The Peace Continent has lately shown signs of a condition that could be described, without fear of exaggeration, as an armament hysteria.
Critics label the so called Ukraine project as a failure, and the new United States secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has described it bluntly as a proxy war between two nuclear powers.
Rubio’s remarks were intended to justify a resumption of direct talks between Russia and the United States, outside European partners, talks that had stalled during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Many international affairs analysts and prominent scholars, including John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs, have long argued that this conflict is framed by the EU as a fight between democracy and autocracy.
Against wiser counsel from its own diplomats, including former CIA director William Burns, and despite initial opposition from Paris and Berlin, the United States invited Ukraine to join NATO.
This has long been seen as a red line by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which could only protest as NATO expanded toward its borders, contrary to what the United States promised the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Now the new occupant of the White House, the Republican Donald Trump, focused on domestic priorities and on preparing for the strategic challenge posed by Xi Jinping’s China, has decided to shed ballast in Europe.
Suddenly the Europeans, gripped by fear, conclude they can no longer rely on the American military shield under a leader as erratic as Trump and feel the need to build their own defense.
In pursuit of that goal, they are not willing to skim on spending or to respect debt limits that had previously applied when social programs were central to the European social model.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and a former defense minister, has steered the Twenty-Seven toward approving as much as 800 billion euros in military expenditure, a move that drew both praise and criticism within the bloc.
To mobilize such sums, member states will need to borrow, and someone will bear the debt. Yet the argument persists that bolstering defenses is a necessary response to a perceived threat from the east.
If Putin is not checked in Ukraine, many argue, no country will remain safe, not even the United States which is separated by an ocean, as Zelensky warned Trump in a moment that irritated the Republican.
Diplomacy, once the cornerstone of Cold War negotiations and arms control, seems mostly forgotten today. Europe appears ready for a new kind of conflict, and applause greets the shift.