On 1 May 2026, two things happened simultaneously that the world’s press mostly covered as separate stories. The United Arab Emirates formally departed OPEC, ending 59 years of membership in the cartel that shaped the modern energy economy. And the EU-Mercosur trade agreement entered provisional validity, creating one of the largest free trade areas on earth after 26 years of negotiation. Two events pointing in the same direction: away from the old order, toward a new era.

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Both were made possible by the same force. Trump’s chaos doctrine, through tariffs, an unplanned war, and the systematic erosion of American reliability, broke the political logjams that had held both decisions in place for years. It pushed South American governments toward Brussels when Washington turned hostile. It gave the UAE the cover to leave a cartel it could no longer justify coordinating with. It made the cost of European delay more visible than the cost of European action. Neither the UAE nor the EU designed these conditions. Both moved decisively when the conditions arrived.

The EU had spent a quarter century negotiating with South America while commentators wrote editorials about European irrelevance. The UAE had spent years being told its production ambitions had to be sacrificed for collective discipline while investing billions in capacity that sat idle. Both absorbed sustained pressure without abandoning their long-term direction. On 1 May 2026, that patience was vindicated simultaneously.

This piece argues that these events are twin signals of a deeper reorganisation of the world economy that Trump’s foreign policy has inadvertently catalysed. The global order is, for the first time in a decade, creating conditions in which Europe could genuinely reorganise itself. That opportunity rests on the continued pursuit of unified diversification and a willingness to make the same hard choices the UAE made.

The opportunity is genuine. So are the risks. And the biggest obstacle may be sitting inside Europe’s own borders, in the factory towns of Bavaria and Wolfsburg, where protectionist practices risk defanging any real European resurgence.

‘We Broke It, You Own It’

The Iran war began on 28 February 2026 with US and Israeli airstrikes. Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, triggering what the IEA described as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Brent crude reached $108 a barrel. European gas prices nearly doubled in a week. The ECB postponed rate cuts, raised its inflation forecast, and warned that Germany and Italy faced recession risk. The EU has paid EUR 25 billion more for energy imports since the war began. Chemical and steel manufacturers imposed surcharges of up to 30%. A country with a GDP of only around $400 billion closed the world’s most important energy chokepoint and survived two months of the most advanced air assault in history.

Trump did not consult European governments before launching the strikes. He did not share the intelligence, the planning, or the endgame. He then demanded that Europe clean up the consequences. When they declined, he called them cowards on social media, threatened to withdraw US troops from Spain and Italy, and raised the prospect of NATO withdrawal. Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations captured the doctrine precisely: in an inversion of the old Pottery Barn rule, Trump was telling his European allies ‘We broke it, but you own it.’ Ian Bremmer put the European fury more plainly: after shouldering the entire financial and military burden of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Europe was being called cowards for declining to join a second war it had no hand in starting.

The Iran war has shown what happens when American military power and OPEC production coordination fail simultaneously. Europe had outsourced both. It can no longer afford to.

The UAE’s Exit: A Country Choosing Its Own Future

I want to bring attention to the Iran war, not for the US or Iran, but for the actions taken by the UAE.

The UAE had invested billions expanding its oil production capacity to 4.8 million barrels per day, targeting 5 million by 2027. Under its OPEC quota, it was permitted to produce only 3.2 million. Saxo Bank described the UAE as being in a production quota straitjacket for years. An Emirati official told the Atlantic Council the decision had been a long time coming, discussed behind closed doors for several years.

Trump’s chaos dividend delivered the political moment. Iran, a fellow OPEC member, had been targeting UAE civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones on a scale exceeding the attacks on Israel. Russia, an OPEC+ partner, had been a steadfast supporter of Tehran throughout. The UAE found itself coordinating production policy alongside governments actively attacking it. Their conclusion to leave OPEC should surprise no one. The war that handed Russia a financial windfall and pushed Europe toward stagflation also handed the UAE the political cover to do what its leadership had been planning for years. The chaos produced the opening. Abu Dhabi walked through it.

The departure is lockstep with their long-term strategy for prosperity. The UAE desires to accelerate its transformation into a post-oil technology and finance hub, aligned with democratic markets and built for a world in which fossil fuel revenues are a declining strategic asset. Abu Dhabi has committed $148 billion to AI since 2024, is hosting Microsoft and OpenAI’s hyperscaler infrastructure, and has committed $1.4 trillion into US AI and infrastructure. Dubai, in which 89% of the population are foreign nationals, is the physical expression of that bet: a jurisdiction that functions, tolerates ambiguity, and rewards competence. The UAE has placed that bet with more conviction than most Western governments have managed themselves.

The risks are real. The UAE absorbed more missile and drone strikes than Israel during the Iran war while operating under informal rather than treaty-bound security arrangements. None of this negates the strategic clarity of the decision. The UAE assessed which of its structures were protecting the future and which were protecting the past, and exited the latter. That is precisely the logic this piece argues Europe must now apply to itself.

For Europe, the oil price consequences of the UAE’s decision are a coming dividend. By leaving OPEC, Abu Dhabi is free to produce at full capacity, approximately 1.6 million barrels per day above its former quota. Saudi Arabia must either cut its own output to compensate or allow prices to fall, and its history suggests it will not accept the revenue sacrifice indefinitely. OPEC’s share of global production has already fallen from roughly 50% at its founding to approximately 33% today. For a continent that has just absorbed EUR 25 billion in additional energy costs from a single conflict, a structurally lower oil price over the coming decade would be an enormous dividend from a decision made in Abu Dhabi. The chaos that cost Europe so dearly is, in this one dimension at least, paying it back.

Yet, lower oil prices alone do not build strategic independence. For that, Europe needed something it had been negotiating for 26 years.

Unified Diversification: Mercosur, 26 years better late than never

The EU-Mercosur agreement entering provisional validity on the same day as the UAE’s OPEC departure is the less-covered event and the more structurally significant for Europe’s long-term position. The deal had been in negotiation since 1999. Twenty-six years of summits, stalled drafts, environmental objections from France, and agricultural lobbying from European farmers produced a running commentary about European institutional paralysis. France alone had blocked completion on multiple occasions, citing threats to its agricultural sector. Germany’s car industry, whose interests in Brazilian market access were directly served by the deal, simultaneously lobbied against the emissions standards that would have made European EVs competitive enough to justify the access. The opposition was real, organised, and had succeeded in delaying completion for a generation.

Then Trump’s chaos doctrine changed the political arithmetic. His tariff regime landed in 2025, pushing South American governments to look elsewhere for reliable trading partners. His Iran war drove energy costs across Europe to levels that made the cost of continued delay feel more dangerous than the cost of completion. His broader posture of American unreliability made the argument for European strategic autonomy, and for the trade architecture that underwrites it, suddenly persuasive to governments that had previously been comfortable free-riding on American-led order. The political will in Brussels to absorb the domestic pain of completion became stronger than the will to keep delaying. The Atlantic Council noted plainly that opponents of the deal can blame Trump for its conclusion. That is accurate. It is also incomplete. The deal required two and a half decades of negotiating groundwork that survived changes of government, financial crises, and a global pandemic. Patience is its own form of strategy. But it was the chaos that finally broke the logjam.

The agreement creates a free trade zone across 31 countries and approximately 730 million people. For European exporters, tariff savings could reach EUR 4 billion annually. Cars currently facing 35% tariffs in Brazil gain access at progressively lower rates. The more strategically significant element, however, is what South America contains that Europe needs: nickel, copper, lithium, aluminium, and titanium, the critical raw materials at the centre of both the green energy transition and the autonomous systems supply chain. China has been the dominant external investor in South American mineral extraction for years, keeping value-add in Chinese facilities and away from partner economies. Mercosur may help shift the balance away from further Chinese dominance.

The Mercosur deal, combined with the EU-Indonesia agreement concluded in 2025 and the EU-India deal signed in January 2026, gives Europe preferential access to the supply chains and consumer markets of emerging economies across two billion people who are neither China nor the United States. No single European government could have negotiated any of these agreements alone. Each required the EU to act as a single strategic entity, absorbing internal political friction and external pressure simultaneously.

Many commentators in Europe wanted a trade war with Washington and were angry at the unfavourable terms. Yet, it seems Europe played their cards well, focussing instead on unified diversification that could pay off over the next decade.

Germany’s Protection Racket

There is a structural blockade at the centre of these opportunities that shows no signs of being addressed. The UAE escaped a cartel that protected legacy producers at the cost of future positioning. Mercosur succeeds partly because it opens markets for European cars. Yet Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the single biggest beneficiary of those car market openings, is simultaneously using its political weight inside European institutions to protect its combustion engine industry in exactly the way that OPEC members have protected their oil revenues: by deploying collective political leverage to slow the structural transition that would otherwise force adaptation. Indeed, the largest winner of Mercosur is predicted to be Germany, with a new outlet for its ICE cars, while they transition to EVs at home.

The German automotive sector accounts for nearly 5% of Germany’s GDP and directly employs over 800,000 people, yet its political influence is even greater than these figures suggest. When the EU proposed a 2035 ban on new combustion engine vehicle sales, Germany led the opposition, securing an exemption for synthetic e-fuels that has no plausible pathway to commercial scale. When Brussels proposed tighter CO2 targets, the industry response, amplified by ACEA, BMW, VW, and Mercedes-Benz, argued that European consumers were simply not ready for electric vehicles. The Jacques Delors Centre described this demand-deficit narrative as a convenient conclusion that downplays the structural dynamics of a market shifting decisively toward electrification, one that draws convenient policy conclusions in the process.

The data does not support Germany car cartel narratives. BYD surpassed Tesla in European EV sales in April 2025. The BYD Dolphin Surf starts at EUR 22,990, significantly undercutting German offerings at a comparable spec. Volkswagen Group’s China market share has fallen from 19% in 2019 to 14.5% in 2024, overtaken in its largest market by BYD. German brands collectively hold 1.6% combined EV market share in China. VW is cutting up to 30,000 jobs from its 300,000-strong workforce. The iconic Wolfsburg plant, once producing 870,000 cars annually, made fewer than 500,000 in 2023. Germany’s new car registrations fell 28% in August 2024.

Yes, Chinese dominance of EV supply chains, magnet production, and battery technology was built on state subsidy at a scale Europe cannot match. That is a legitimate grievance. But blocking Chinese cars from Europe does not reverse this EV revolution. Like every technological breakthrough before it, the EV transition will not be stopped by tariffs. Protectionism delays the inevitable while leaving sheltered industries further behind than if the political will and capital had been directed at competing rather than resisting.

The German automotive industry is not a successful model under temporary pressure. It is a declining model using its political proximity to Berlin and Brussels to slow the policy environment that would accelerate the transition. The UAE did not wait for oil revenues to fall before building its alternative. Germany is waiting. And every year it signals protecting declining sectors, the world will continue to see Europe as a museum, not a leader.

Collecting the Dividend

Europe did not design any of this. It did not ask for a war in Iran, an energy shock, or an American president who treats his closest allies as leverage instruments. It did not orchestrate the UAE’s exit from OPEC or engineer the conditions that finally pushed South American governments to close a deal that had been stalling since 1999. The chaos arrived and as usual, Europe are reacting to events rather than shaping them. Yet, the opportunities it created are real, nonetheless.

The UAE’s departure from OPEC will, when the Strait of Hormuz reopens, put structurally lower oil prices within reach for a continent that has just paid EUR 25 billion more for energy from a single conflict. Mercosur, combined with the EU-Indonesia and EU-India agreements, gives Europe preferential access to the raw materials and consumer markets of emerging economies across two billion people who are neither Chinese nor American. Neither prize is guaranteed. Both require Europe to act as the single strategic entity that unified diversification demands, rather than reverting to the fragmented national lobbying that has historically diluted every Brussels-level ambition.

The harder test is domestic. The UAE made a decisive break from a structure that was protecting its past at the cost of its future. Europe is being asked to make the same kind of break with its own automotive legacy, and the political economy of that choice is considerably more difficult. Combustion engine protection is not Saudi Arabia’s problem. It is Germany’s, and it sits inside the same European institutions that signed the Mercosur deal. Whether Berlin will absorb the transition costs of electrification with the same strategic patience it brought to trade negotiations is the question that determines whether the chaos dividend gets collected or squandered.

The world is not becoming more predictable. It is, for the first time in a decade, moving in ways that reward patience, strategic nerve, and the willingness to break from structures that suited a unipolar order. Whether the governments that set European industrial policy will follow is the question that determines whether the chaos dividend gets collected.

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References

Al Jazeera. (2026) ‘India, EU Agree on Mother of All Trade Deals.’ Al Jazeera, 27 January 2026.

Al Jazeera. (2026) ‘UAE Quits OPEC: What That Means for the Gulf, Energy Markets and Beyond.’ Al Jazeera, 29 April 2026.

Atlantic Council. (2026) ‘The EU and Mercosur Are Creating One of the World’s Largest Free Trade Areas.’ Atlantic Council, 9 January 2026.

Atlantic Council. (2026) ‘Why Is the UAE Leaving OPEC?’ Atlantic Council FastThinking, 29 April 2026.

Bruegel. (2026) ‘How Will the Iran Conflict Hit European Energy Markets?’ Bruegel, 2 March 2026.

Carscoops. (2026) ‘China EV Sales Collapsed by Nearly 20%, and Germany’s Big Five Are Down to 1.6%.’ Carscoops, April 2026.

CNN. (2026) ‘Europe Didn’t Want an Iran War, Yet Trump Is Saddling It With the Consequences.’ CNN, 2 April 2026.

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Jacques Delors Centre. (2025) ‘Europe’s Car Industry in Transition: Stuck in Neutral?’ Jacques Delors Centre, 2025.

JINSA. (2026) ‘The Emirati Moment: The UAE’s Strategic Cycle and the Iran War.’ JINSA, April 2026.

Kyiv School of Economics Institute. (2026) ‘Iran War Helps Russia; Long Conflict Would Fundamentally Undermine Economic Pressure Campaign.’ KSE Institute, 20 March 2026.

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Newsweek. (2026) ‘NATO Ally Says US Humiliated on Iran but Blockade Is Forcing Negotiations.’ Newsweek, 28 April 2026.

RAND Corporation. (2026) ‘Trump’s Iran War Is a Dilemma, Not a Debacle.’ RAND Commentary, 1 April 2026.

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Sino-Russian relations are showing signs of strain. Europe and its Asian allies should exploit that.

On 4 February 2022, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping stood together in Beijing and declared a partnership with “no limits.” Twenty days later, Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine. The sequence was a declaration that the two leading revisionist powers were aligning, and a warning to the West.

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We duly obliged. Western governments, intelligence services, and think tanks have spent the last three years treating the Russia-China relationship as a fixed, permanent, and deepening threat. European rearmament plans cite it. American Indo-Pacific strategy is shaped around it. The phrase ‘authoritarian axis’ has entered mainstream political discourse as though it described something as durable as NATO.

This article makes the case that this framing is wrong, and that getting it wrong is costing Europe and its allies a critical strategic opportunity.

Think instead of two predators from different species, cornered by circumstance and forced to hunt together.

While the hunt lasts, they move in the same direction. They communicate well enough to be dangerous and share a general target. But they do not share a method or an instinct, and would almost certainly turn on each other after the kill.

Russia profits from instability. China depends on order, it benefits when liberal democracies benefit, it grows when they grow. That single contradiction has been present from the beginning. It is compounding now, in real time, and most recently in plain sight: when war came to Iran in early 2026, Russia’s treasury surged on oil price spikes while China watched its export markets buckle. The same event was a windfall for one partner and a crisis for the other.

The Russia-China relationship is real, consequential, and at this moment genuinely useful to both parties. Trade hit a record $245 billion in 2024. Military exercises have intensified. China has provided economic lifelines that Russia could not have found elsewhere. These facts matter. But they describe the surface of a relationship whose foundations are unstable in ways the West has almost entirely failed to exploit.

I will make the case for exploiting these fractures, which are visible, historic, structural, and already widening. I will then argue that Europe in particular has more leverage over this relationship than it currently chooses to use.

Two Giants with Their Backs Against Each Other

The Asia Society Policy Institute describes the two powers as ‘two giants with their backs against each other.’ Russia faces west, toward Europe, where its cultural identity lies and its most dangerous enemies have always come from. China faces east, toward the Pacific, where the sources of its prosperity are concentrated and where the United States presents its most direct strategic challenge. They are aligned against a common adversary. As with Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, whose Tripartite Pact pledged mutual defence while their armies fought entirely separate wars on opposite sides of the earth, their fundamental threats point in different directions.

This is not a trivial observation. It means that the two countries’ core strategic theatres have almost no overlap. Russia’s existential contest is in Eastern Europe. China’s is in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. The scenarios that would most threaten one are essentially irrelevant to the other. An emboldened Russia in Ukraine is, for China, a reputational liability and an economic headache. A militarily assertive China in the Pacific would force Russia to take sides in a confrontation it has no direct stake in. They cooperate on the margins of each other’s priorities. As I will argue later, their economic strategies do not merely differ. They actively clash, in ways that grow more visible with every global disruption. The West and China, for all their strategic rivalry, share far more economic interests in a stable global order than China and Russia do.

Professor Sarah Paine of the US Naval War College, whose book Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier, 1858 to 1924 remains the definitive academic account of the territorial relationship, has put the point more starkly. China, she has written, constitutes Russia’s existential long-term threat, not Ukraine. ‘Like Czar Nicholas II, Vladimir Putin has misidentified his primary foe. Fighting a war of choice, he allows the real menace to his country to gather strength’.

The war in Ukraine, on this reading, is weakening Russia’s position relative to China, consuming the military, economic, and demographic resources Russia would need to manage a much larger long-term challenge on its eastern flank. The predator is exhausting itself on one hunt while the greater rival grows stronger beside it.

