Erik Jones
In the first half of the twentieth century, Europe was the most militarized and violent region on the planet. By the early twenty-first, it had become the least militarized and least violent, a model of peace, cooperation, and transnational integration. But as Europeans concentrated on building a calmer future, others were resurrecting a more tumultuous past. In recent years, challenges from Russian aggression to Chinese mercantilism to American abandonment have revealed just how unprepared a demilitarized Europe is to handle old-fashioned power politics.
Russia’s seizure of Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014 and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016 were wake-up calls. But after a flurry of concern, Europe’s major powers rolled over and went back to sleep. Moscow’s full-scale invasion of the rest of Ukraine, in 2022, got their full attention, leading to increases in defense spending, reductions in vulnerability, and substantial support for Kyiv. But in absolute terms,
the changes were still small, and it was the United States that continued to bear primary responsibility for military aid to Ukraine, as well as for European security more generally.
Then came Trump’s second election victory. The post–World War II order was founded on a central bargain: the United States would use its extraordinary power to provide international public goods such as peace, security, and an increasingly open global economic system, and Europe, Japan, and other allies would bandwagon with Washington rather than balance against it. Although generations of U.S. policymakers tried to get other NATO members to contribute more to their own defense, they stuck with the bargain even when those partners refused because the broad benefits the United States received from consensual hegemony outweighed the costs and risks of securing it.
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