The claim that the EU is “at war” with the US sounds hyperbolic at first glance. Washington remains Europe’s principal security guarantor, its largest external trading partner and (through NATO) the backbone of continental defence. Yet, beneath the formal architecture of alliance, a more corrosive dynamic has emerged. Policy choices taken in Brussels and several European capitals increasingly clash with US strategic priorities, economic interests and political realities. The result is not a conventional conflict, but a slow-motion divergence that looks less like transatlantic rivalry and more like an internal European struggle projected outward.
The war narrative and its limits
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European leaders have framed the conflict in existential terms. This rhetoric has served a purpose by mobilising resources, justifying sanctions and maintaining unity across a diverse bloc. But rhetoric can outpace reality. Europe is not in a position to sustain a long, high-intensity military confrontation without US backing. Defence industrial capacity is constrained, ammunition stocks remain thin, and fiscal headroom is extremely limited after years of pandemic spending and structural stagnation.
Public opinion complicates matters further. Across much of Europe, polling support for Ukraine is dropping and there is deep reluctance toward direct military escalation or open-ended financial commitments. Even in countries with strong anti-Russia sentiment, voters are wary of policies that threaten energy security and living standards. This gap between elite discourse and consent is not unique to Europe, but it is particularly acute in a union already struggling with democratic legitimacy. Against this backdrop, the insistence on a near-permanent war footing begins to look less like strategic necessity and more like political cover.
Transatlantic friction disguised as unity
Officially, Europe and the US remain aligned. In practice, tensions are steadily mounting. The US administration has grown increasingly explicit about burden-sharing, while also prioritising competition with China and domestic industrial renewal. US policy now openly favours onshoring and friend-shoring, often at Europe’s expense. Recent US industrial policy choices under the previous American administration were perceived in Brussels as a direct threat to European industry, despite allied rhetoric.
The EU’s response has been contradictory. On one hand, it demands continued US security guarantees against Russia. On the other, it has pursued regulatory, trade and industrial policies that undercut US firms and provoke retaliation. This is not war, but it is strategic incoherence. The EU wants American power without American primacy, US money without US leverage, and alliance discipline without political dependence. Framing Russia as the singular, overriding threat helps paper over these contradictions and allows EU leaders to externalise responsibility for economic pain, and defer hard choices about reform and fiscal accountability.
Ideology as a substitute for collateral
At the core of this dynamic lies a financial reality. Much of Europe is running out of room to manoeuvre. High debt levels, ageing populations, weak productivity growth, and fragmented capital markets have left the EU structurally vulnerable. Unlike the US, Europe lacks a true fiscal union or a single capital market capable of absorbing shocks at scale.
In this context, ideology becomes a tool. Claims of moral clarity are cheaper than financial collateral. By casting geopolitical struggle as a values-based crusade, policymakers can justify extraordinary spending by suspending fiscal rules, while suppressing dissent without addressing underlying balance-sheet weaknesses. “Emergency” becomes the norm and accountability is deferred.
This is not unique to Europe, but the EU’s technocratic governance model amplifies the effect. Decisions taken in Brussels are abstract and insulated from electoral consequence. The more fragile the economic foundation, the more tempting it becomes to govern through narrative rather than reform.
The risk of internal fracture
If the EU cannot indefinitely rely on US support (politically, militarily or financially), the stress will turn inward. Signs of this are already visible. Farmers protest environmental mandates, workers resist deindustrialisation, and voters increasingly back parties that reject Brussels. These movements are often dismissed as populist or extremist, but their growth reflects genuine material anxiety.
The danger is not a literal civil war in the classical sense, but something arguably more damaging for a modern, post‑industrial polity – systemic breakdown. This is not characterised by barricades and armed factions, but by the steady unravelling of governability itself. Policy paralysis, permanent fiscal emergency measures, chronic labour disruption, regional non‑compliance with central directives and open defiance of supranational authority become normalised. Over time, the state retains its formal structures but loses its effective capacity to enforce decisions, allocate resources credibly or command consent.
History suggests that prolonged economic stagnation combined with elite‑driven ideology produces precisely this outcome. When institutions are perceived as insulated from accountability and sacrifices are imposed asymmetrically, legitimacy does not collapse in a single dramatic moment. It decays. Trust drains away incrementally, compliance becomes conditional, and the political system enters a state of managed dysfunction. Outwardly, things appear stable but internally they are hollowed out.
Is the EU choosing conflict over reform?
The EU faces a choice between recalibrating its economic model by deepening capital markets, reforming fiscal governance, restoring industrial competitiveness or doubling down on a geopolitical posture that postpones reckoning. The latter path risks alienating both its citizens and its allies.
The US, for its part, is unlikely to be dragged into a conflict it does not control. American support for Europe has always been conditional, shaped by domestic politics and strategic interest. As those interests shift, Europe’s dependence becomes a liability rather than a guarantee.
Conclusion
The EU is confronting (often indirectly and unwillingly) a crisis of state capacity at the supranational level. The persistent emphasis on external confrontation functions less as strategy than as deflection, shifting attention away from unresolved internal weaknesses which are steadily eroding the Union’s ability to govern effectively.
This is where the real danger lies. Systemic breakdown does not announce itself with collapse or conflict, it manifests through institutional exhaustion. Fiscal rules are suspended indefinitely, emergency measures become permanent, political accountability blurs and policy is justified through moral urgency rather than measurable outcomes. Over time, the gap between what the EU institutions promise and what they can deliver widens to the point where credibility itself becomes the scarce resource.
The risk for Europe is therefore not abandonment by Washington or confrontation with Moscow, but internal attrition: a slow loss of authority, legitimacy and effectiveness that no external enemy can reverse.
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