The Territory Russia Never Returned

The most important fact about the Russia-China relationship is one that Western commentary almost never discusses: Russia is sitting on Chinese territory, and both governments know it.

Between the mid-19th century and the early 20th, China lost an estimated 1.5 to 2 million square kilometres of territory through a combination of unequal treaties, military pressure, and contested frontier interventions, much of it to Russia. To put that figure in perspective: it is larger than Peru, approaching the total land area of Mexico. It represents one of the largest territorial transfers in modern history, extracted largely from a dynasty too weak to refuse.

The single largest loss came between 1858 and 1860, when Tsarist Russia leveraged a weakened Qing court into two treaties that ceded approximately 600,000 square miles of territory. The Treaty of Aigun and the Convention of Peking transferred what is now the Russian Far East, including the land on which Vladivostok now stands. The city’s very name means ‘ruler of the east,’ a declaration of imperial permanence pressed into the landscape and still visible on every map.

Figure 1. Manchuria-U.S.S.R. boundary (Library of Congress, 1960).

These agreements entered Chinese historical memory as part of the Century of Humiliation, the era in which Western and Russian imperialism carved away territories that a recovering China has spent a century attempting to reclaim, symbolically or literally.

In 1919 and 1920, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Lev Karakhan issued two legally binding declarations promising to return to China all territories taken during the Tsarist period. China has never formally renounced them. Moscow has never acted on them. They sit in legal limbo that Beijing has been careful never to close.

In 2023, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources published maps renaming Vladivostok as Haishenwai and Sakhalin Island as Kuyedao, reverting to their pre-Russian designations. The maps were flagged in an internal FSB document subsequently leaked to the New York Times, which described institutional suspicion of China running through Russia’s entire intelligence and military establishment. A former CIA official with 25 years of Russia experience put it plainly: ‘You don’t have to scratch very deep in any Russian military or intel official to get deep suspicion of China.’

On this occasion, Russia’s suspicions are well founded. The Russian Far East encompasses 40% of Russian territory but fewer than 8.3 million people. The single bordering Chinese province of Heilongjiang has a population of 31.85 million, at a density roughly 34 times higher than the Russian territories across the river. The 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict reflected anxieties that the 1991 and 2004 border treaties have contained, for now. The Soviet Politburo concluded in 1969 that even with overwhelming military superiority, resisting a Chinese assault of sufficient magnitude would not be easy. That calculus has since shifted further in China’s favour, in both manpower and technology.

The reason to raise this is not to predict a land grab. Groups such as Russia’s Pivot to Asia argue that the 2004 border settlement, expanding cross-border infrastructure, and China’s declining population make meaningful conflict virtually impossible. They are right that while alive in Chinese nationalist discourse, is not the mechanism through which this relationship will fracture. I raise these issues to establish that beneath the choreographed summits and joint statements; there are unresolved contests of sovereignty between these two governments that neither side discusses publicly and neither side has forgotten.

The fractures that are exploitable run deeper. They are rooted in incompatible strategic interests, diverging economic models, and a widening gap in national trajectories that no amount of summitry can paper over.

China is outpacing Russia economically and technologically, and the war in Ukraine is accelerating that gap. Russia is burning its capital, its talent, and its future fiscal space on a war that is simultaneously making its partner stronger and itself weaker. At some point, the math becomes untenable for Moscow. History is unambiguous on this point: when two powers share a border, unresolved grievances, and radically diverging trajectories, the partnership eventually gives way to something uglier.

The Economic Contradiction at the Heart of the Axis

The deeper structural contradiction in the Russia-China relationship centres around economic strategy. The two countries have built their prosperity on models that are completely at odds with each other.

Russia is a commodity state with a continental empire’s instincts. Its revenues flow from oil, gas, grain, metals, and fertilisers, commodities whose prices rise when the world is disrupted. In essence, chaos pays. Every conflict in the Middle East, every sanctions regime on a rival producer, every supply chain fracture is, for the Russian treasury, a financial opportunity. China, by contrast, seeks to position itself as an alternative to the United States: a superpower offering economic partnership without moral or ideological conditions.

The 2026 war in Iran made the structural divergence between Russian and Chinese interests visible in real time. Before the conflict, Russia’s fiscal position was deteriorating sharply. Oil and gas revenues had fallen from 45% of the federal budget in 2021 to approximately 20% in 2025 under sanctions and price caps, and Kremlin officials were privately warning Putin of a potential financial crisis by summer 2026 (Time, 2026).

Iran’s near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz changed that overnight. The IEA described it as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. The Russian oil, which was selling at a ​discount before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, is now commanding a premium. The Kyiv School of Economics gave a pessimistic scenario:

“With six months of active war and much slower post-war restoration of supplies, export revenues could rise to $252 billion and budget revenues to $151 billion, likely leading to a budget surplus and allowing Russia to sustain high military spending for years.”

The windfall extends beyond oil to gas, grain, aluminium, and fertilisers, with aluminium up 12% and urea up nearly three quarters. As Carnegie’s Sergey Vakulenko told CNBC:

“What he was spending on the war meant he was basically pawning the country. Now, he doesn’t have to do that anymore.”

China’s experience of this conflict has been a mirror image. Standard economic modelling suggests China’s GDP falls roughly 0.5% for every 25% rise in oil prices. This is likely to be a tame estimate, since the import nations they rely upon are being hit hard. Europe, Japan, and South Korea combined absorb roughly 30% of Chinese exports, and all three face recession risk if the energy disruption persists. A prolonged shock compresses China’s export orders, compounds a domestic property crisis that has already wiped trillions from household wealth, and exposes the fragility of consumer demand that Beijing has been trying to stimulate for years.

Beijing is not without fiscal tools, running a broad deficit estimated at close to 9.5% of GDP in 2026. But much of that spending is being absorbed by local government debt restructuring rather than reaching consumers, and domestic demand has proven stubbornly resistant to stimulus for three years running. A sustained energy shock tipping its largest export markets into recession compounds a problem Beijing has not yet solved. The war that is rescuing Putin’s finances risks cutting down China’s growth model at the knees.

China and Russia are partners in an alliance where one side’s windfall is the other side’s emergency.

The Senior Partner and the Junior Partner

The economic architecture of the relationship is not balanced, and the direction of imbalance has shifted significantly since 2022.

Russia depends on China far more than China depends on Russia. China is Russia’s largest trading partner and seventh largest among China’s partners as of 2024. Chinese car exports to Russia in 2024 were 971% higher than in 2021, filling the vacuum left by departing European and Japanese manufacturers. 57% of Russia’s total imports now come from China, while Russia accounts for less than 0.1% of China’s import categories. Russia and China now settle over 99% of bilateral trade in rubles and yuan combined, insulating transactions from Western oversight, though Chinese banks remain cautious about secondary sanctions exposure.

Beijing is deploying this leverage with considerable sophistication. The Power of Siberia 2 pipeline (Figure 2) illustrates the dynamic precisely. Russia described the September 2025 memorandum as a binding agreement and treated it as a political victory. China has remained vague about the core details. Price, route, investment terms, and delivery timelines are all unresolved. Russia’s lack of alternative buyers means China can take its time, and it is doing exactly that, while paying Russia around 38% less than Gazprom charges its other clients.

Figure 2. Russia’s pivot East in infrastructure form: the proposed Power of Siberia 2 route through Mongolia illustrates both the ambition and the asymmetry. China has not agreed to terms. Russia needs the deal more (IISS 2024).

Gazprom’s broader position tells the story more vividly than any statistic. Having lost its European markets, the company attempted to route gas through old Soviet-era pipeline networks across Central Asia, pipelines that originally brought Central Asian gas to Russia but now operate in reverse. In 2025, Gazprom proposed that China import Russian gas from Kazakhstan using the existing network. China rejected the plan as unviable. The largest gas company on earth, pumping gas backwards through Soviet-era pipes, having its Central Asian workaround rejected by the country it depends on to survive.

Chinese analysts writing for domestic audiences are considerably more candid about this power dynamic than the public diplomacy of ‘no limits’ suggests. A 2024 analysis in the Journal of Contemporary China found that the Chinese expert community increasingly views Russia’s development prospects as ‘dim’, advocates selective engagement on Chinese terms, and expects the two countries to diverge on questions of global order over time. Chinese strategists are planning for the future of the relationship. The West remains paralysed by the present.

The Slow Conquest

The fracture does not have to be manufactured. China Is Absorbing Russia’s Sphere of Influence. Worse still, it is happening in regions Russia considers its strategic birthright.

In Central Asia, China has become the dominant external economic actor across all five former Soviet republics since 2022, building infrastructure and trade dependencies that Russia cannot match. Several Central Asian governments maintained visible neutrality on the Ukraine war, a posture unthinkable under Soviet conditions. The region is being commercially absorbed by China while Russia’s attention is consumed in Ukraine.

In the Arctic, the gap between the celebrated partnership and the operational reality is equally telling. Russia has arrested multiple scientists for passing Arctic data to China while simultaneously welcoming Chinese commercial interest in the Northern Sea Route. China complied with Biden-era sanctions that halted Arctic LNG 2 in January 2025, and Carnegie’s analysis found that expectations of Chinese expansion through the partnership have not been fulfilled. RAND’s September 2025 assessment went further, arguing that by engaging China strategically on Arctic governance, the United States and Europe could fracture the Moscow-Beijing alignment in a domain where Russian territorial sensitivity and Chinese commercial interest point in opposite directions. It is a mainstream recommendation from one of America’s most respected defence institutions. Western governments have so far declined to act on it.

Right Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment

There is a tempting argument, one that found favour in certain Washington circles after 2024, that Western policy created the Russia-China alignment by treating both countries as adversaries simultaneously, and that accommodation with Moscow would therefore fracture it. The evidence has not been kind to this theory.

American overtures toward Russia since early 2025 have not produced any cooling of the Moscow-Beijing relationship. Russia has shown no inclination to trade its Chinese economic lifeline for Western goodwill, not least because it does not trust Western goodwill to last. What the accommodation strategy produced instead was a weakened Ukrainian defensive position, reduced European confidence in American security guarantees, and a Putin who has concluded that calibrated aggression carries manageable consequences. As Figure 3 shows, Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine have more than doubled since Trump took office.

Russia still regards the United States as an adversary. Putin sees his political survival tied to the outcome in Ukraine, which means weakening Ukraine weakens the West, not Russia. China has drawn its own lesson from watching this unfold: that a war of attrition against a democracy can succeed if the democracy grows bored. Taiwan is paying close attention.

Figure 3. Monthly missile and drone attacks on Ukraine by Russia since January 2023, with a marker denoting Trump's return to office (CSIS/BBC, 2026).

Europe’s Move: Stop Playing Defence

European governments have spent three years treating the Russia-China relationship as a fixed threat to be managed rather than a structural instability to be actively exploited. That is a choice, and it is the wrong one.

The fractures documented in this piece are happening now, and accelerating. Russia is losing Central Asia to China without a shot being fired. The Arctic is a surveillance competition masquerading as cooperation. The Iran war exposed in real time that the two partners’ economic interests are directly opposed. Russia’s own security services acknowledge what the public diplomacy denies. Chinese strategists are already planning for a post-Russian-dependency future. Europe is still writing threat assessments about a bloc that is dissolving from within.

The leverage is there, and it is greater than Europe typically acknowledges. China depends on European markets for a substantial share of its export revenue, giving European governments genuine influence over Beijing’s risk calculus that has almost never been deployed with strategic intent. That leverage is amplified by geography and shared anxiety: Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines are watching American security commitments wobble in real time, and each has strong independent reasons to see the Sino-Russian relationship strained rather than consolidated. A coordinated European approach that brought these Indo-Pacific partners into a common framework for raising the cost of Chinese support for Russia would confront Beijing with pressure from multiple directions simultaneously, rather than the fragmented and easily dismissed signals it currently receives.

The Arctic is a domain where European engagement with China on governance and commercial access could raise the cost to Beijing of providing unlimited cover for Russian aggression, without requiring any dramatic rupture. Central Asia is a region where European investment, development finance, and trade relationships could accelerate the very diversification away from Moscow that Central Asian governments are already pursuing but cannot move fast enough to achieve alone.

The CNA analysis from August 2025 laid out the mechanics: increase the economic cost to China of coordinating with Russia, press the Chinese military threat into elite-level diplomatic engagement with Moscow, and stop reflexively treating Russia and China as a single strategic unit when doing so actively suppresses the tensions that Europe should be widening.

None of this requires giving ground or moral legitimacy to Beijing. It requires a harder-edged understanding of how authoritarian partnerships function. Authoritarian states make unreliable allies precisely because the instincts that make them dangerous to their enemies - the zero-sum thinking, the territorial hunger, the institutional paranoia - make them equally dangerous to each other. Russia and China are not bound by shared values or mutual trust. They are bound by shared convenience. And convenience, as history has repeatedly demonstrated, has a shelf life.

Built to Break

Economic strategies at odds, historical grievances unresolved, growing asymmetries in China’s favour. The Sino-Russian relationship is built to break.

China’s reputational cost of the partnership is rising, absorbing sustained criticism from European governments, pressure over dual-use technology exports, and damage to its credibility as a neutral global actor. Domestic political pressure within Russia will intensify as Chinese living standards continue to pull ahead. Russia’s GDP per capita at purchasing power parity stood at approximately $47,405 in 2024 against China’s $27,105, but the vectors are moving in opposite directions and the war in Ukraine is accelerating Russia’s downward trajectory. Central Asia is shifting into China’s economic orbit. The Arctic is a surveillance competition dressed as cooperation. Every future global disruption will reprise the same structural tension: Russia profits from instability; China depends on order.

Western analysts who treated the Soviet-Chinese alliance of the 1950s as a permanent feature of the strategic landscape were proved wrong within a decade. The Sino-Soviet split happened because structural contradictions between two large powers with overlapping ambitions and unresolved territorial grievances proved stronger than shared ideology. Ideological similarities have faded, yet the structural contradictions remain.

The question for Europe is whether the West will be positioned to shape the Sino-Russian fracture when it comes, or whether it will simply observe it. Trump’s first year back in office have already provided Moscow and Beijing with an early answer. Western resolve, for now, is negotiable.

Europe cannot wait for American leadership to begin. It needs to decide that shaping this fracture is a strategic priority and act accordingly, before the fracture resolves itself in ways that leave Europe with no influence over the outcome.

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References

BESA Center for Strategic Studies. (2025) ‘On China’s Territorial Claims Against the Russian Federation.’ BESA Center Perspectives, March 2025. Available at: besacenter.org [Accessed April 2026].

Bloomberg. (2026) ‘Russia Gains Billions From Iran War as Commodity Prices Surge Globally.’ Bloomberg News, 1 April 2026.

Brookings Institution. (2025) ‘The China-Russia Relationship and Threats to Vital US Interests.’ Washington DC: Brookings Institution, January 2025. Available at: brookings.edu [Accessed April 2026].

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (2025) ‘The Arctic Is Testing the Limits of the Sino-Russian Partnership.’ Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, February 2025. Available at: carnegieendowment.org [Accessed April 2026].

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (2026) ‘What the Russian Energy Sector Stands to Gain From War in the Middle East.’ Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, March 2026.

Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). (2025) ‘Russia-China Relations in Central Asia.’ CEPA Commentary, 2025. Available at: cepa.org [Accessed April 2026].

ChinaPower Project, CSIS. ‘What Are the Weaknesses of the China-Russia Relationship?’ Available at: chinapower.csis.org [Accessed April 2026].

CNBC. (2026) ‘Russia Gets a Windfall From Iran War but Boost Could Be Short-Lived.’ CNBC, 31 March 2026.

CNA. (2025) ‘Russia and China Have Drawn Closer: Three Ways to Wedge Them Apart.’ CNA Analysis, August 2025. Available at: cna.org [Accessed April 2026].

Council on Foreign Relations. (2025) ‘China and Russia: Exploring Ties Between Two Authoritarian Powers.’ CFR Backgrounder, updated September 2025. Available at: cfr.org [Accessed April 2026].

EU Institute for Security Studies. (2025) ‘The Dependence Gap in Russia-China Relations.’ EUISS Analysis, October 2025. Available at: iss.europa.eu [Accessed April 2026].

GeoRank. (2024) Economy of China vs Russia: GDP, Debt and 71 Stats. Available at: georank.org [Accessed April 2026].

Intereconomics. (2025) ‘China-Russia Cooperation: Economic Linkages and Sanctions Evasion.’ Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Volume 60, Issue 2, 2025.

Kim, Patricia M. (2022) ‘The Limits of a No-Limits Partnership: China and Russia Can’t Be Split, but They Can Be Thwarted.’ Foreign Affairs, August 2022.

Kyiv School of Economics Institute. (2026) ‘Iran War Helps Russia; Long Conflict Would Fundamentally Undermine Economic Pressure Campaign; Sanctions Easing Does Not Resolve Energy Market Challenges.’ KSE Institute, 20 March 2026. Available at: kse.ua [Accessed April 2026].

Kyiv School of Economics Institute. (2026) ‘Russian Oil Tracker: March 2026.’ KSE Institute, April 2026. Available at: kse.ua [Accessed April 2026].

Newsweek. (2025) ‘Maps Show Russian Territory China Could Annex Amid FSB Suspicion.’ Newsweek, 10 June 2025. Available at: newsweek.com [Accessed April 2026].

Paine, S. C. M. (1996) Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier, 1858-1924. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Paine, S. C. M. (2023) ‘Japan Caught Between Maritime and Continental Imperialism.’ In The Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age. Princeton University Press, pp. 415-439.

