One paradox of autocratic rule is that anti-democratic leaders casually lie about day-to-day politics and their personal record. Yet when it comes to their grand objectives—their core beliefs about power and the world—they are often strikingly honest.
Consider Russian President Vladimir Putin’s essay from the summer of 2021 on the “Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” Months before tanks rolled toward Kyiv, Putin laid out his worldview in plain language: Ukraine had no right to exist as an independent state.
Drunk on oh-so-cheap Russian gas, many European capitals—and even Kyiv—failed to take the document seriously. Surely, all that talk about Russki Mir was just spin for domestic consumption? Putin didn’t want to force his country into economic suicide, did he?
Delusional Assumptions
The new US National Security Strategy (NSS) produced by the Trump administration is similarly candid—and similarly delusional in its key assumptions about the world. We should take it just as seriously as Putin’s essay.
For some time now, China and Russia have treated the European Union as their foe. With the NSS, the US has now officially joined that group.
The document portrays Brussels as the root cause of all of Europe’s woes, from slow growth to declining birth rates. Trump’s dream seems to be an “old continent” where the EU is replaced by an alliance of “aligned sovereign nations,” framed by an American-Russian entente. Ending the war in Ukraine is thus a US “core interest.” The Kremlin welcomed the new NSS as “largely consistent with our vision.”
History shows that strategic failure is often determined long before the first shot is fired, rooted in false assumptions about the adversary. Putin believed that Ukraine was a hollow, corrupt, artificial country, whose citizens would greet invading Russian troops with flowers. Earlier, when Ukrainians flooded Kyiv’s Maidan square in 2004 and 2013 to demand a European future rather than subordination to Moscow, the Kremlin had dismissed it as a CIA operation.
The Trump administration is making a comparable error about Europe, substituting ideology for analysis.
Yes, Europe’s economy is growing only slowly, and the continent remains heavily dependent on the US for technology and defense. And yes, the rise of far-right parties is fragmenting political systems, producing paralysis in countries like France.
But the Trump administration’s core diagnosis of the state of Europe reads like a self-portrait projected onto its allies.
The strategy claims that Europe is descending into lawlessness, yet homicide, rape, and robbery rates in the United States are multiple times higher than in any EU member state.
The NSS peddles “great replacement” conspiracy theories, warning that immigration threatens Europe’s “Western identity.” Yet, compared to the US, immigration is low in Europe. Today, 9.9 percent of all EU residents were born outside of the bloc; in the US, the share of foreign-born residents is 14.8 percent.
Accusations that the EU suppresses free speech ring hollow coming from a president who pressures broadcasters to fire comedians critical of him.
Global Revolution
One could dismiss all this as rhetorical red meat for Trump’s domestic base. But that would be a mistake.
Trump has shown he is willing to expend real political and financial capital abroad to support ideological allies, even when no clear national interest is at stake. To bolster President Javier Millei ahead of midterm elections in Argentina, Trump told markets he would ready billions of US taxpayer money to stabilize the peso.
There is no such thing as “MAGAism in one country.” Like most emerging radical ideologies, MAGAism is inherently expansive.
To achieve its objectives, the NSS proposes that the US should “cultivate resistance” to Europe’s mainstream parties and support “patriotic” alternatives. Earlier drafts singled out Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Austria as privileged partners.
Sure, Italy, Poland, and Hungary are partially governed by far-right parties. But they are also major beneficiaries of EU fiscal transfers. Austria’s export-driven economy depends fundamentally on the EU’s single market. None of these countries is remotely structured for life outside the EU.
Alongside basic economic illiteracy, the NSS is testimony of a complete disconnect from Europeans. Public support for the EU is at record highs. Seventy-four percent of Europeans believe their country has benefitted from the EU. In Italy only 21 percent, and in Poland, only 25 percent of voters say they want to leave the EU. Trump himself is highly unpopular in Europe, even among far-right voters, polls show.
Emergency
History’s only real law is that of unintended consequences.
US Vice President JD Vance’s Munich speech in February 2025 was instrumental in pushing incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to go “all in” on debt brake reform, paving the way for potentially limitless defense spending.
Today, the NSS shock and the threat of Moscow and Washington deciding Ukraine’s fate on their own is pushing EU capitals to do the previously unthinkable: Move toward majority voting instead of unanimity in foreign policy.
Last week, EU member states for the first time activated the EU treaties emergency clause Article 122 to freeze Russia’s assets held within the EU indefinitely. A large majority of EU member states stripped Hungary and Slovakia of their veto—a watershed moment for the EU.
In a next step, Europeans must decide on the Russian frozen asset loan. This would not only solve Ukraine’s immediate financial problems and boost Europe’s defense industry—as a part of the funds are earmarked for made-in-Europe arms purchases—it would also secure a seat for Brussels at the peace negotiating table. A green light this week would also be the first time that EU leaders collectively acted against Trump’s opposition on Ukraine policy.
Trump, like Putin before him, may yet discover that contempt is a poor substitute for strategy. Their shared legacy could be the very outcome they sought to prevent: a Europe that finally starts to defend itself—against them.
This article is a preview from our Winter 2026 issue “New Ideas for Europe,” out on January 8, 2026.
Joseph de Weck is IPQ’s Paris columnist and author of Emmanuel Macron. The revolutionary president.
