailing in Cold War competition against the Soviet Union. That conflict encompassed not merely thermonuclear arms race but fundamental contest between socioeconomic systems: Western individual liberty, democracy, and market economy versus Soviet one-party police state with planned economy.
The Western model’s ultimate triumph—Soviet Union collapse and dissolution—established American-led liberal international order as dominant framework for global affairs. However, Russia’s inability to reconcile with post-imperial identity has produced increasingly revanchist posture, particularly under Putin’s leadership seeking to restore Russian great power status.
European Security Dependency and Strategic Vulnerability
American frustration with global policeman role and associated burdens has intensified, particularly following prolonged Middle Eastern interventions. This sentiment contributed significantly to current administration’s election and reelection, signaling domestic political consensus favoring reduced international commitments.
Europe’s critical failure during post-Cold War decades was insufficient assumption of responsibility for defending its own borders—fundamental precondition for sovereignty preservation. Despite repeated calls for enhanced European defense capabilities and burden-sharing, European NATO members largely maintained dependence on American security guarantees rather than developing autonomous military capacity.
From Kremlin perspective, this European vulnerability represented opportunity. Russia has systematically exploited European energy dependence, political divisions, and security reliance on American commitment to advance its interests and undermine European cohesion. The Ukraine conflict has exposed these vulnerabilities with stark clarity.
The National Security Strategy and Ukraine Policy
Recent National Security Strategy formulations, combined with administration positions on Ukraine conflict resolution, indicate fundamental reorientation. Former allies are increasingly characterized as competitors or adversaries, while Russia is portrayed more sympathetically despite its territorial aggression and international law violations.
This represents Orwellian transformation wherein traditional American democratic values become obstacles to overcome rather than principles to defend, while authoritarian regimes serve as models to emulate. The suggestion that betraying Ukraine—and by extension Europe—while siding with Putin might draw Russia away from China and into American sphere reflects fundamental misunderstanding of Russian strategic calculations.
Putin recognizes that without Chinese partnership, Russia is too weak to maintain precarious great power status. Both China and Russia seek reordering global hierarchy at American expense; they are not potential American partners against each other but rather aligned in opposing American hegemony. Attempting to exploit their relationship through Ukrainian betrayal will fail, with costs borne primarily by abandoned allies.
Imperial Dreams and Strategic Myopia
The vision of imperial America mirroring Russian and Chinese imperial aspirations fundamentally misreads power dynamics in contemporary international system. Unlike Cold War bipolarity where ideological competition provided organizing principle, current multipolarity involves economic interdependence, technological competition, and normative contestation that cannot be reduced to territorial spheres.
Creating American sphere of influence while abandoning alliance networks and democratic principles would weaken rather than strengthen American position. The United States requires European partnership economically, technologically, and geopolitically. European markets, innovation capacity, and geographic position provide assets that American strategic interests depend upon.
Betraying longstanding allies does not incentivize Putin toward peace; rather, it emboldens further aggression. Victory over West in Ukraine on Russian terms would be interpreted as vindication of power politics over international law, encouraging additional territorial revisionism. Ceasefire under such conditions represents tactical pause for reconsolidation before subsequent advances, not strategic settlement.
Rising Risks Across Multiple Theaters
The transatlantic alliance dissolution coincides with rising tensions across Eurasia’s main axes. In East Asia, China-Japan tensions persist alongside Taiwan Strait contingencies. On NATO’s eastern flank, Russian military posture remains threatening despite Ukraine conflict attrition.
Without credible American security commitments, European states face difficult choices: develop autonomous defense capabilities requiring substantial resource commitments, accommodate Russian demands to avoid confrontation, or seek alternative security guarantees from uncertain sources. None of these options offers easy path forward given Europe’s current strategic position.
The geopolitical crisis is compounded by European economic challenges. Weak growth relative to Chinese and American performance, combined with technological gaps particularly in digital sectors and advanced manufacturing, undermines European capacity to sustain defense spending increases while maintaining social programs and economic competitiveness.
European Strategic Imperatives
Europe must close technological and economic performance gaps while simultaneously building autonomous defense capacity. This dual challenge requires unprecedented political will, institutional reform, and resource allocation. Sovereignty comes at high price, but as former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer observes, European freedom is priceless.
Specific requirements include: enhanced defense industrial base capable of producing weapons systems without American dependency, improved military readiness and deployability across European forces, streamlined decision-making processes enabling rapid crisis response, and sustained defense spending increases to reach or exceed NATO targets across all member states.
Beyond military measures, Europe needs economic resilience strategies reducing vulnerabilities to external pressure. This includes diversified energy supplies eliminating Russian leverage, supply chain security for critical materials and components, technological innovation capacity matching American and Chinese capabilities, and demographic strategies addressing aging population challenges.
Implications for International Order
Transatlantic alliance transformation affects not only European and American security but broader international order architecture. If alliance networks give way to sphere-of-influence arrangements, smaller states lose protection of international law and collective security mechanisms, reverting to nineteenth-century power politics where might makes right.
This would undermine norms prohibiting territorial conquest, protecting human rights, and enabling international cooperation on transnational challenges like climate change, pandemic response, and nuclear proliferation. States unable to defend themselves autonomously would face accommodation with nearby great powers or perpetual vulnerability to coercion.
For democracies globally, American abandonment of alliance commitments and democratic principles signals that democratic governance provides no special protection or partnership. This may encourage authoritarian trends in states previously oriented toward Western models, calculating that democracy offers no strategic advantages if the United States prioritizes transactional relationships over values-based partnerships.
The Self-Sabotage Thesis
The argument that destroying transatlantic West weakens America itself rests on recognition that American power has never been solely material. Alliance networks, institutional leadership, normative influence, and model of successful democratic capitalism have multiplied American leverage beyond raw military and economic capabilities alone.
Abandoning these force multipliers in pursuit of sphere-of-influence arrangements with adversarial powers represents strategic self-sabotage. China and Russia will not become reliable American partners simply because the United States betrays its traditional allies. Instead, they will exploit American alliance network dissolution to expand their own influence into regions previously aligned with Washington.
The notion that America is self-sufficient and requires no allies reflects fundamental misunderstanding of contemporary geopolitics. Economic interdependence, technological competition, and security challenges require partnerships and coordination that isolated great power cannot achieve alone, regardless of its material resources.
Toward European Strategic Autonomy
European response must combine immediate crisis management with long-term structural transformation. This requires unprecedented unity among European Union members, overcoming historical reluctances toward defense integration and burden-sharing.
The European Union’s strategic compass provides framework, but implementation remains incomplete. Accelerating military integration, establishing credible deterrence capabilities, and developing autonomous decision-making capacity represent urgent priorities that can no longer be deferred.
Simultaneously, Europe must maintain diplomatic channels with the United States, recognizing that current administration represents temporary rather than permanent American orientation. Building relationships with American institutions, states, and civil society that retain commitment to transatlantic partnership can preserve foundations for eventual restoration.
The transformation of transatlantic alliance represents inflection point not merely for European and American security but for international order architecture. Whether this leads to multipolar stability or renewed great power competition with catastrophic potential depends substantially on choices made by all parties during this critical transition period.
Original analysis inspired by Joschka Fischer via Kyiv Post and Tomorrow’s Affairs. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