Paine, S. C. M. (2025) ‘China, Not Ukraine, Constitutes Russia’s Existential Threat.’ Kyiv Independent, January 2025. Available at: kyivindependent.com [Accessed April 2026].

Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). (2026) ‘How Russia and China Are Winning the War in Iran.’ PIIE Realtime Economics, 2026. Available at: piie.com [Accessed April 2026].

RAND Corporation. (2025) ‘Cracks in the Ice: Why Engaging China Can Check Russian Power in the Arctic.’ RAND Commentary, September 2025. Available at: rand.org [Accessed April 2026].

Sagild, Rebekka Asnes and Hsiung, Christopher Weidacher. (2024) ‘Chinese Re-Examinations of Russia? The Strategic Partnership in the Wake of Russia’s War Against Ukraine.’ Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 34, Issue 155, 2025.

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Credit: BBC News (2026).

Israel and the Limits of Strategic Exceptionalism

The Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 killed 1,195 people, took 251 hostages, and constituted the deadliest single day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. The right to respond militarily was not seriously contested. The question was never whether Israel would fight. It was always how, for how long, and at what cost to its own long-term strategic and financial position. That question is now answering itself in ways that markets, governments, and institutional investors can no longer ignore.

To say that Israel is becoming uninvestable is to describe a shift in how it is being priced, both financially and politically. For decades, Israel benefited from a kind of strategic indulgence. Its risks were understood, but they were discounted. Investors, governments, and institutions treated it as a special case. This exceptionalism is weakening by the day.

The issue is not simply the scale of destruction in Gaza. It is the accumulation of legal, reputational, and geopolitical risk that now surrounds any association with Israel. Allegations of war crimes, and the increasing willingness of international bodies to engage with them, create exposure that large institutions are structurally unequipped to ignore. Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and publicly listed companies operate within compliance frameworks that are sensitive to exactly this kind of risk. Even the possibility of future legal action is enough to change behaviour.

At the same time, Israel has tied itself closely to a political current in the United States that is unstable and widely mistrusted among its traditional allies. Alignment with Donald Trump and the faction of American politics he represents places Israel on one side of a deepening divide within the West itself. European governments, already facing domestic pressure over Gaza, are recalculating the cost of that alignment. This is not a symbolic concern. It affects trade, regulatory posture, and the willingness to provide diplomatic cover.

For investors, the picture is becoming clearer. Israel remains a technologically advanced economy with strong fundamentals in certain sectors. But those strengths now sit alongside risks that are harder to model and harder to hedge. ESG screens are tightening. Boycott movements are gaining institutional traction. Legal exposure is expanding. Political backing, while still substantial, is less automatic than it was.

Capital does not need a crisis to move. It responds to trajectory. When a country begins to look like a source of persistent controversy, legal ambiguity, and diplomatic friction, investment decisions adjust quietly and then all at once. Allocations shrink. Partnerships become conditional. The cost of doing business rises.

This is the direction of travel. Israel is not collapsing, and it is not isolated. But it is becoming a more difficult place to justify, to defend, and to remain exposed to at scale. That is what Uninvestable means in practice.

The Numbers Defining Israel’s Risk

The Gaza Health Ministry reported more than 72,000 Palestinians killed by late February 2026. UN agencies including OCHA have regularly cited ministry figures while noting that some casualty data are provided by the ministry and not independently verified by the UN. Israeli military intelligence data, leaked to The Guardian in August 2025, identified approximately 8,900 confirmed Hamas fighters among the dead at a point when total recorded deaths stood at 53,000, implying a civilian ratio of approximately 83%, a figure that the IDF’s own internal data, according to the leak, did not dispute.

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research estimated 78,318 violent deaths in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 31 December 2024, with a range of 70,614 to 87,504, and said a subsequent analysis suggested total conflict-related deaths had likely surpassed 100,000 by 6 October 2025. Israel disputes these figures. What it cannot dispute is that (no matter how unfairly) the scale of civilian casualties has become the defining fact of how this conflict is perceived internationally, and perception is not separable from financial reality for both Israel and the MENA region.

Israel’s population is roughly 10 million, set within a Middle East and North Africa region of approximately 440 million people as of 2020, of whom about 94% are Muslim. Jews constitute fewer than 2% of the region’s population, almost all of whom reside in Israel. The imbalance is not only demographic but economic. Israel’s GDP was about $540 billion in 2024. By comparison, the wider MENA economy is roughly $4.7 trillion on World Bank definitions, or around $4.1 trillion excluding Israel itself. On a broader OIC-based measure, the surrounding Islamic world accounts for about $9.2 trillion in GDP. What this means is that Israel cannot realistically meet its long-term goals of prosperity and peace in the Middle East through force alone. Certainly not without help from allies, and this is where significant erosion has occurred.

The Collapse of Western Public Opinion

The shift in Western public attitudes toward Israel since October 2023 is among the most rapid movements in allied public opinion since the end of the Cold War. A Pew Research 2025 Global Attitudes Survey (Figure 1) found a 24-country median of 62% holding a negative view of Israel, with only 29% favourable. The breadth is striking: the Netherlands at 78%, Japan at 79%, Sweden at 75%, Germany at 64%, France at 63%, the UK at 61%. Turkey stands at 93% unfavourable.

Figure 1. Views of Israel across 24 countries. Source: Pew Research Center, Spring 2025 Global Attitudes Survey.

Within the United States, 53% of Americans now hold an unfavourable view of Israel, up from 42% in March 2022, with the share holding very unfavourable views roughly doubling to 19%. American sympathy for Israelis reached an all-time low in 2025, falling below 50% for the first time in almost 25 years of Gallup tracking. Among American independents (Figure 2), sympathy for Israel has fallen from around 60% in 2012 to 30% by 2026, while Palestinian sympathy has risen from 15% to 41%, the two lines crossing for the first time in survey history.

Figure 2. Shifting sympathies among US independents. Source: Gallup World Affairs surveys, 2026.

This matters structurally and financially. The United States provides approximately $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel under agreements requiring congressional authorisation. Democrats’ support for Israel’s military actions has fallen from 36% at the start of the conflict to 8% by mid-2025. Among Americans aged 18 to 34, only 9% approve. The political coalition that sustained decades of near-unconditional congressional support is narrowing at precisely the moment Israel needs it most. The US midterms in November may in part be a referendum on Israel. And if the Democrats take both the House and Senate, it could mean a very isolated Israel.

Credible but unconfirmed accounts suggest Netanyahu advanced Iran war aims so maximalist that they found support only from Trump and Vance, isolating Israel further within the very alliance on which its security depends.

Europe’s relationship with Israel is even worse.

Across Europe, YouGov tracking shows a sharp downward inflection across all major economies at the October 2023 marker (Figure 3). Net favourability had already been negative before the war and has deteriorated to between -45 and -55 in France, Spain, and Denmark by May 2025, with Germany close behind at around -44. Europe is not a peripheral actor in Israel’s economic or security position. The European Union is Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for roughly 30% of its total trade in goods. Bilateral trade in goods alone exceeded €45 billion annually in recent years, with deep integration across pharmaceuticals, technology, and industrial inputs.

Europe also plays a material, if more politically sensitive, role in arms supply. While the United States remains dominant, European states including Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom have authorised billions in defence exports to Israel over the past decade, with Germany in particular emerging as a key supplier after 2023. This creates a structural tension. Public opinion across Europe is moving sharply in one direction, while trade and defence relationships pull in another. That gap is politically difficult to sustain. Over time, democratic pressure has a way of feeding into regulatory decisions, export controls, and investment policy. For Israel, the risk is not immediate rupture but gradual constraint across precisely those relationships on which its economy and security model depend.

Figure 3. Israel’s net favourability across six European countries, August 2021 to May 2025. Source: YouGov, 12-26 May 2025. Graphic: The Guardian.

Israel Risks Becoming Uninvestable

Public opinion is one channel through which sustained military conflict erodes strategic position. Capital markets are another.

All three major credit rating agencies have downgraded Israel’s sovereign credit since October 2023, marking the most sustained period of rating pressure in the country’s modern history. Fitch Ratings downgraded Israel from A+ to A in August 2024, citing rising fiscal pressures and a widening deficit. S&P Global Ratings lowered Israel to A+ with a negative outlook. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Israel in multiple steps to A3, also with a negative outlook, pointing to elevated geopolitical risk and weakening institutional predictability.

The fiscal trajectory has shifted accordingly. Israel’s debt-to-GDP ratio, which stood near 60% before the war, is now expected to approach 70% in the coming years. The Bank of Israel has estimated total war-related costs in the tens of billions of dollars, with early projections exceeding 200 billion shekels. The immediate economic shock in late 2023 was severe: private consumption, imports, and exports all contracted sharply in the months following the attack, reflecting sudden disruption to labour supply, investment, and domestic demand.

Financial markets have responded in kind. Sovereign bond spreads have widened materially from pre-war levels, reflecting a higher risk premium on Israeli debt. Softer indicators point in the same direction: estimates suggest a significant increase in high-net-worth emigration since 2023, while tens of thousands of businesses have either closed or suspended activity during the conflict period. Taken together, they describe an economy absorbing sustained structural stress.

The counterargument is real and deserves weight. Israel’s high-tech sector remains globally competitive and has shown resilience under pressure, particularly in cybersecurity, defence technology, and artificial intelligence. Growth forecasts remain positive, and Israel retains investment-grade status across all major agencies. For investors with a narrow financial horizon and limited exposure to reputational constraints, opportunities remain.

But capital is not governed by financial return alone. ESG frameworks, regulatory scrutiny, and reputational risk increasingly shape allocation decisions, especially for large institutional investors. Major index providers and watchdog organisations have assigned controversy ratings to Israeli firms linked to defence and financial infrastructure. The substantial Norwegian Government Pension Fund has expanded exclusions of specific Israeli companies, while trade unions, churches, and public funds in Europe and North America have moved to review or reduce exposure to Israeli-linked assets.

Legal risk amplifies this trend. Proceedings before the International Court of Justice and the language adopted by UN bodies have elevated the possibility of future legal and regulatory consequences, regardless of the final outcome. For institutional investors, the threshold is not certainty. It is plausibility. Once a category of risk becomes plausible at scale, it must be priced.

That repricing is underway. It is uneven, and it is contested. But it is directional. Investors do not need to reach moral consensus to change behaviour. They only need to conclude that the balance between risk and return has shifted. Increasingly, they are.

The Startup Nation Premium is Eroding

A further pressure point sits inside Israel’s own growth model, and it is one that the “Startup Nation” narrative has not yet absorbed.

Israel’s economic identity rests on software. Companies like Wix and Monday.com became emblems of a country that punched far above its weight in global technology markets, building scalable SaaS businesses sold predominantly into Western enterprise and SMB customers. The sector accounts for roughly half of all Israeli exports and the disproportionate share of market visibility that sustained the “Startup Nation” premium in the minds of international investors. That premium is now under structural pressure from a direction that has nothing to do with geopolitics.

Generative and agent-based AI is compressing the value of traditional software layers at exactly the point in the stack where Israeli SaaS companies have historically been strongest.

To put it bluntly, the last 6 months have been brutal for many Israeli tech stocks. Figure 4 samples some of these familiar tech names down between 49-65% in this period. Monday.com saw a 21% single-day share price decline in February 2026 as markets began repricing whether AI-native alternatives could displace its core workflow automation model. Fiverr and Mobileye are also struggling to address AI challengers. Wix has moved aggressively to integrate AI and diversify its revenue base in response, limiting some of the damage. These are not isolated earnings surprises. They are early readings of a structural repricing. The subscription model that underpinned two decades of growth assumes that software is a scarce, differentiated capability. AI agents are making it abundant.

Figure 4. Share price performance of selected Israeli-linked SaaS and digital platform companies over the six months to April 2026. Source: TradingView.

The labour market effects are emerging more gradually but in the same direction. Israel’s high-tech sector is becoming more output-focused, with companies prioritising efficiency over headcount growth. Hiring expectations have weakened materially since 2022, reflecting a combination of tighter global financing conditions, war-related disruption, and early impacts from AI-assisted development tools. The pool of technology job seekers has increased significantly over this period, particularly among mid-level engineers. While automation is not the sole driver, advances in AI are beginning to reduce demand for some coding and support functions that previously absorbed large numbers of workers, adding a structural element to what began as a cyclical slowdown.

None of these amounts to a collapse of Israel’s technology sector. The country remains highly competitive in cybersecurity, semiconductor design, and AI infrastructure, supported by a military intelligence pipeline that continues to produce world-class talent. But there is a meaningful difference between the sectors where Israel retains strength and the one that made it broadly investable to international capital. Scalable SaaS sold into Western markets was accessible, recurring, and relatively easy to underwrite. By contrast, cybersecurity and defence technology are more specialised, more politically exposed, and increasingly entangled with the same legal and reputational risks shaping perceptions of the state itself. The margin of comfort that software once provided is narrowing, from the AI side as value shifts within the software stack, and from the geopolitical side as association carries greater cost.

The convergence of these factors leaves Israel exposed to far more downside should the United States and other allies pull away from Israel in the coming years.

What is changing is the context in which Israel’s strengths are evaluated. Credit downgrades, rising fiscal pressure, and widening risk premiums point to a more demanding financial environment. At the same time, ESG constraints, legal exposure, and shifting public opinion are narrowing the pool of capital willing to engage. Structural changes in global technology markets are weakening the specific model that once underpinned Israel’s appeal to a broad institutional base. Each of these pressures could be absorbed in isolation. In combination, they alter the risk calculus. Israel remains capable, but it is becoming harder to justify as a large-scale, long-duration allocation. That is what becoming uninvestable looks like in practice.

Europe’s Impossible Position

Europe’s relationship with Israeli defence companies sits at the intersection of two forces that are increasingly difficult to reconcile: a continent rearming at pace and seeking proven systems, and a public that has turned sharply against Israel’s conduct in Gaza and, more recently, Lebanon.

Europe has become a major destination for Israeli arms exports. Recent data indicates that roughly 40–45% of Israeli defence exports were directed to Europe in 2023–2024, a sharp increase from previous years. Israeli defence firms have reported strong financial performance as a result. Elbit Systems reported quarterly revenues of around $1.6–1.7 billion in 2024 and a backlog exceeding $20 billion. Israel Aerospace Industries has similarly reported multi-year order backlogs in excess of $20 billion. The commercial logic is straightforward. Israeli systems are seen as operationally proven, and European governments rearming in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are prioritising capability and speed of delivery.

This has translated into major procurement decisions. Germany agreed a roughly $3.5 billion Arrow 3 missile defence deal with Israel Aerospace Industries in 2023, the largest defence purchase in its history. Finland selected Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’s David’s Sling system for approximately €300 million. European procurement has also continued through joint ventures such as EuroSpike, linking Rafael with German partners to produce anti-tank systems within Europe. The strategic rationale is clear. European air defence inventories have been depleted by support to Ukraine, and the urgency of replenishment has outweighed political hesitation in many cases.

But political constraints are tightening. Spain moved in 2024 to halt arms exports to Israel and has pushed for wider European restrictions. Germany, while remaining Israel’s largest European supplier, has faced increasing domestic and legal pressure over export approvals, with periods of slowed or paused licensing. The United Kingdom has reviewed and suspended a portion of its export licences. These actions have not amounted to a unified European embargo, but they signal growing friction between policy and public opinion.

Legal pressure is also increasing. In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion finding Israel’s occupation of the West Bank unlawful and calling on states to avoid actions that could support that presence. National courts have begun to act on this. A Dutch court ruling in 2024 required the Netherlands to halt exports of F-35 components destined for Israel, establishing a precedent for legally enforceable restrictions within Europe. Similar cases are being pursued in other jurisdictions, suggesting that legal constraints may expand even where governments remain reluctant.

The degree of industrial entanglement complicates any rapid shift. European defence supply chains are interconnected with Israeli systems, particularly in areas such as missile defence, drones, and avionics. Joint ventures, licensed production, and component manufacturing blur the line between domestic and foreign procurement. This makes disengagement costly and slow, even where political pressure is rising.

The structural tension is clear. In countries where large majorities of the public hold unfavourable views of Israel, governments must justify continued defence cooperation while also funding the largest rearmament programmes in decades. That balance is becoming harder to sustain. Spain’s restrictions and the Dutch court ruling are not isolated events. They point to a broader trend in which legal risk, public opinion, and political cost begin to constrain what was previously a purely strategic calculation.

A further pressure sits beneath this. Europe’s rearmament strategy is explicitly designed to build industrial autonomy and expand domestic production capacity. EU initiatives, including large-scale defence funding mechanisms, are structured to favour European manufacturers. Israeli firms do not fall within that category. As procurement policy shifts toward domestic industry, the commercial case for Israeli systems weakens alongside the political one. Even where Israeli technology remains competitive, the long-term direction of European defence policy reduces structural dependence on external suppliers.

The Price of Every Victory

Israel has demonstrated extraordinary military capability over the past two and a half years. It has degraded Hamas’s military infrastructure, significantly weakened Hezbollah, and struck Iranian nuclear facilities. These achievements are real and, in many cases, exceeded even the most hawkish expectations. But military capability and strategic success are not the same thing. A strategy is a plan for achieving defined political objectives. What Israel has pursued instead is the destruction of immediate adversaries, with no clear account of what comes after.

The question was never whether Israel had the right to fight. It was always at what cost. That question has now answered itself. Every battle won in the past 18 months carries the character of a Pyrrhic victory. Every tactical gain generates new grievances, both regionally and globally. Modern warfare, filmed and distributed in real time, is as much a contest of perception as it is of force. Civilian harm is not only a humanitarian issue. It is a strategic one.

