Europe's Future: Fortress, Fragmentation, or Reform?

Two hundred years ago, at the heart of revolutionary times that would ultimately transform Europe, Dickens wrote one of his most famous novels: "A Tale of Two Cities".

Its predicament (symbolized by its striking opening: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"): a world marked with stark duality leads to revolutionary rage doomed to shake nations.

200 years later, the world is undergoing a similar disruption

Once again, we're witnessing dramatic geopolitical shifts and a strategic abyss separating an old and a new world:

• On one side, a new America, pivoting since Trump's election to an America First strategy and willing to withdraw from peripheral military wars, after years of US exceptionalism that the BRICS and the Global South are now contesting
• On the other side, the old Europe, clinging to the old Western dominance paradigm under the leadership of the remaining globalist factions, trying to resist change, and determined to maintain the conflict with Russia

A strategic misalignment which fractures the Western world and leaves European elites isolated in a mutating geostrategic landscape, with—in addition to the US—a fast-growing China, a resilient Russia, new leaders affirming their ambitions such as India and Turkey, fast-rising powers in Asia—notably in ASEAN—and profound changes in the Middle East, South America, and Africa.

A paradoxical situation as it results in the inverse outcomes of why the Ukraine conflict was initially planned by the RAND (1) —to weaken the BRICS by dismantling Russia and reinforcing the US grip on Europe—and ends up reinforcing the BRICS and creating a growing schism between Trump's new America and Europe. With America now determined to withdraw from the Ukraine war, and Europeans trying to maintain it.

What future lies ahead for the European Union?

What might the EU become? With its member nations holding divergent interests (2), aging industries and economies slipping into recession (3)? Abandoned by its former American sponsors? A likely victim of the all-out economic and trade war unleashed by Trump in his quest to restore American greatness? Confronted by growing popular discontent and migration challenges that threaten societal cohesion (4)? Held together solely by massive European Commission bureaucracy and mounting debt? The exact scenario that led to Trump's election in the US, minus American patriotism and influence.

As often happens, this could lead to three antagonistic scenarios for Europe:

• The Flight Forward: Leveraging the conflict with Russia to reinforce community powers through the establishment of exceptional measures and a war economy. In other words, erecting a "Fortress Europe," counting on Trump's eventual failure and a return of globalist factions to power in the United States within two to four years, just as occurred after 2016. With high risks of war escalation in the meantime...
• Fragmentation: The disintegration of the European Union under the relentless pressure from de-globalization and multipolar geopolitical and economic shocks, pushing nations back toward individual sovereignty. A plausible scenario—but one that, as history consistently shows, would exacerbate crises and fuel further instability.
• The Narrow Path of Reform: Simplifying institutions, restoring a balanced mix of community and national sovereignties, negotiating peace while regaining truly independent defense capabilities, deleveraging the debt burden, unleashing energies, and rebuilding faith in the future. The best path forward, certainly, yet a difficult and uncertain one. As we discussed in a podcast interview on the collapse of the USSR, a system that is too complex does not always manage to reform itself: if it fails, it disintegrates.

Three paths paved with risks.

All these three paths are marked with risks, and represent a painful return of history in a world that the former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs did not hesitate to describe as a "jungle" compared to the EU's "garden." A European continent previously convinced it was reaping the dividends of peace since the 1990s, and which today finds itself facing the conflictual reality of a world that—as the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hubert Védrine, ironically pointed out—much more surely resembles "Jurassic Park."

In 1997, in the conclusion of the Davos World Economic Forum dedicated to the world of tomorrow, representatives from each continent were asked to describe which would be the major continent of the 21st century. After each representative—American, Asian, South American, and African—had argued in favor of their own continent, the European representative of the time advocated for the vision of a world finally united and pacified after centuries of combat and war, and of a Europe ready to collaborate with everyone for an inclusive future. To his surprise, he was firmly answered by the Asian representative, to the applause of the audience, that for decadent Europe, the 21st century would be "a century of iron, fire, and blood," where the world "would come to crush it." (5)

We have arrived at this century of iron, fire, and blood.

Facing the geostrategic shift of a multipolar world, European nations are once again confronting their destiny, if they do not want to exit from history and become prey (6) in a world that is returning to what it has always been: Melian (7).

The coming years will be critical. It is time to grasp their significance.

The next post in this new "Future Frontlines: Navigating the Forces of Change" series will be published in early May. Click here to subscribe > 

_{(1) As highlighted in RAND's 2019 report, "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia", which recommended "providing lethal aid to Ukraine to exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability." Despite prescient warnings that such lethal aid "would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia would have significant advantages", these measures strongly contributed to the outbreak of a high-intensity war in 2022.}

_{(2) While European nations share multiple common interests and definitively need to associate together - what common geopolitical priorities exist between Southern Europe (France, Italy, Spain) with its Mediterranean borders, Central Europe driven by Germany’s Mitteleuropa strategy, and Eastern Europe, seeking to resurrect Piłsudski’s Intermarium ambition, stretching from the Baltic to the Black and Adriatic Seas?}

_{(3) With self-harming European competition policies that have led to the loss of multiple European industry leaders—leaving Europe at the mercy of foreign-controlled technology, particularly from the U.S. and China, across multiple domains. Even if an awareness of sovereignty issues is beginning to emerge, particularly in AI and digital technology.}

_{(4) As highlighted at the Munich Security Conference by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.}

_{(5) This anecdote was notably shared by Vice-Admiral Loïc Finaz, former Director of the French War College.} 

_{(6) Including prey to allies such as the US (as we highlighted in our previous post: "What lessons can we draw from 2024, and what lies ahead in 2025?") or supposed allies such as Turkey, whose President Erdogan recently implied that "Europes' security is unimaginable without Turkey"...}

_{(7) The Melian Dialogue, from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, is a stark illustration of realpolitik and the law of the strongest. In 416 BCE, Athens demanded the neutral island of Melos to surrender or face annihilation. The Melians argued for justice and divine protection, but the Athenians dismissed morality, stating, "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must." Melos refused, leading to its brutal conquest—men were killed, and women enslaved. This episode highlights the harsh realities of power and survival in international relations.}