The financial and geopolitical data points are no longer isolated signals. All three major rating agencies have downgraded Israeli sovereign debt. The risk premium on government bonds has widened materially. High-net-worth emigration has increased. Across 24 countries, 62% of respondents now hold a negative view of Israel. Major institutional investors have reduced exposure. European governments and courts have imposed restrictions affecting arms flows and defence supply chains. Each development can be explained individually. Taken together, they describe a country generating cumulative pressure on its financial credibility, its diplomatic relationships, and the external support on which its security depends.

There is a double standard applied to Israel, and it is worth naming plainly. The level of sustained scrutiny directed at Israel is not applied in the same way to Hamas, Iran, or Russia. Parts of the authoritarian world have an obvious interest in presenting Israel as uniquely illegitimate, because doing so weakens Western cohesion. That framing is cynical and should be resisted. But it does not remove Israel’s responsibility for the consequences of its own strategy.

Under Benjamin Netanyahu, the campaign has been conducted with little visible concern for the political cost imposed on liberal democratic allies. Those allies have provided diplomatic cover, military support, and economic integration. They have also absorbed growing domestic political pressure in doing so. That goodwill is finite, and it has been drawn down heavily.

The underlying assumption appears to be that international opinion is fixed, that hostility is inevitable regardless of conduct. As a psychological response to historical experience, that view is understandable. As a strategy, it is self-defeating. It treats opposition as static when it is in fact responsive to events. It assumes continued unconditional support from the United States at a time when that support is becoming more contested, both internationally and within American politics itself.

Israel has consistently presented itself as a Western liberal democracy bound by international humanitarian law. That claim underpins its access to Western support. It cannot be separated from the standards it implies. Those standards are not set by Hamas or any adversary. They are set by the values Israel itself invokes.

Israel is not collapsing. Its military strength remains formidable, and its economy retains areas of genuine competitiveness. But the direction of travel is clear. The military victories are visible and immediate. The strategic costs are slower, structural, and harder to reverse. A state can win battles and still degrade its long-term position. That is the trajectory that is now emerging.

References

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Action on Armed Violence (AOAV). (2025) ‘Concern as MoD Reportedly Poised to Hand £2bn Training Deal to Elbit.’ AOAV, 20 August 2025.

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). (2025) Divesting for Palestinian Rights: Tracker. Available at: afsc.org [Accessed March 2026].

Atlantic Council. (2026) Tracking US Military Assets in the Iran War. Updated 26 March 2026.

Bank of Israel. (2025) Bank of Israel Annual Report 2024. Jerusalem: Bank of Israel, March 2025.

Brookings Institution. (2025) ‘Support for Israel Continues to Deteriorate, Especially Among Democrats and Young People.’ August 2025.

Brown University Costs of War Project. (2025) The Human Toll of the Gaza War. Watson Institute, October 2025.

Brussels Signal. (2025) ‘Germany to Buy Israeli Missiles in €2 Billion Deal Despite Weapons Embargo.’ 24 October 2025.

Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. (2025) Israel/OPT: Divestment of Investors and Companies. Available at: business-humanrights.org [Accessed March 2026].

CIVICUS Lens. (2026) ‘The EU Cannot Position Itself as a Defender of Human Rights While Being One of Israel’s Primary Arms Markets.’ March 2026.

Fitch Ratings. (2024) ‘Fitch Downgrades Israel to A; Outlook Negative.’ 12 August 2024.

Gallup. (2026) ‘Independents’ Sympathies in the Middle East Situation.’ Gallup World Affairs Survey Trend, 2002-2026.

Gaza Health Ministry / Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (2026) Cited in Wikipedia, ‘Casualties of the Gaza War.’ As of 21 February 2026.

Henley and Partners. (2024) Private Wealth Migration Report 2024. London: Henley and Partners.

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Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. (2025) ‘Accounting for Uncertainty in Conflict Mortality Estimation: An Application to the Gaza War in 2023-2024.’ November 2025.

Moody’s Investors Service. (2024) ‘Moody’s Downgrades Israel to Baa1; Outlook Negative.’ September 2024.

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YouGov / The Guardian. (2025) ‘Israel’s Negative Image in Europe Has Declined Further Since 2023.’ YouGov poll, 12-26 May 2025.

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Photo source: The Guardian, Mohammad Mohnsenifar.

There is a story we keep telling ourselves, and we keep being surprised when it ends badly.

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The story goes like this: a brutal regime holds a population captive. The population, given the opportunity, would choose freedom. External force provides that opportunity. Democracy follows. The story is so emotionally satisfying that we have pursued it at the cost of trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives. It is also, in most of the conditions under which we apply it, wrong. Not because the desire for a free Iran is misplaced, but because destroying a regime and building a state are two entirely different operations, and we keep conflating them.

History has run this experiment before.

Germany and Japan in 1945 were physically destroyed, ideologically discredited, and occupied by foreign powers. Within a decade, both were stable democracies and economic powerhouses. Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan from 2001 were also occupied by foreign powers, with vast resources committed to their reconstruction. Within a decade, both had descended into sectarian fragmentation, insurgency, and institutional collapse. The difference was not the quality of the intervention, but what existed beneath the toppled regime. Germany and Japan had bureaucratic architecture, civic institutions, and political cultures that could receive democracy and make it function. Iraq and Afghanistan did not. The bombs, in both cases, revealed exactly what was already there.

Iran sits in uncomfortable proximity to both categories, and that ambiguity is precisely what makes the current moment so consequential. In the 1970s, pre-revolutionary Iran was urbanising rapidly, producing graduates at scale, and building the kind of professional middle class that historically precedes democratic consolidation. The revolution interrupted that trajectory, however imperfect and brutal the Shah’s modernisation project was, and then spent four decades systematically reversing it.

What remains is a society more educated, more urban, and more connected to the outside world than Iraq or Afghanistan ever were. The distance between that and democratic readiness is nonetheless considerable. Four decades of theocratic rule have hollowed out Iran’s civic institutions. Its ethnic and sectarian fault lines run deep. Its political culture has had no room to develop the habits of compromise and impersonal governance that functional democracy requires.

Iran is closer to Germany than to Afghanistan. But closer is not the same as ready. And in the gap between those two words, states either consolidate or collapse.

On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched joint strikes against Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, targeting nuclear infrastructure, military command, and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The operation, named Epic Fury, has received contradictory objective declarations, but it began with the stated ambition of regime change. The simple logic of it is enticing: destroy the apparatus of repression, and something better will emerge. But the morning after a regime falls is rarely the beginning of freedom. It is, more often, the beginning of a different and considerably harder problem.

The evidence arrived with some speed. Within nine days of Ali Khamenei’s death, Iranian senior clerics had elected his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new Supreme Leader. Described by Western analysts as more hardline and conservative than his father, Mojtaba has already vowed to continue blocking the Strait of Hormuz, threatened US military bases across the region, and called for vengeance for every Iranian killed in the strikes.

Though it is early days, the decapitation produced not liberalisation but a younger, more intransigent iteration of the same theocratic logic. The deeper irony is that an operation designed to end the Islamic Republic may have produced a leader with less institutional memory, fewer moderating relationships, and nothing to lose. A situation, in short, that is considerably more dangerous than the one it replaced.

The Iranians deserve better than the Islamic Republic. The question is whether the morning after delivers it.

Built Before the Bombs Fell

The most instructive cases remain Germany and Japan after 1945. Both nations were physically destroyed. Both became, within a decade, stable democracies and economic powerhouses. Western policymakers cite this constantly as proof that democracy can be exported. The preconditions that made it possible receive considerably less attention.

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, in Why Nations Fail, place the distinction between inclusive and extractive institutions at the centre of everything. Inclusive institutions — those that distribute power broadly, enforce rules consistently, and permit creative destruction — are the product of particular historical trajectories: of accumulated legal norms, of struggles between elites and populations over who controls the surplus, of a civil society independent of both state and tribe.

Germany had all these conditions beneath the rubble. Its civil service had been professionalised under Bismarck. The concept of the Rechtsstaat (the rule of law as a genuine constraint on state power) was not an American import; it was woven into German legal culture long before Hitler. Japan’s Meiji Restoration of 1868 had produced, by 1945, one of the most literate populations on earth and a formidable administrative state. MacArthur’s occupation did not build Japanese governance from scratch; it redirected a disciplined state that already existed. Some unfortunate inheritances from these empires persist to this day, including the tendency of big business to stifle innovation and new ideas, seen in German car cartels and in conglomerates in South Korea (chaebol) and Japan (keiretsu).

The miracle of post-war reconstruction was not a gift delivered at gunpoint. It was a product of societal readiness. Strip away the ideology and the ruins, and what remained in both Germany and Japan was a society with the bureaucratic architecture, the human capital, and the cultural plasticity to receive democratic institutions and make them function.

There is one further variable that goes almost entirely unmentioned in the standard account: both societies were ethnically and culturally homogeneous. Reconstruction did not have to answer the question of whose national identity would define the new state, whose language would dominate its institutions, or whose community would inherit its apparatus of power. In Iran, with its Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, and Baluchis, that question is not a footnote. It is the central problem. That is not a model for export, at least not one where success can be honestly measured in anything less than generations. Iraq in 2003 had no such foundations to redirect.

Three decades of Ba’athist rule had systematically dismantled civil society, replacing every intermediate loyalty with loyalty to Saddam Hussein’s person. When the Americans disbanded the Iraqi Army and de-Ba’athified the civil service in a single stroke, they did not reveal a suppressed liberal society waiting to emerge. They created a vacuum. Into that vacuum poured sectarian militias, Iranian proxies, and eventually the Islamic State. The result was an estimated 200,000 civilian deaths in the first decade and a fragmentation along ethnic and sectarian lines that continues today.

Afghanistan was starker still.

Rory Stewart, who walked across Afghanistan in 2002 and later served as a senior administrator in the occupation, captured the delusion with characteristic precision. The mission in Kabul was conducted in the language of liberal democracy, economic growth, and state-building. The villagers in Helmand and Kandahar had no meaningful concept of what any of it meant, nor any reason to acquire one. They were not hostile to the mission because they disagreed with its values. They were indifferent to it because its values belonged to an entirely different world.

Predictably to many who studied the region, the Afghan National Army dissolved in eleven days in August 2021, despite twenty years of training and $88 billion of American investment. The institution was a fiction. An army is not equipment and uniforms and a chain of command. It is a society’s willingness to defend itself, made organised. That willingness cannot be installed from outside. It cannot be purchased. And it cannot survive the withdrawal of the foreign power that substituted for it.

Carl Benedikt Frey’s argument in The Technology Trap extends naturally to this problem. Institutions capable of managing disruption and distributing its gains are not modular. They cannot be lifted from one society and inserted into another like replacement parts. When the preconditions are absent, the same formal structures that produce order in one context produce resentment and collapse in another. The form arrives. The legitimacy does not travel with it.

The Capital City Illusion

There is a particular cognitive error that makes these misadventures so predictable, and it is operating right now with Iran. It has a name. Call it the capital city illusion.

An analyst visits Tehran and finds a city of nine million people, a significant proportion of whom are educated, cosmopolitan, and deeply resentful of the Islamic Republic. She attends dinner parties in Elahieh or Zafaranieh, where women push their headscarves back with undisguised contempt, where wine appears behind drawn curtains, where the conversation is sophisticated and the frustration with theocratic rule is visceral. She returns to Washington or London and writes that Iran is ready for change.

What she has done is confuse a city for a country. Iran has 88 million people. Tehran is not Qom, the theological heartland from which the revolution drew its ideological sustenance. It is not Mashhad, deeply conservative and religiously defined. It is not the thousands of small towns across Khorasan and Isfahan Province where the Islamic Republic’s fusion of religious nationalism and economic patronage retains genuine, stubborn support. The analyst has spent two weeks interviewing the fraction of Iranian society whose values most closely resemble her own, and she has returned convinced she has taken the country’s pulse.

The January 2026 protests illustrated the regime’s fragility at its edges. Yet weakened legitimacy and absent legitimacy are not the same thing, and the distance between them is where authoritarian regimes survive. The Revolutionary Guards and the Basij recruit overwhelmingly from the populations that Tehran’s dinner party circuit never encounters.

That Iranian society remains divided over Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment is telling. But serious caution is advised. A fractured society does not automatically fill with liberalism when the lid comes off. The vacuum fills with whatever pre-existing structures survive the chaos. In Iran, as in Iraq before it, those structures are tribal, religious, and sectarian. The organised force that moves fastest is rarely the one holding a copy of the constitution.

Amy Chua’s work in Political Tribes names this failure precisely. Western interventions collapse, she argues, because they mistake the absence of visible liberal politics for the presence of suppressed liberal politics. Iran is not a population waiting to be unlocked. It is a society of Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, and Baluchis, each group navigating the Islamic Republic on entirely different terms. Force risks rupturing those tenuous bonds entirely. And rupture, in a nation of 88 million sitting astride the world’s most critical energy corridor, does not stay within Iranian borders. It moves, as it always does, westward.

Bombs Remove Regimes. Societies Build States.

None of this is an argument for moral indifference. The suffering of Iranians under the Islamic Republic is real, extensively documented, and not to be minimised. Approximately 3.2 million people have already been displaced since the strikes began, according to the UN refugee agency, and that number will rise.

Nor is this an argument that the strikes were necessarily wrong on their own strategic terms. Iran has spent decades using its military apparatus to destabilise the region, funding proxies from Beirut to Sanaa, and destroying its nuclear programme and degrading its ballistic capacity may serve legitimate security interests regardless of what follows politically. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the operation was justified. What is not reasonable is the assumption that justified and sufficient are the same thing.

Lethal force has a very specific range of competence. It can destroy military capability. It can kill leaders, dismantle infrastructure, and redraw the immediate balance of power. What force cannot do is reach down into a society and install the preconditions for self-governance: the horizontal bonds of civil society, the habit of extending trust beyond kinship, the willingness to accept impersonal rules as legitimate constraints on behaviour. These building blocks are not policies. They are not programmes. They are the accumulated sediment of particular historical experiences that take generations to deposit and cannot be bombed into existence.

The question over Iran has never really been whether the regime was unpopular. It manifestly was, for decades, across much of its population. The question that any serious strategic assessment must answer is what exists beneath it. And the early indicators are not encouraging. Mojtaba Khamenei, harder and more militarily focused than his father, with a personal score to settle and nothing yet to lose, has moved to fill the vacuum not with liberalisation but with intensification.

This is precisely the scenario that competent pre-intervention analysis should have modelled. When you remove the lid from a society that has not had the time, the freedom, or the institutional foundations to build something capable of replacing what the lid was holding together, you do not get liberation. You get the next phase of instability, wearing a different face.

Removing a tyrant is not the same as building a state. It is not even the beginning of building a state. It is, at best, the removal of one obstacle on a path whose remaining obstacles — the absence of civic trust, the weakness of impersonal institutions, the fractures of ethnicity, sect, and tribe — remain entirely intact and are now, without the suppressive architecture of the old regime, considerably harder to manage.

Germany and Japan had those foundations beneath the rubble. Iraq did not. Afghanistan did not. The morning after revealed, in both cases, not a society straining for liberation but a vacuum that the regime, for all its violence, had been holding shut.

This war is the predictable consequence of deploying force without adequate assessment of what exists beneath the regime it removes. The people who absorb the cost of that analytical failure are, as history consistently demonstrates, rarely the ones who authorised it.

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References

Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012) Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. London: Profile Books.

Al Jazeera (2026a) Iran’s Mojtaba Khamenei issues first statement as supreme leader amid war, 12 March. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/12/irans-mojtaba-khamenei-issues-first-statement-as-supreme-leader-amid-war

Al Jazeera (2026b) US-Israel attacks on Iran: Death toll and injuries live tracker, 14 March. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/1/us-israel-attacks-on-iran-death-toll-and-injuries-live-tracker

Bloomberg (2026) Iran’s new supreme leader says Hormuz strait should stay closed, 12 March. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-12/iran-s-new-supreme-leader-says-hormuz-strait-should-stay-closed

CBS News (2026) New Iran supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei says Strait of Hormuz must remain shut, 12 March. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-war-new-supreme-leader-mojtaba-khamenei-first-statement-strait-of-hormuz/

Centre for Strategic and International Studies (2026) Russia’s Grinding War in Ukraine, January. Washington, DC: CSIS. Available at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-grinding-war-ukraine

Chua, A. (2002) World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. New York: Doubleday.

Chua, A. (2018) Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. London: Bloomsbury.

CNBC (2026) Iran’s new supreme leader says Strait of Hormuz closure should continue, 12 March. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/12/strait-of-hormuz-closure-iran-oil-prices-mojtaba-khamenei.html

Frey, C.B. (2019) The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

House of Commons Library (2026) US-Israel strikes on Iran: February/March 2026, 13 March. London: House of Commons. Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10521/

Iran International (2026) Iran’s unseen new leader issues first message in writing, 13 March. Available at: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603125349

Mehta, R. (2026) ‘US strikes may have turned Iran from a state with latent nuclear capability into one with a nuclear grievance’, LSE United States Politics and Policy, 9 March. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2026/03/09

NPR (2026) Iran says new leader vows to close Strait of Hormuz, attack US bases, 12 March. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/12/nx-s1-5745689/iran-war-israel-us

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2026) Iran displacement figures, 12 March. Geneva: UNHCR.

Source: Lloyd’s List Intelligence (2026).

The Regime That Earned Its Enemies

For those of a liberal disposition, confronted with the confirmed US–Israeli strikes on Iran and the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the moral response is not difficult to summon.

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The Iranian regime has for decades been a principal sponsor of political violence, an exporter of instability, and a strategic patron of armed non-state actors across the Middle East and beyond. The Revolutionary Guard Corps has built and financed networks that include Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza. This strategy of maximum chaos and disruption is the organising principle of the regime.

Taken together, these relationships form the most expansive architecture of state-sponsored terrorism active in the world today.

On moral grounds, there is a compelling case that Iran’s leadership needed to go. Tehran has persistently undermined regional stability, threatened Israel’s existence, attacked Gulf shipping, and armed proxies that deliberately target civilians. Its ideology is zero sum. If Israel survives and the United States exist as they are today, the regime has not yet succeeded.

If one believes in the defence of liberal societies and sovereign borders, the Iranian regime stands in direct opposition to that project. Its ideology, conduct and alliances have consistently undermined the very norms that sustain international order.

Satellite image of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound destroyed in an airstrike (Airbus, via Reuters).

I am not arguing that the strikes should not have occurred. There are moments when tolerating a regime’s behaviour becomes strategically untenable, and Iran has crossed that threshold repeatedly.

But moral conviction is not the same as strategic wisdom. An action may be justified in principle, yet still produce consequences that complicate, or even undermine, the broader objectives it is meant to serve.

The Immediate Shock: Hormuz and the Energy Lever

On 28 February 2026, coordinated US and Israeli strikes targeted Iranian military and leadership sites. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks on US installations and allied bases across the Gulf. In the aftermath, Tehran announced restrictions on passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime corridor through which approximately 20% of global oil supply flows.

The significance of this cannot be overstated.

Even the credible threat of disruption at the Strait of Hormuz is enough to unsettle global energy markets. Brent had been trading in the $60–$70 range before the strikes; sustained Gulf instability could push it into the $80–$100 range. In such conditions, oil functions as a strategic lever. Every rise in price redistributes power. And this is where the asymmetric arithmetic begins.

The $52 Billion Question

Russia remains one of the world’s largest oil exporters. In 2025 it exported approximately 238 million metric tonnes of crude, equivalent to roughly 4.8 million barrels per day. These figures will be hard to verify given shadow fleets and difficulty tracking supplies, but it shall be useful as an estimate.

Using the standard conversion factor of 7.33 barrels per metric tonne, this equates to approximately 1.74 billion barrels exported per year.

If the average realised oil price rises from $60 to $90 per barrel, the calculation is stark:

$30 increase × 1.74 billion barrels = approximately $52 billion in additional gross export revenue. Even if short lived, this equates to $1billion each week. These are extreme cases; yet as of 10am on Monday, 2 March, crude oil prices had already jumped by 7.6%.

Even allowing for sanctions discounts and price cap frictions, the windfall remains enormous. If only two thirds of the uplift is realised, Moscow still gains tens of billions. If China is cut off from both Iran and Venezuela, Russia will have even more bargaining power with China over energy prices. This is of course, provided Ukraine don’t further disrupt those supply lines.

Russia’s Drone Machine Is Already Local

There is a further irony. In the early phase of the war in Ukraine, Russia relied heavily on Iranian-supplied Shahed loitering munitions. These relatively low-cost drones proved effective in striking Ukrainian infrastructure and overwhelming air defences through volume.

Yet, by 2023, Russia had established domestic production lines, notably in the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan. By 2025, production targets were reportedly around 6,000 drones per year, with sustained output measured in the hundreds per month.

The Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan (alabuga.ru).

Russia absorbed the design, industrialised the process, and localised the supply chain. The technological transfer has already occurred.

This means that degrading Iran does not meaningfully disrupt Russia’s drone capacity. Moscow no longer depends on Tehran for the core capability it uses to pressure Ukrainian infrastructure.

Weakening Iran does not automatically weaken Russia.

A Partnership Already Recalibrating

The Russo–Iranian relationship is also not what it once was. Iran’s strategic position in Syria has weakened relative to its post-civil war peak. The land corridor linking Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon has been eroded. Russia, too, has recalibrated its posture in the Levant amid shifting regional dynamics.

The partnership was always pragmatic rather than ideological.

Russia does not require a strong Iran to benefit from Gulf instability. It requires only higher global energy prices and a distracted West.

2026: A Potentially Decisive Year in Ukraine

What makes the timing so unsettling is 2026 may prove to be a decisive year in the war in Ukraine.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces are showing signs of exhaustion. Ammunition stocks are strained. Manpower pools are tightening. Fiscal reserves are under pressure. The conflict has settled into attritional warfare in which marginal advantages and incremental resources may determine whether either side gains leverage or is forced towards negotiation.

In such a year, financial resilience matters disproportionately.

Revenue windfalls for Moscow would not be a trivial development. It can stabilise domestic budgets, sustain procurement, and prolong endurance. It can subsidise fuel and blunt the political impact of sanctions. It can buy time.

At the same moment, higher energy prices impose renewed strain on Europe and beyond (Japan, South Korea etc), both major net importers. Inflation rises, causing fiscal space too narrow. Voter tolerance for prolonged foreign commitments may erode further (though it has held firm in 2025). This is likely the reason the UK, France and Germany look set to involve themselves further in this conflict with Iran, hoping to limit the damage.

The strategic irony is hard to stomach for anyone who cares about the fate of liberal democracies. Decapitating Tehran may satisfy a moral imperative and even serve long-term stability. But in the immediate term, it appears to strengthen one of the principal adversaries of the liberal order at a moment when that adversary is locked in a war that could define Europe’s security architecture for a generation.

China Uninterrupted

It is also worth noting that, despite Iran’s threats to restrict passage, shipping has not ceased entirely, at least not for friends. According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence vessel-tracking data, a very large crude carrier, New Vision (IMO: 9799202), owned by China Merchants Group, transited the Strait of Hormuz at approximately 0230 local time on 1 March before entering the Gulf of Oman. Its previous port of call was Saudi Arabia’s Juaymah Terminal.

The passage of a Chinese-owned supertanker through the chokepoint at the height of regional tension is not trivial. It suggests that any disruption may be selective, calibrated, or at least porous rather than absolute. If Chinese-linked energy flows continue while Western markets absorb the price shock, the geopolitical consequences become even more asymmetrical, though time will tell if these ships continue to pass unhindered.

Lloyd’s List intelligence (2026).

Moral Clarity and Strategic Sobriety

None of this suggests that Iran’s leadership deserved protection. It did not. The regime has financed terrorism, destabilised neighbours, and acted in persistent defiance of international norms.

Nor does this argument imply that the strikes were unjustified. The point is narrower and more analytical. Iran can suffocate 20% global oil flows. When that corridor is threatened, prices rise. Oil is not merely a commodity in such moments; it becomes a transfer mechanism.

Higher prices transfer wealth. In 2026, that transfer flows disproportionately towards Russia. At a moment when both Russian and Ukrainian forces are close to exhaustion, and when marginal advantages may determine whether the war tips towards settlement or renewed escalation, tens of billions in additional energy revenue could materially strengthen Moscow’s staying power.

If the defence of Ukraine remains a central Western objective, then actions in other theatres must be evaluated not only in moral terms, but in fiscal and geopolitical ones. A campaign that weakens one malign regime while inadvertently strengthening another deserves careful scrutiny. The strategic irony is deeply unsettling for those committed to the liberal project: degrading Tehran may serve justice, yet the economic aftershocks risk enriching the Kremlin in what may prove a decisive year.

There is also the uncomfortable question of coherence.

If the stated objective of the Trump administration is to weaken China, why adopt a comparatively hands-off posture towards Russia, allowing it to consolidate gains and even abstaining from a lasting Ukraine peace vote at the UN? A serious strategy to constrain Beijing is difficult to reconcile with granting Moscow room to manoeuvre.

Moral clarity is essential, but intentions alone do not confer moral legitimacy if the foreseeable consequences strengthen a greater threat.

The Precedent We Are Setting

There is a further danger, less discussed but potentially more corrosive.

If the operative justification for military action becomes the existence of an opportunity to eliminate a hostile leader, we are no longer operating within a rules-based order. We are normalising preventive decapitation as a doctrine.

That precedent will not remain uniquely Western.

If Washington can argue that a regime’s ideology, or latent capability constitutes sufficient grounds for a leadership strike, then Moscow and Beijing will study that logic carefully. Russia could claim that the Baltic states pose an intolerable strategic threat because of NATO integration and proximity to St Petersburg. China could assert that Taiwan’s political trajectory represents an existential rupture of territorial integrity. In each case, the language of pre-emption could be repurposed, reframed and redeployed.

Great power actions legitimise tools they themselves may later confront. Chaos seeps in through precedent.

We were told that in mid-2025 President Trump declared the Iranian nuclear regime “obliterated”. If that assessment was accurate, then the immediate existential threat had already been neutralised. The rationale for renewed war against a state posing no imminent threat to the United States or its treaty allies becomes disturbingly elastic.

Elastic rationales are dangerous in international politics. They erode the distinction between deterrence and opportunism, good vs evil.

The more the threshold for force shifts from imminent defence to strategic convenience, the more the international system begins to resemble the 19th century rather than the post-1945 order. Smaller states will draw the obvious conclusion: security lies not in law, but in armament. Why would you not want your own nuclear deterrence at this point? North Korea express hatred of the US, yet there is not a single invasion threat from the Trump administration.

If the West wishes to defend a liberal order grounded in sovereignty and restraint, it must be careful not to legitimise the very logic that its adversaries would be eager to exploit.

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References (Harvard style)

Financial Times (2026) US–Israel strikes target Iranian leadership amid regional escalation, 28 February.

Guardian, The (2026) Iran vows reprisal attacks on US and Israeli bases following strikes, 28 February.

Le Monde (2026) US strikes on Iran reignite fears of rising oil prices, 28 February.

Reuters (2026a) Russia exported 238 mln tonnes of oil in 2025, deputy PM says, 27 February.

Reuters (2026b) Energy markets brace for disruption as tensions escalate in Gulf, February.

Times of India (2026) Iran blocks Strait of Hormuz after US–Israel strike, 28 February.

United Against Nuclear Iran (2025) Iran’s malign regional activity tracker, Policy Briefing.

UK Parliament, House of Commons Library (2025) Iran’s regional influence and support for armed groups, Research Briefing.

Wikipedia (2025a) Shahed drones, updated 2025.

Wikipedia (2025b) Support for Russia in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, updated 2025.

(Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

In 1946, the United States quietly offered Denmark $100 million in gold (around $14 billion today) for Greenland. The proposal was declined. At the time, the idea seemed curious but not absurd. The Arctic was a military frontier of the Cold War. The USSR was a growing power, and Europe was in ruins. As the war ended, American military strategists realised the Arctic was the shortest route for bombers (and later missiles) between the Soviet Union and North America. They viewed owning the territory as a “military necessity” for hemispheric defence.

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Recovering from Nazi occupation and years of war, the Danes needed US money and protection more than ever. Yet the idea of selling the island and its people shocked them, and they categorically refused the offer. Instead, the US was permitted to set up military bases on Greenland, giving the US what they needed.

Fast forward eighty years later, the idea of annexation has returned, once again, wrapped up in terms of national security. And as it was 80 years ago, many observers treat it as eccentric. Analysts and pundits have described the Trump administration’s push for the purchase, annexation, and sovereign claims over Greenland as political theatre.

That assumption is misguided.

Greenland is not a whim. It is not about real estate (though it might be how the administration got President Trump onboard). It is about whether Europe will possess the material foundations required to act independently in a world increasingly defined by spheres of empire. It is about whether the United States, in attempting to prevent that independence, is prepared to sacrifice its soft power dominance that made its alliances durable in the first place.

Greenland’s minerals are far from an attractive, profitable venture. They are remote, costly to extract, and slow to develop. In normal circumstances, investors clearly prefer more accessible deposits elsewhere.

But what happens in a US-China war scenario? In a world of export controls, sanctions and supply chain coercion, Greenland could be Europe’s strategic lifeline. Europe and the US know this. It is likely the cause behind French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement last week:

“EU-US tensions over Greenland … are far from over”.

The Minerals that Markets do not Love

The European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act (entered into force in May 2024) sets out targets validating their strategic options. By 2030, the EU aims to ensure that no more than 65% of any strategic raw material comes from a non-EU country. It intends to extract more domestically, process more internally, and recycle more consistently (European Commission, 2023a).

The RESourceEU Action Plan, adopted in December 2025, goes further, explicitly embedding raw materials within the Union’s economic security framework (European Commission, 2025). The accompanying partnership agreement with Greenland speaks directly of resilience and “open strategic autonomy” (European Commission, 2023b). Brussels is rarely dramatic in its language. When it uses words like autonomy, it means them.

Greenland contains significant deposits of rare earth elements, graphite and other minerals (Figure 1) central to batteries, renewable energy systems, advanced electronics and defence manufacturing. Yet these deposits are far from easy to access. The capital costs are high, with dubious returns. Europe would not be highlighting these resources if the purpose was economic growth or opportunity.

Figure 1. Map displaying Greenland’s main potential mineral deposits (Reuters 2026).

Greenland features in the action plan because it is a crucial insurance policy in worst-case scenarios. It offers a supply chain that sits within Europe’s political orbit.

The approval of long-term mining permits, including the Amitsoq graphite project described as one of the highest-grade deposits globally, illustrates the direction of travel. Graphite underpins battery anodes and increasingly defence applications. If Europe can anchor even part of that supply within a friendly territory, it gains some strategic autonomy.

As Canadian PM Mark Carney stated so eloquently at Davos, strategic autonomy is not the absence of alliances. It is the presence of options. Europe, like Canada, does not have to stand alone; it just needs reliable options in times of crisis.

The China Shadow

To understand Greenland’s importance, one must imagine a scenario that European policymakers increasingly consider plausible: a prolonged confrontation between the United States and China. It may not begin as a shooting war. It could emerge through sanctions, export restrictions, naval blockades (disrupting semiconductor supplies), or an accelerating technological decoupling. Kevin Rudd has described the US–China relationship as a form of managed strategic competition that could harden into systemic rivalry. In such a world, supply chains become key pressure points.

This is particularly true of the critical minerals and rare earths that underpin modern technology, from surgical equipment to batteries and missiles. Figure 2 highlights just how perilous supply chains are for the US and Europe alike. According to data analysed by the UK Parliament (2023), global production is both geographically concentrated and increasingly monopolised by systemic rivals.

Figure 2. Country with the highest production of each critical mineral; refers to mined production, unless otherwise stated. 5-year average production 2016-2020.

China sits at the centre of this system. While extraction is spread across several jurisdictions, China dominates midstream processing and refining, the stage at which raw materials are converted into usable industrial inputs. Rebuilding that capacity elsewhere would require billions in capital investment and years of coordinated industrial policy.

The leverage this creates is now very well known to the world at large in the wake of Trump’s return to the Whitehouse. Critical minerals returned to the forefront of policy debate after China used its dominance in processing to push back against US tariffs.

Nor is the tactic new. In 2010, following a maritime dispute over the Senkaku Islands, China temporarily restricted rare earth exports to Japan in what was widely seen as a chokepoint strategy. Tokyo responded by aggressively diversifying its supply chains, investing in deep sea mineral exploration (with recent success) and securing alternative terrestrial supplies, particularly in Australia.

Washington’s Dilemma

If Europe lacks secure access to these inputs, the Continent will be forced to make political concessions to either China or the US. Europe would essentially become a casualty of the ongoing Thucydides Trap. This concept, rooted in the ancient rivalry between a rising Athens and a dominant Sparta, describes the structural stress that occurs when a surging power threatens to displace an established hegemon. In such a high-stakes squeeze, the space for neutral diplomacy vanishes. For Europe, that would mean decisions dictated by the gravity of the two superpowers.

If, however, Europe can turn to Greenland as part of a diversified chain, the calculus changes. Alignment with either Washington or Beijing becomes a decision rather than a necessity. Europe could support the United States while retaining the capacity to calibrate its own involvement.

From Washington’s perspective, the logic cuts the other way. If Greenland underwrites European resilience, Europe becomes less structurally dependent in a future crisis with China. That independence complicates American strategy in a multipolar world.

This friction reflects the core of what has been called the Thiel Doctrine. Peter Thiel has long argued that true power in the twenty-first century is not found in open competition, but in the possession of monopolies over decisive nodes. “Competition is for losers,” he writes. What matters is control over something unique and non-substitutable. In that framework, Greenland begins to resemble a geopolitical “0 to 1” asset: a platform whose mineral base underpins batteries, advanced electronics and defence supply chains.

The European Union’s own Critical Raw Materials Act, with its 65% dependency ceiling, makes clear that diversification is about sovereignty, not price. From a great-power perspective, allowing an ally to achieve meaningful resource exit from a US-led supply architecture reduces American leverage in a future confrontation with China. The objective is not a frictionless market (as was the case for the two decades), but structural influence over a continent which the US deems to be its sphere of influence.

To be clear, this shift reconceptualises Europe as an American asset, not an ally.

In this zero-sum framework, ‘allies’ are competitors in a crowded market - a condition Thiel famously identifies as the path to failure. By contrast, ‘assets’ are the building blocks of a global monopoly, providing the proprietary leverage necessary to escape the ‘essential sameness’ of traditional diplomacy. This is why Trump would not be satisfied with permits or commercial agreements, as they would not exclude Europe from access to Greenland’s resources.

US Arctic Commissioner Thomas Dans, recently suggested that annexation of Greenland could occur “within weeks or months” if necessary. While widely interpreted as rhetorical escalation, the remark aligns with the “Definite Optimism” of the current administration: the belief that the future should be shaped by bold, decisive action rather than managed decline. US congressman Greg Steube made this contempt for alliances even clearer. Regarding French military deployments to the island, Steube remarked: “I would love to see the US military up against French troops in Greenland, because it would not last very long... we don’t care what Macron and the French want.”

The Trump administration insists that Russia, a nuclear power beyond America’s sphere of influence, must be treated with respect, yet denies the same deference to France. The disparity reveals a stark sphere-of-influence logic: Moscow is acknowledged as an external rival, while Paris is handled as a subordinate within the American orbit.

The Cost of Coercion

Ian Bremmer has warned that alliances built on trust are more durable than those built on fear. He correctly surmises that trust is the core of NATO. Replace it with coercion, and Europe will pursue autonomy. In that scenario, the West as a whole is weaker.

The Greenland episode illustrates this dangerous tension in the transatlantic relationship. The more Washington treats the island as a tool of leverage, the more Europe is reminded of its own vulnerability. The February 2026 tariff escalation against European allies was a direct response to their refusal to endorse American sovereign claims over Greenland. This move was not merely a trade dispute. It was a calculated attempt to strangle Europe’s strategic options by force.

President Emmanuel Macron described the moment as a test of whether Europe would accept intimidation as normal. By weaponising trade to secure Greenland’s resources, the US is attempting to integrate the island into an American fortress economy. This strategy aims to ensure that in any future crisis, European industry remains entirely dependent on American goodwill. Proximity to the fortress may provide security, but only on terms set from within.

For decades, American influence rested on the legitimacy of shared institutions. If Washington secures control over Greenland’s resource future through these coercive means, it will acquire a formidable instrument of hard power. However, that leverage comes at a permanent cost to the alliance. It erodes the very trust that has made the partnership resilient for nearly a century.

Power that coerces allies may win short term compliance, but it forces those allies to hedge their bets. The recent diplomatic outreach by the UK and EU to Beijing reflects this exact miscalculation. An alliance treated as a hierarchy of assets rather than a partnership of equals will not remain an alliance for long. Vassals persist under pressure; allies persist under conviction.

The Erosion of American Soft Power

Soft power is often dismissed as intangible. It is not.

Soft power is strategic capital accumulated over decades. When allies believe in the fairness and predictability of a system, they invest in it. When their citizens enjoy your companies and culture, it makes European pro-US policy decisions electorally possible.

Bremmer’s warning about trust speaks to this. So does the broader European debate about defence and economic autonomy. Coercion may deliver short term gains, but it rarely produces durable loyalty.

Recent data illustrate the cost. Survey data across several European countries show US approval ratings falling sharply compared with previous years, particularly among younger voters. Favourability toward American leadership has declined especially sharply in France, Germany and the Nordic states, with trust in US reliability registering noticeable drops in multiple polling series (Figure 3). At the same time, transatlantic travel flows have softened. Industry data indicate a measurable decline in European leisure travel to the United States, driven in part by political sentiment as well as currency and visa friction. Meanwhile, informal boycott campaigns targeting American consumer brands have gained traction in parts of Western Europe, with calls to avoid US goods circulating widely on social media during recent diplomatic tensions.

Figure 3. Opinion towards the United States is at its most negative level in Western Europe since YouGov began tracking in 2016 (YouGov, 2026).

Greenland as a Litmus Test for the Transatlantic Alliance

The Greenland gambit signals a fundamental reorientation in American grand strategy, one driven above all by the pressures of intensifying rivalry with China. It reflects a shift from stewarding a voluntary order to consolidating control over the strategic chokepoints that underpin it. By attempting to control Greenland’s mineral wealth, Washington is seeking to dismantle the supply chain that offers some hope for European strategic independence. The ultimate objective is to ensure that a resource exit remains impossible, forcing Europe to remain a subordinate American asset in future US-China conflict.

This transition from consent to coercion comes at a devastating price. In its bid to control the decisive nodes of the 21st century, the United States is actively liquidating decades of accumulated soft power. The February 2026 tariff escalations and the blunt dismissal of French interests illustrate a growing contempt for the very alliances that once made American power durable. Washington is choosing a path of definite optimism and hard leverage over the messy reality of diplomatic cooperation.

Ultimately, even if the United States succeeds in securing Greenland, it risks further eroding the trust accumulated over eighty years, inviting hedging and resentment rather than loyalty. Such an order would mark the substitution of trust for leverage as the organising principle of the Atlantic world.

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References

Bremmer, I. (2026) Public commentary on NATO trust and transatlantic relations, January–February 2026.

European Commission (2023a) Regulation establishing a framework to ensure a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials (Critical Raw Materials Act). Brussels: European Commission.

European Commission (2023b) Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and Greenland on a Strategic Partnership on Sustainable Raw Materials. Brussels: European Commission.

European Commission (2025) RESourceEU Action Plan. Brussels: European Commission.

Ikenberry, G.J. (2011) Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Macron, E. (2026) Remarks at the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2026.

Reuters (2025) ‘Greenland approves 30-year mining permit for EU-backed graphite project’, Reuters, 9 December.

Rudd, K. (2022) The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China. New York: PublicAffairs.

UK Parliament (2023). A rock and a hard place: building critical mineral resilience. House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, HC 371. London: The Stationery Office. Available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cmselect/cmfaff/371/report.html (Accessed: 15 February 2026).

On 16 January, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) hosted a timely and incisive discussion examining Latin America’s response to the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Featuring insights from regional experts Federico Merke, Evan Ellis and Mariano de Alba, the briefing offered a stark diagnosis: Latin American geopolitics have shifted profoundly in recent years. This article distils some of the talk’s key insights, situating them within a broader geopolitical analysis to assess what these changes mean for the region’s emerging political and strategic order.

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The discussion left a lingering concern about the region’s unity. The era of assumed cultural alliances is over. Disparate national responses to the operation, combined with the notable failure of Chinese-supplied equipment to prevent it, suggest that Latin America has entered a pragmatic, inward-looking system. In this new order, states prioritise national survival over shared identity, abandoning cultural solidarity in favour of hard-edged pragmatism shaped by ideological alignment.

The Trump Doctrine: Force Without Architecture

The operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, exemplifies a resurrected and intensified “Trump Doctrine”, or the ‘Donroe Doctrine’, which is characterised by decisive shows of force, generating fear and some signs of submission. Yet the Trump spin on this great power rivalry is in offering little in the way of long-term planning. Evan Ellis, a professor at the US Army War College, points at that Trump’s Venezuela moves have not provided long‑term architecture to promote democracy or stability. This shock and awe approach leaves Latin American capitals to navigate the fallout alone.

Cultural Unity in Doubt

During the IISS talk, Mariano de Alba, a Venezuelan lawyer specialising in international law and foreign affairs, noted that the US would have been far more cautious had it faced a united Latin American bloc capable of mounting a collective counter‑response. This, however, was not the case.

Latin America is divided, reacting to events through the lens of ideology and pragmatism, not a sense of shared cultural unity, at least not politically. For readers not versed in Latin American politics, Figure 1 shows the ideological leanings of each of the governments in power (as of Jan 15, 2026). What is noticeable is a sharp turn to the right. Countries like Chile, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Argentina have all moved rightward in recent years – with Bolivia having not elected a right-wing government in decades. Unsurprisingly, countries celebrating US intervention in Venezuela including Argentina, Ecuador and El Salvador – all ideologically aligned with the US government.

Figure 1. A visualization of the political landscape in LATAM, showing the distribution of Left-leaning (blue) and Right-leaning (red) governments as of Jan 15, 2026. The colour gradient reflects the estimated strength of alignment. Greyed-out areas are not included in this ideological categorization.

Five Structural Challenges for the Region

In this volatile environment, Federico Merke, Professor of International Relations at the University of San Andrés, identified five distinct challenges Latin America faces, that will define its trajectory.

1. The Trap of Temporality: Latin American leaders often operate on short-term political cycles, hoping simply to “wait out” unfavourable US administrations. This is a strategic error. Specific political legacies. like Trump’s, often fundamentally shift US foreign policy for the long term. Waiting for the next election implies a passivity that ignores the structural reality: the pressure from the North persists regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, especially given recent pressures.

2. Agency Under Pressure: The region struggles to maintain autonomy. The core challenge is finding the capacity to work together as a regional bloc without triggering economic retaliation. As mentioned previously, Mariano de Alba pointedly observed that the US military would likely have had far more reticence to act if there had been true regional unity. The lack of a cohesive front emboldened the intervention, proving that a fractured region is an inviting target.

3. The Dilemma of Diplomacy: Leaders face a difficult tactical choice: when to speak out against US policy and when to stay silent. Speaking out risks punishment or isolation if other countries do not reciprocate support; silence risks looking weak or complicit. Navigating this without losing domestic support or international standing is a constant tightrope walk.

4. The Narrative Pivot: Victimhood vs Leverage

For too long, the region has relied on a narrative of “victimhood” or acting as a “moral counterweight” to US power. This reduces leverage. To succeed, Latin America must emulate regions like Asia and the Middle East (MENA). The lesson, as de Alba starkly put it, is that if you want to matter, “you need leverage” - both institutionally and economically. The goal is not to seek sympathy, as victimhood puts one at a disadvantage in transactional power politics. Rather, the goal is to become too costly to ignore.

5. A Deficit of Political Imagination Finally, there is a stagnation in strategic thinking. “New plans are difficult,” Merke noted. Leaders are struggling to formulate frameworks that fit a multipolar, digital world, often recycling old Cold War ideologies. The region desperately needs a “new political imagination” that moves beyond traditional Left/Right divides to solve 21st-century problems.

The Geopolitical Scorecard: Winners, Losers, and Pragmatists

The capture of Maduro has fractured the region, forcing a return to hard-power realism. We can categorise the fallout into three distinct groups.

1. The Pragmatists: Survival Over Ideology

Colombia: One of the more unexpected regional responses came from President Gustavo Petro. Despite a long record of criticising US interventionism and advocating regional autonomy, Petro adopted a notably pragmatic stance in the aftermath of the operation against Nicolás Maduro. His government initially voiced concerns about violations of sovereignty, border security and the risk of wider destabilisation, particularly given Colombia’s exposure to refugee flows and the presence of armed groups along the Venezuelan frontier. At the same time, Bogotá moved quickly to engage Washington directly. Petro held a call with President Trump shortly after the event and indicated his willingness to meet in person to manage the regional fallout.

Critics, and indeed some of the IISS speakers, argue that Colombia could have exerted greater pressure in earlier years to counter democratic erosion in Venezuela. Nevertheless, this pivot underscores a broader recognition within Petro’s administration that, in moments of acute crisis, the United States remains Colombia’s essential security partner. The episode highlights the limits of ideological distance from Washington when regional stability, internal security and humanitarian risks are at stake.

Mexico: President Claudia Sheinbaum has emerged as the region’s most skilled operator. Like Colombia, Mexico attempted to bring Maduro toward democracy, but Sheinbaum now manages to “dance” with Washington. They defied the US symbolically by sending oil to Cuba yet continue to increase security cooperation with the Trump administration behind closed doors.

Sheinbaum recognises Mexico’s unique lever: the influx of Chinese technology. I recently visited Mexico City, and the sheer volume of BYD and other Chinese vehicles I saw shocked me. The numbers support my surprise. In 2025, Chinese‑made vehicles accounted for about 19 % of all new car sales in Mexico, up sharply from less than 1% a few years ago. Sheinbaum uses this statistic not to ally with Beijing, but as a bargaining chip to play off against Washington to protect Mexico’s standing in the USMCA. She keeps her head down, prioritising national interest.

2. The Winners

Argentina & Ecuador: For the right-leaning governments of Javier Milei in Argentina and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, the operation was a cause for celebration. It validated their pro-Western alignment and anti-socialist rhetoric while positioning them as reliable partners in a new geopolitical order likely to attract preferential economic and diplomatic treatment from Washington. In Argentina’s case, the Trump administration has extended an extraordinary financial lifeline that underscores this alignment.

In October 2025, the US Treasury agreed to a $20 billion currency swap line with Argentina’s central bank to help stabilise the peso and shore up liquidity. Additional support, including about $872 million in dollar liquidity operations and efforts to mobilise up to another $20 billion in financing from private banks and sovereign wealth funds, has been pursued as part of a broader economic rescue strategy currently under discussion. This could potentially double overall US backing to around $40 billion.

President Trump has linked continued support in part to Milei’s political success, making the financial package contingent on the Argentine leader’s party performing well in key elections - a clear signal of Washington’s geopolitical interest in maintaining a friendly government, and one which no doubt raises concerns about election interference.

For its part, Ecuador has sought to strengthen ties with the United States through security cooperation amid rising crime and narcotics trafficking, but this alignment has been complicated by domestic politics. Attempts by the Noboa administration to loosen Ecuador’s longstanding ban on foreign military bases and host U.S. operations at sites such as Manta have faced significant public resistance, with opposition to reversing the ban illustrating persistent tensions in Ecuador’s relationship with both Washington and regional neighbours.

At the same time, Ecuador’s fiscal situation has been supported by broader multilateral financing, with the IMF expanding a previously approved $4 billion financing agreement to about $5 billion in 2025, reflecting both internal reform efforts and external economic pressures.

These developments highlight both the opportunities and inherent frictions among Latin American states that are nominally aligned with the United States, underlining that even as some leaders cultivate closer ties with Washington, regional dynamics and domestic politics can complicate that alignment.

3. The Losers: The Isolated & Exposed

Brazil: President Lula da Silva is the primary political loser. Facing re-election, his strategy of “active non-alignment” has collapsed. It is worth noting that Lula did attempt to exert pressure. Brazil famously blocked Venezuela’s entry into the BRICS alliance, defying even Russia’s wishes. Yet, this nuanced stance yielded no protection. Having previously minimised the threat of Maduro in 2018 - calling claims against him “exaggerated” - Lula was left embarrassed and was forced to try and adjust his position. Such political manoeuvres now appear out of touch with the new hard-power reality. Brazil wants to have their cake and eat it to – play the great powers off against each other, yet not fall into the trap of alliance with Russia, Iran, Venezuela etc.

Even if re-elected to a fourth term, Lula would still face significant challenges in fostering a more united Latin America. One positive consequence of increasingly aggressive U.S. posturing has been the long-awaited signing of the EU–Mercosur trade agreement this week. After years of stalled negotiations over trade barriers, particularly those affecting agricultural goods, the growing imperative to de-risk from the United States has helped push the deal across the finish line. The agreement is expected to benefit many parties, with Brazil and Germany emerging as the largest beneficiaries. Such multilateral agreements will be essential if Latin America is to develop a coherent identity as an independent geopolitical and economic bloc.

Authorities of the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur pose during the signing ceremony of a free trade agreement, ending more than 25 years of negotiations, in Asuncion, Paraguay, January 17, 2026. Credit: REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo.

Cuba: The island is the biggest strategic loser. Venezuela was its economic lifeline and ideological shield. With Maduro gone, Havana loses its primary supplier of subsidised oil and its loudest defender. The regime now faces total isolation, with a US administration willing to use decisive force just 90 miles away.

Nicaragua: The Ortega regime is fundamentally exposed. While some in the country may have celebrated the fall of a dictator, the regime itself is in a defensive crouch. They have lost their strategic depth. Russia, their closest ally, has done nothing to garner confidence in their willingness to support them. The US action signals that sovereignty is no longer a shield for regimes deemed hostile. Managua fears that the precedent set in Caracas could be repeated against them, and this seems the most likely target for Trump’s administration.

China: Finally, the operation highlighted a specific “lack of Chinese equipment success.” Beijing’s surveillance and defence technology failed to detect or deter the US incursion. While China is unlikely to be deterred long-term, this failure signalled to the region that Chinese security guarantees are unreliable when faced with decisive US action, as is their defence technology. Of course, a counterpoint circling could be that the US cut a deal with the military in Venezuela, meaning the equipment was ordered to not be used during US operations. Regardless, neither option puts Chinese strength in a favourable light.

At a Crossroads

The capture of Nicolás Maduro exposes the collapse of long-standing assumptions in Latin American foreign policy, particularly the belief that cultural solidarity, non-alignment or moral positioning could insulate the region from great-power intervention. Pragmatic clusters of nations have emerged. Nations which are constantly concerned about retaliation from a superpower. This new Latin America acts according to leverage, ideology and proximity to power rather than shared identity.

The Trump administration’s decisive action, undertaken without a broader political architecture, was made easier by a fragmented response from Latin America’s capitals. Some governments aligned swiftly with Washington and were rewarded; others attempted to hedge and found ambiguity increasingly costly. Those without leverage were left isolated and face potential US interventionism.

The region can continue competing for bilateral favour, or it can begin the more difficult task of building collective leverage through economic integration, institutional coordination and strategic imagination. In a world now governed by transactional hard power, unity is no longer a cultural inheritance but a deliberate and urgent strategic decision. Today’s winners may savour their advantage, but future US administrations could flip the table, and persistent disunity in Latin America may continue to imperil the region’s prosperity and security for decades to come.

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Photo Credit: Getty Images.

Britain’s Post-American Moment

Britain is approaching a decisive moment in its post-Cold War history, one in which long standing assumptions about security, restraint and American leadership are rapidly unravelling. By the end of this decade, the UK & Europe will either possess credible geostrategic agency or find itself increasingly shaped by the decisions of others, with diminishing ability to influence outcomes that directly affect its own security and values.

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For much of the post-Cold War period, Europe benefited from an American security guarantee that allowed difficult choices to be postponed. Britain was no exception. Cuts to mass, resilience, and sovereign capacity were justified by access to American enablers, intelligence, logistics, and strike capabilities. Tactical excellence (i.e., the capture of Osama bin Laden) was celebrated, while deeper structural weaknesses went unaddressed. Little attention was given to the risk of a perfect storm in which Russia became belligerent while the United States remained disengaged - or even opposed.

Russia has placed itself on a sustained war footing, with industrial mobilisation and political intent aligned in ways not seen since the Soviet Union. Instability in the Middle East continues to generate strategic spillover that Europe must absorb, whether through energy markets, migration pressures etc. Even more alarmingly, the United States has begun to signal, more explicitly and more forcefully, that its willingness to uphold international laws and norms is contingent on the morality of President Trump.

Trump’s public approach to Venezuela, emphasising conquest and oil and tolerating the regime’s vice president in power, suggests a superpower whose attitudes align more closely with Russia or China than with Europe. The implication for Britain - who tethered their fate to the US since WW2 - is unavoidable. Reliance on America is no longer a sufficient basis for long term security planning. Worse, it could even be the US threatening that security.

If Europe is to stand on its own into the 2030s, the question is not whether greater responsibility must be assumed, but who will bear the burden of leadership. In that equation, like Germany and France, the United Kingdom’s choices matter disproportionately.

Self-Deceptive Rhetoric

A recent Policy Exchange research note, The Say Do Gaps in Defence, authored by Air Marshal Edward Stringer, provides a timely and uncomfortable assessment of Britain’s current defence posture. While successive governments have been voluble in resetting the narrative of decline, emphasising renewal, resilience and global responsibility, the material reality tells a bleaker story. Defence spending, procurement timelines and frontline capability have not kept pace with the rhetoric, leaving a widening gap between aspiration and delivery.

Targets are routinely deferred into the 2030s. Troubled programmes continue to absorb billions, often defended on the basis of sunk costs rather than operational necessity. Procurement agencies, operating within structures optimised for peacetime efficiency rather than wartime urgency, continue to behave as though improvement can be scheduled rather than demanded.

There are even concerns that the Defence Investment Plan (DIP), on the back of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), is likely to be further watered down to preserve costs. This is given credence by the fact that the DIP, originally slated for Autumn 2025, was again delayed on December 24^th, with no new release date established.

British Chancellor Rachel Reeves has made matters even more dire with recent budget announcements. She remarked that the UK is committed to spending 2.6% of GDP on defence by April 2027. Yet, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) states that the previous commitment for defence spending to reach 3.5% of GDP by 2035 “would cost an additional £32 billion”. It should be no surprise then that on January 12, 2026 Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton told MPs the UK is not ready for full-scale conflict.

The Labour government want to show the UK as committed to its core values yet seemed to take one look at the cuts required and have gutted commitments before they ever became official.

This gap between what Britain says and what it does is an issue of credibility in the eyes of adversaries and allies alike. Putin will take from this that short of direct confrontation with the UK, he can continue acts of hybrid warfare and conquest in Ukraine, and the UK will not even increase defence spending by 1% over 4 years of warfare on the continent.

Putin assess capability, readiness and resilience, not speeches or strategy documents.

Borrowed Security and its Limits

As Air Marshal Stringer observes, this was not always the result of deliberate strategy, but of gradual adaptation to a permissive environment. Britain increasingly borrowed credibility from the United States while allowing its own foundations to erode. The optics of carrier deployments or special forces operations obscured a shrinking ability to sustain combat power at scale or over time.

That model is now unsustainable. The United States is recalibrating its engagement in ways that prioritise domestic political imperatives and transactional outcomes. When international law conflicts with national interest, expect the law to give way.

If Europe is to develop credible autonomy, leadership will not emerge evenly across the continent. It will be shaped by those states willing to absorb political risk, and to invest at scale (shouldering the burden). Britain occupies a unique position in this landscape. It remains one of only two European nuclear powers, retains global intelligence reach, and possesses armed forces designed for expeditionary operations and interoperability. Its defence industrial base, though already strained, remains capable of expansion if given clear direction and sustained funding.

Yet, if Britain & Europe do not put substantial money behind defence posture soon, Europe’s broader claims to autonomy will lack credibility. Strategic agency through history or reputation can only go so far, and they seem to have reached their limits.

Procurement, readiness and the cost of delay

British Army General Dynamics AJAX armoured fighting vehicle. Source: Shutterstock.

One of the most damaging aspects of Britain’s current defence posture lies in how spending is translated into capability. The Policy Exchange report is forthright in its critique of procurement culture, highlighting programmes that have consumed vast resources while delivering limited operational value. The AJAX programme - billions spent on IFVs virtually unusable by soldiers - has become emblematic of a system unwilling to respond decisively to challenges or failure.

Ukraine have demonstrated over recent years that modern conflict rewards speed, adaptability and volume. Precision and sophistication remain important, but only when paired with resilience and the ability to sustain operations under pressure. A procurement system optimised for peacetime assurance and risk avoidance is ill suited to an era defined by confrontation and uncertainty.

Promises of improvements in the 2030s offer little comfort to allies confronting immediate pressures. In just the first year of this new Trump term, the world order has been upended, with chaos and conflict spreading in its wake. This is only the beginning of a four-year cycle. The UK cannot afford to wait until 2030 to strengthen its geostrategic posture. Delay is itself a strategic choice, and increasingly, a dangerous one.

Money as a Strategic Tool

Defence spending is a strategic instrument. It signals intent, credibility, and seriousness in ways no communiqué or summit declaration can. Britain’s current approach, full of ambitious rhetoric but slow delivery, shows the government does not understand the seriousness of the situation.

If Europe is to have real agency by the end of this decade, incrementalism is no longer enough. Spending must rise immediately and substantially, focused on readiness, resilience, and industrial capacity rather than prestige projects. This will require difficult political trade-offs in an era of fiscal constraint, but the alternative is strategic marginalisation.

The Vanishing Margin for Error

As Air Marshal Stringer notes, the first step is recognition: the image Britain has of its own power no longer matches reality, and the methods that produced this gap must be discarded, not managed gently.

The most dangerous illusion in European defence today is the belief that talking about raising defence will deter aggression. Significantly increased Russia hybrid warfare against Europe, covered by numerous think tanks, shows that Russia is not deterred by. Strategic windows close quietly, then suddenly. Adversaries exploit gaps rather than grand designs, and deterrence fails in moments of ambiguity rather than declaration.

The UK’s opportunity to establish credible autonomy into the 2030s is shrinking. Once lost, it will not be easily recovered. Britain’s choices over the next few years will shape not only its own standing, but the continent’s ability to act in a world where guarantees are conditional and norms increasingly fragile.

Geostrategic agency cannot be proclaimed; adversaries track what we do more than what we say. Agency is instead funded, built and maintained. And Europe, with Britain at its centre, is running out of time.

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References

BFBS Forces News, 2025. Budget: Extra £32 billion needed if defence spending to reach 3.5% by 2035, OBR says. [online] 27 November. Available at: https://www.forces.net/news/politics/budget-extra-32-billion-needed-if-defence-spending-reach-35-2035-obr-says [Accessed 12 January 2026].

BFBS Forces News, 2025. Release of Defence Investment Plan delayed - with no clear date in sight for now. [online] 24 December. Available at: https://www.forces.net/news/tri-service/release-defence-investment-plan-delayed-no-clear-date-sight-now [Accessed 12 January 2026].

Policy Exchange, 2026. The Say-Do Gaps in Defence: The Danger in Carrying a Small Stick While Talking Loudly… [online] 10 January. Available at: https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/the-say-do-gaps-in-defence/ [Accessed 12 January 2026].

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Western governments have spent billions attempting to stabilise countries like South Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mali. Consultants were embedded in ministries. Constitutions were drafted. Elections were organised under armed guard. Entire institutional architectures were built on the assumption that violence could be contained for democratic nations to take root. Think tanks discussed socio-political and economic factors, yet few would address the elephant in the room. Cheap Russian mass-produced weapons made nation building impossible.

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Political order and stability depend on a monopoly of force. When non-state violence is expensive, risky, and difficult to organise, institutions have space to function. When violence becomes cheap and ubiquitous, politics collapses into coercion. No weapon has done more to cheapen violence than the Russian Kalashnikov rifle.

The Kalashnikov Asymmetry

In the early 2010s, a Western aid worker travelling through South Sudan was offered a rifle at a roadside market. It was an old AK-pattern weapon, aged but reliable. The price was roughly $80. Ammunition was plentiful, cheap, and sold locally. For less than the cost of a modest dinner in London, you could have purchase a weapon that can cut through vehicles and walls. Even as of 2017, a real AK 47 could be purchased for just $600 in Afghanistan Figure 1. For $600 you can destabilise a region. Rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launchers sell for between $750-3000. These cheap systems can destroy armoured targets and buildings, and the only training is to aim and pull the trigger. The Telegraph reported in 2015 that the AK-47 has killed more people worldwide than any other firearm.

Figure 1. The cost of an AK-47 worldwide and on the Black Market (Statista 2017).

An estimated 70–100 million AK-pattern rifles have been produced worldwide since the 1950s. The AK-47 and its many variants have become the most widely distributed firearms in history. These rifles are in service with 80+ countries and countless non-state actors. While many were produced under license or copied abroad, Russia itself has exported over 1 million AK-type rifles since 2000 to roughly 30 countries. The AK-47 is held by states, militias, criminal groups, and civilians alike. Their notoriety rests on durability and simplicity, and unbeatable cost-efficiency through obscene production scale.

More than 9 million shoulder-fired RPG-7 launchers have been produced globally since the early 1960s. They are in use in 40+ countries and are among the most widely distributed anti-armour weapons ever made. The weapon is simple enough to be used with minimal training and powerful enough to threaten armoured vehicles, helicopters at low altitude (immortalised in the film Blackhawk Down), and fortified positions. Launchers have often sold on illicit markets for well under two thousand dollars, with rockets available for a few hundred. The RPG-7 has kept US and ally forces on edge every time they went on patrol. For the cost of a used car, someone with virtually no training can neutralise military assets that cost millions.

The following example illustrates the absurd economic asymmetry of these weapons into perspective: even at the high end ($1,500 per rifle), spending $1 billion could buy on the order of 666,000 rifles - a tiny fraction of any nation’s armed forces - whereas nation-building budgets often exceed $1 trillion. That’s a difference of roughly a million-to-one between buying large quantities of small weapons versus whole-of-government reconstruction operations. You read that correctly, 1,000,000: 1.

These weapons are at the heart of modern state failure, and yet it is almost never discussed as a primary cause. Nation-building did not fail because political reconstruction is impossible. Nor did it fail because liberal democracies lack resolve. Nor simply because of cultural misunderstandings (though these have certainly mattered in the Middle East and North Africa). It failed because reconstruction was attempted in environments saturated with cheap, highly lethal weapons (mostly produced and distributed through the Soviet and later Russian arms ecosystem). How can one build a state when the dismantling it can cost less than a mobile phone?

Against this, consider the economics of Western intervention. The cost of deploying and sustaining a single soldier overseas runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars per year once logistics, rotation, healthcare, and equipment are included. A single modern armoured vehicle costs several million dollars. Precision-guided munitions can cost more than an entire militia’s annual arsenal. Every Western response operates at a radically higher price point than the threat it confronts.

Architects of Anarchy

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Europe is waking up to a grim reality. The United States is negotiating the future of European security in private conversations with Moscow while keeping its own agencies in the dark. Leaks involving associates of Donald Trump reveal discussions that sideline both Ukraine and the European Union, exposing a Washington willing to trade over Europe’s fate without scrutiny or consent. What once would have been unthinkable for a democratic superpower is now the norm.

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For decades European foreign and security policy has rested on a comforting assumption. Whatever turbulence comes out of Washington there will always be a stable, serious United States beneath it. An America anchored by institutions, guided by long term strategic commitments and ultimately dependable in a crisis. This belief has shaped everything from NATO planning to defence procurement, trade policy and diplomatic posture. Europe built its modern strategic architecture on the idea that America may be fickle but never fundamentally unreliable.

That assumption is now untenable. In fewer than 12 months of a 2^nd Trump term, decades of trust and cooperation have been shattered. This is not because of Europe. For all their bluester and hyperbole from Donald Trump and his allies, it is the US who has lost their way, not Europe.

Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, European leaders continue to cling to the hope that the United States will eventually reverse course. EU Foreign Policy Chief and former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas recently insisted that the US remains Europe’s ‘biggest ally’. Her position is significant. She is one of Europe’s most uncompromising voices on Russia and is almost entirely out of step with current US policy in the region. That even she feels compelled to repeat this reassurance illustrates just how much wishful thinking still shapes European strategic thinking.

There are signs that Germany, France and others have acknowledged the mistake of ceding so much technological and political power to the US, but more needs to be done.

I am making the case made by the US themselves in their recent strategy document – the US is not an ally to Europe, in fact it sees Europe as broken and authoritarian, making no such claims about Russia. Everything from Trump’s first year in his second term in office points to a preference for right wing dissenters like Hungary and Slovakia, and a disdain for European powers. It seems ludicrous now to believe the US would respect Article 5 and come to the aid of the Baltics should Russia invade. After a call with Putin, Trump would likely suggest that the Baltics were always Russian, with large Russian speaking populations, and that getting into a fight with Russia was not worth it for Riga or Vilnius. I will outline why this is patently obvious, using only the actions of the Trump administration, or those close to the administration.

Behind closed doors and behind Europe’s back

The recent leaks involving the property developer Steve Witkoff illustrate just how far things have deteriorated. Communications linked to Witkoff, who has longstanding ties to Donald Trump, suggested a willingness to hold private conversations with Russian officials about potential post-election arrangements. These discussions appeared to exclude both Ukraine and the European Union from the picture. They implied a world in which Washington conducts business over European security with Moscow without even the pretence of consultation.

Equally unsettling was the claim that the US Treasury’s sanctions officials found out about these conversations from British authorities rather than through their own government. If accurate, it points to dysfunction inside the American state at exactly the moment Europe needs clarity. Sanctions coherence has been one of the central pillars of the West’s response to Russian aggression. If it is falling apart from within, Europe is exposed.

Ukraine seen as Leverage

Perhaps the clearest indication that the values of the United States have disappeared lies in its treatment of Ukraine, during its fight for survival.

Before 2025, it would have been unthinkable for the United States to treat democratic territories as bargaining chips in negotiations with an authoritarian power simply to secure trade or investment deals. Neville Chamberlain has been held up for eighty years as a cautionary tale of failed leadership for conceding democratic territory in the name of preventing another catastrophic war. One can only imagine how history will judge peace talks that revolve not around averting global conflict but around mutual business interests in exchange for a permanent cap on NATO membership, and a retreat of US military presence. Yet Trump’s Ukraine ‘strategy’ (if one can call daily whims a strategy) makes this uncomfortable reality impossible to ignore.

Trump has effectively halted meaningful US support for Ukraine, claiming that Washington has spent 350 billion dollars on the war, a figure that is in reality closer to one third of that amount. At the same time, he has pushed for privileged access to Ukraine’s critical mineral deposits as the price for continued American assistance.

Even this attempt to leverage Ukraine’s vulnerability was treated with contempt. Trump and Vance publicly subjected President Zelensky to a patronising lecture for not expressing sufficient gratitude. On the very day they criticised him, hundreds of Ukrainians were almost certainly dying on the front lines, while their president was being admonished for failing to thank the United States for loans and equipment provided by the previous administration.

Russia is now attempting to override the arrangement by promising the United States access to the same mineral resources, many of which reside within occupied territories. The decision by Washington to promote this proposal as its own 28-point peace plan has further cemented a betrayal of liberal democratic values by the United States.

The aid freeze that followed his return to office has left Ukraine limping at one of the darkest moments in its struggle for survival.

Europe has stepped in with substantial funding, yet even this effort carries a bitter edge. Much of the matériel supplied to Ukraine must be purchased from American defence contractors. Europe buys the weapons at full price, as Trump proudly notes, and the United States profits from a war it refuses to support in any meaningful strategic sense. At the same time, Washington imposes tariffs on European goods, pressures the EU into lopsided trade concessions and threatens further measures that would normally be expected from a geopolitical rival rather than an ally.

Mocked, Lectured, and Undermined

Amid this fracturing of relations, Europe is routinely lectured on democratic norms by American politicians who show little evidence of upholding them at home. JD Vance criticises Europe as hostile to free expression even as his closest political ally threatens comedians for satire, pursues legal action against outspoken former officials like John Bolton, and sustains a pattern of vengeful rhetoric toward judges, journalists, and political opponents.

This dynamic now collides with Washington’s newly articulated worldview. The 2025 U.S. strategy argues that Europe’s problems go far beyond low defense spending or slow growth, framing the continent instead as a civilisation in decline. It claims Europe is losing economic relevance due to suffocating regulation while simultaneously facing deeper threats: loss of sovereignty to EU institutions, destabilising migration policies, censorship, collapsing birthrates, and fading national identities. If these trends continue, the document suggests, some European states may no longer be strong or stable enough to serve as reliable allies.

The strategy further depicts Europe as lacking self-confidence, particularly in its relationship with Russia. Although European states collectively outmatch Russia in most measures of hard power, Washington asserts that Europe exaggerates the Russian threat and will require US diplomatic supervision to prevent future conflict.

Finally, the United States declares that its core interest is to negotiate a rapid end to the war in Ukraine, ostensibly to stabilise Europe and restore strategic equilibrium with Russia. This framing makes clear that US priorities may diverge from Europe’s own security concerns.

The contradiction is galling. Europe is chastised for regulation, for data protection, for seeking to build sovereign capacity in digital markets. Yet these same critics support interventions at home that would be condemned as attacks on free institutions if committed anywhere else. Europe is expected to absorb the scolding and carry on as if everything is business as usual.

Elon Musk now calls for the end of the EU, broadcasted to millions of followers on his own platform X, even agreeing to a post claiming the EU is the fourth Reich. A platform he has been known to ban people he disagrees with. Yet Elon sees fit to use this mouthpiece to decry free speech in Europe.

European governments find themselves battling against a torrent of misinformation and public attacks from some of the wealthiest and most influential figures in the United States. Persuading American voters that Europe is worth the alliance has become an increasingly futile effort in the face of such well-resourced disinformation. Europe’s time would be far better spent preparing its own citizens for a world in which US support can no longer be assumed.

Elon Musk sharing a post claiming the EU is the next Nazi Regime on his social media platform, X (2025).

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Source: Brussels Times. Credit: Belga/Eric Lalmand

Europe’s most powerful financial weapon against Russia, a staggering €185-210 billion in frozen assets is currently being held hostage in Belgium. While Ukraine urgently needs this money given the withdrawal of US support, Brussels is pushing back hard against the EU’s plan to use the assets as collateral for a massive ‘reparations loan’. The reason? A mix of legitimate legal and financial fears, and perhaps something more cynical – billions in exceptional tax revenue.

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Background

Nearly two-thirds of all Russia’s overseas sovereign assets (mostly central-bank reserves) sit with the Belgium firm Euroclear. Brussels-based Euroclear is a financial market infrastructure group specialising in central securities depository. More simply they provide the essential plumbing for global finance, enabling countries and large institutions to securely buy, sell, and hold securities. Holding tens of trillions of euros in client assets and handling massive volumes of global transactions, they are one of the most trusted places for central banks (like Russia’s) to manage large reserves in the Eurozone.

Within days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU -coordinating with G7 partners - implemented a sanctions package that froze Russia’s overseas sovereign assets. Roughly €185-210 billion of Russia’s sovereign assets held with Euroclear were immobilised. Yet, the underlying assets continued to accumulate returns, such as the interest and/or capital gains on bonds; and the cash on deposit as central banks raised interest rates. This led to windfall revenue for Euroclear – with revenue from Russia’s frozen assets going from an estimated €0.82 billion in 2022 to €6.9 billion in 2024. Belgium benefited from this as they apply corporate tax on the profits, which before 2024 flowed into the national budget, raising roughly €1 billion in 2023.

Since the outset of the invasion in 2022, Europe has been unsure how to best use this important financial leverage. International law prohibits the seizure of these assets because of the principle of state sovereign immunity - a fundamental doctrine in international law. But Europe has found other legal workarounds, such as allocating the net profits generated by the assets to Ukraine. Also, from 2024 onwards, Belgium committed to sending the tax revenues on Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine, which in 2024 was calculated to be €1.7 billion.

However, Europe are now proposing another mechanism to use the frozen assets to aid Ukraine – a €140 billion ‘reparations loan’. It’s a legally sophisticated countermeasure that uses the frozen assets as collateral for a bond issuance, raising up to €140 billion to send to Ukraine as an interest-free loan. Crucially it avoids outright seizure, and ultimate financial responsibility remains with Russia.

But Belgium has so far refused to sign off citing legal and financial risks they feel have been inadequately addressed by the EU. While some EU diplomats have suggested the stalling is related the windfall tax Brussels has been receiving and a failure to honour their commitment to Ukraine (more on that later). Either way, unless the deadlock is broken it risks fracturing European unity and credibility at a critical juncture.

Belgium’s Concerns

Belgium Prime Minister Bart De Wever called the EU’s plan “fundamentally wrong” in a letter written to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on 27^th November 2025. He warned Belgium could face a barrage of Russian lawsuits and arbitration claims under the Belgium-Luxembourg-Russia Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) of 1989, and that using the assets now will remove them as a bargaining chip for reaching a peace deal. It comes after Belgium derailed the consensus needed to move forwards with the Loan at the October 2025 European Council Summit.

Others, including Euroclear, have argued that the plan might still be viewed as a violation of sovereign immunity and could pose a systemic risk to the Euro. Investors fearing the precedent set may pull their funds out of Euroclear and other Eurozone institutions, destabilising the financial system.

Countering Belgium’s Concerns

While Belgium does have some legitimate concerns, the legal basis for the EU’s reparations loan were laid out in a research paper by Professor Philippa Webb in 2024. It is a loan using the Russian assets as collateral (not seizing them) and is defensible under the doctrine of countermeasures – a principle in international law allowing an injured state to respond in what would normally be an unlawful way, to another state’s internationally wrongful act. Russia’s invasion has been deemed a clear breach of international law by the United Nations (UN), numerous legal experts and most of the international community. It’s on this basis the EU justifies the use of countermeasures to compel Russia to make full reparation for the injury caused to Ukraine.

In terms of financial risks, the EU commission has set out guarantees so that any financial risks don’t solely fall on Belgium, should Russia try to sue them. They are also set to further expand on this in the coming days. While the idea of using the frozen assets later as a bargaining chip in a peace deal is laughable – Russia has broken numerous agreements in the past, and the immediate concern is Ukraine’s survival now – the strongest form of leverage against Russia is ensuring Ukraine wins.

Finally, the notion that it risks destabilising the European financial system does not stand up to scrutiny. Similar arguments were made in 2022 when the Russian assets were frozen, but this has not deterred global investors from holding Euros in Eurozone institutions.

Some suspect a conflict of interest may be behind Belgium’s stalling, with others such as Chatham House’s Timothy Ash calling their arguments “total bullshit”. Before 2024 taxes on the profits of Russia’s frozen assets were going into Belgium’s federal budget – from 2024 on they promised them to Ukraine. However, Brussels has so far only provided Ukraine with just under €1 billion since 2022, which doesn’t add up with the €1.7 billion in taxes collected in 2024. Short-term self-interest cannot be allowed to derail Europe’s support for Ukraine.

Action is Needed Now

Ukraine’s economy is in a precarious state, and funding is urgently needed, with one EU paper estimating Kyiv needs €136 billion ($157 billion) through 2026–2027 in combined military and financial funding from foreign partners. With the US, under President Trump, drastically reducing its aid to Ukraine through 2025, Europe and it’s non-US NATO partners are now the primary funders of Ukraine.

If the funding does not come from the reparations loan, it will need to come from European taxpayers, which will likely be more expensive and further stress indebted European nations. Support for Ukraine is already declining in some European nations, and a tax rise could all but seal Russian victory through a divided Europe.

The longer Europe drags their feet on this issue, the more it risks losing the opportunity altogether. Trump’s recent peace proposal attempted to secure these assets in a US-Russia deal, with the profits going to the US. Worse still, European sanctions need to be unanimously agreed by all 27 member states and renewed every six months. Should Hungary, Slovakia or even Belgium decide not to agree to renew the sanctions packages, Putin would be able to move Russia’s assets beyond Europe’s control.

EU leaders will attempt to negotiate a deal at the December summit on the 18^th/19^th December. It is crucial that Belgium are given the assurances they need for the plan to go ahead. The time to act is now, European unity, credibility and security demand it. History will not look kindly on Belgium if it forsakes Ukraine for a short-term tax windfall.

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References

https://www.brusselstimes.com/1845494/frozen-russian-assets-its-time-to-stop-targeting-euroclear-and-belgium-says-euroclear-boss

https://www.epc.eu/publication/using-russian-assets-for-a-loan-to-ukraine-is-legal-but-belgium-needs-guarantees/

https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-economy-chief-urges-g7-to-speed-up-50-billion-ukraine-loan/

https://www.euroclear.com/newsandinsights/en/press/2025/mr-05-euroclear-delivers-strong-results-in-2024.html#:~:text=In%20line%20with%20Euroclear’s%20risk,was%20approximately%20%E2%82%AC6.9%20billion

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2024/759602/EPRS_STU(2024)759602_EN.pdf

https://kyivindependent.com/belgian-pm-raises-stakes-on-kyiv-lifeline-renewing-opposition-to-russian-frozen-assets-reparations-loan/

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/impending-collapse-russia-sanctions-cost-inaction

https://unn.ua/en/news/eu-criticizes-belgium-for-its-tax-revenues-from-russian-assets-and-increases-pressure-for-euro140-billion-for-ukraine-politico

Left, Steve Witkoff: Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/Getty Images. Right, Niall Ferguson: LSE/Alex Sakhnenko

Niall Ferguson’s recent defence of the Trump–Russia 28-point proposal tries to elevate it to the level of historic diplomacy. He walks readers through century-old armistice timelines, the slow grind of negotiations, and the ritual of back-channel drafts. The intention is clear: to place this agreement in the lineage of Wilson, Kissinger, and Camp David, suggesting that flawed beginnings are simply the steps to peace.

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But his framing collapses the moment you look at the contents of the plan – a plan (almost unbelievably) coming from United States. A peace plan cannot be judged by how similar it looks to other ceasefire choreography; it must be judged by what its terms mean for the parties involved. On that measure, this proposal is not a starting point. It is a strategic disaster and a moral failure. Ferguson’s attempt to rehabilitate the plan misrepresents both its content and its consequences.

Starting a negotiation by handing the other party nearly everything they want doesn’t open the door to diplomacy - it slams it shut, because you have nothing left to negotiate with. When the negotiator is clearly apathetic and desperate for a quick outcome, results are even more disastrous.

Ferguson admits he does not “much like” the document, then immediately declares that “as a starting point for negotiations, it has much to recommend it.” This is the central sleight of hand. He separates the plan’s architecture from its details, as if the former can be praised while the latter are merely quibbles. This is a childish “peace is good” framing that ignores the architecture of the plan. A negotiation cannot begin from offering the aggressor virtually everything.

Terms that recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk, force Ukraine to surrender towns still under its control, and freeze an iron curtain across Europe. Since when is it American policy to transfer democratic territory to authoritarian invaders? That single clause invalidates every other feature of the plan (which are still horrendous) and treating it as a rough edge to be sanded down is laughable.

The Fiction of a “Negotiating Architecture”

Ferguson presents the proposal as confirming Ukraine’s sovereignty. But sovereignty cannot be “confirmed” in one breath and erased in the next. The framework he praises is the same framework my own analysis shows to be drafted overwhelmingly on Russia’s terms: it rewards territorial aggression, shuts NATO’s open door, locks Ukraine out of Western institutions, and embeds Russian influence into Ukraine’s political, educational, and economic future

A plan that begins here is not and will never be a foundation for lasting peace. Peace is easy to obtain; you need only surrender. But a durable peace requires strength, resolve, and an unmistakable willingness to confront aggression rather than accommodate it. As Michael McFaul aptly makes the case, diplomacy without deterrence is bound to fail.

Ferguson is particularly taken with the so-called “robust security guarantees.” The guarantees are fictional. The plan bans Ukrainian NATO membership forever, prohibits NATO troops in Ukraine, and caps Ukraine’s military. There is no mechanism by which the West could credibly enforce anything if Russia violates the agreement. The plan’s own clauses constrain the only organisation to deter Moscow, restricting future membership. Kasparov put it plainly: NATO was created to counter Russian aggression, yet the only democracy actively resisting that aggression today is expected to fight alone - and to be barred from NATO membership indefinitely.

Ferguson also assures readers that this proposal is not “From Russia with Love,” arguing that Witkoff and Kushner were speaking with Ukrainian officials as well. But this is misleading at best: the substance of the plan reflects long-standing Russian aims. Ian Bremmer puts Trump’s real negotiating tactic on full display: “if you want the Russia Ukraine war over as soon as possible and don’t care about the conditions of resolution, the correct strategy is maximum pressure on Ukraine, the weaker party.”

Worse still was evident with the later bombshell leak, exposing Witkoff openly discussing how to tailor arguments to Russian preferences. In any earlier era, this would have been seen as foreign manipulation of a US negotiating position. Ferguson’s decision to dismiss it as media melodrama is astonishing in its own right.

A Dishonest Rewrite of Why Ukraine’s Strength Waned

Ferguson also claims he long warned the West not to “protract” the war, criticising Biden for a slow-walked counteroffensive and lamenting Western fatigue as if it were a law of nature rather than a political choice. This is remarkably disingenuous. The United States has spent less than 5% of its defence budget annually to help Ukraine hold back the Russian army, an investment that has destroyed half of Russia’s conventional capability without a single American soldier firing a shot.

To now argue that Ukraine “could not hope to win a protracted conflict” is historical revisionism of the worst kind. Ukraine could not press its advantage precisely because Washington cut support at the decisive moment. It is like Roosevelt cutting off British aid in 1942 and then declaring that Britain’s defeat was inevitable. Ferguson presents this as sober realism, but it is circular logic: starve Ukraine of weapons, watch their offensives stall, then claim their failure proves that victory was impossible.

His suggestion that Europe must “rearm more rapidly” rings hollow when paired with his acceptance of a plan that locks Ukraine out of NATO, freezes the front lines in Russia’s favour, and gives Moscow everything it needs to regroup for the next war. This is not peace through strength. It is coercion through weakness, dressed up in the language of strategic inevitability.

Moral Evasions Disguised as Realism

Niall highlights reconstruction funds, EU prospects, and humanitarian clauses as if they balance the territorial, institutional, and political sacrifices demanded of Ukraine. They do not. The economic sections of the plan are exactly the sort of framework that my analysis described as treating Ukraine like a spoil to be administered by great powers, not a sovereign state determining its own future

Ferguson barely acknowledges the plan’s most egregious components: amnesty for every Russian war crime, forced elections under occupation, ideological rewrites of Ukraine’s education system, and a joint US–Russia “security task force” that formalises Russian veto power over Ukraine’s future. Any one of these would be enough to reject the document outright. Together, they make it structurally impossible for Ukraine to remain a functioning, self-governing democracy on the other side of a ceasefire.

Where Ferguson is most misleading is in his argument that Ukraine must accept difficult compromises because the alternative risks alienating its “key partner,” the United States, or jeopardising Russian willingness to negotiate. This is the logic of extortion reframed as realism. If the terms of peace are dictated by the aggressor, and if the victim is warned not to improve them for fear of upsetting the aggressor, the negotiation is already lost. Peace achieved on those terms is not peace. It is defeat with softer headlines.

The Wrong End of History

Ferguson ends by suggesting that this moment “may be the beginning of the end.” This is meaningless. Anyone can speculate about the potential end of a conflict. People did so in every year of both world wars. What matters are the actual positions and intentions of the parties involved. Had the United States approached Nazi Germany with a peace plan resembling this one, it would have invigorated the Axis powers more than any speech or weapon.

A ceasefire built on the 28 points does not stabilise Europe or NATO. It destabilises both, especially given that Europe is still a decade away from achieving strategic autonomy in defence production and capability. For that entire decade, the continent would be placed at the mercy of a belligerent authoritarian state committed to conquest.

For the same reasons, the plan directly incentivises China. It signals that Taiwan could expect similar treatment: invasion rewarded, sovereignty negotiated away, and territorial integrity treated as expendable. And it certainly does not end Russian aggression. It rewards it and guarantees future invasions.

Niall knows all this. He once wrote warnings about exactly this outcome. Which makes his current defence of the plan more troubling than the plan itself. It is not that Ferguson’s history is wrong. It is that he has stopped applying it.

This proposal is not a beginning. It is a capitulation packaged as diplomacy. And no amount of historical analogy can disguise where it leads: to a Europe less secure, a Ukraine less sovereign, and a world in which authoritarian conquest is rewarded rather than resisted.

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A new 28-point ‘peace’ proposal from the United States has been released, presenting itself as a comprehensive solution to end the war, stabilise Europe, and reset relations between Russia and the West. In truth it is nothing of the sort.

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The proposal reads like a settlement drafted in Moscow and Beijing. It rewards aggression, dismantles NATO’s core principles, freezes a new iron curtain across Europe and strips Ukraine of its sovereignty in everything from territory to elections to education. Almost every concession falls on Kyiv. Russia is asked for virtually nothing, and what it is asked of cannot be enforced.

Though there have been and will continue to be revisions, the plan’s very framework points to a fractured West and a broader erosion of liberal global values - issues that merit serious discussion.

The plan would weaken the West (strategically and morally), embolden authoritarian powers worldwide and set a precedent that borders can be changed by force.

Below are the ten most alarming features of the proposal, along with the point(s) they are addressing within the ‘peace’ plan.

1. It rewards Russian aggression by granting Moscow permanent control of occupied Ukrainian territory

Point 21.

Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk are recognised as de facto Russian. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are frozen along the current line of contact. Ukraine must withdraw from parts of Donetsk it still controls. This is the first time since the Second World War that Europe would formally reward territorial conquest. It devastates the principle that borders cannot be changed by force and guarantees that future wars become more likely - Taiwan in particular.

2. It closes NATO’s open door and gives Russia a veto over Western security policy

Points 3, 7 and 8.

Ukraine must enshrine in its constitution that it will never join NATO. NATO must change its statutes to ban Ukrainian membership in the future. NATO is also forbidden from placing troops in Ukraine. This policy is even worse than you think.

This is a historic break with NATO’s founding principle that any European democracy can apply for membership. Worse, it shuts the door on future members entirely, including partners like Australia and other democracies that may one day need collective defence. We cannot predict the next strategic landscape, and this plan traps NATO in the world of today while stripping it of the flexibility required for the world that is coming.

The plan hands Moscow permanent influence over NATO’s future and signals that pressure and invasion can force the alliance to retreat from its own rules.

3. It signals a retreat of American power from Eastern Europe by limiting air power to European jets in Poland

Point 9.

Perhaps the most unusual and cryptic of the points is number 9. The plan specifies that European fighter jets, not American ones, will be stationed in Poland. This is extremely unusual. It implies a deliberate step back by the United States and a reshaping of NATO’s defensive posture. By restricting air power to European forces, the plan suggests a narrowed defensive perimeter and a de facto acceptance that the United States will move away from front line involvement in Eastern Europe.

4. It emboldens China and every other revisionist power by showing that force delivers rewards

Points 13 and 21.

China are the clear winners of this plan. Russia gains territorial recognition, staged sanctions relief, reintegration into the global economy and even a path back to the G8. Moscow secures all this without reversing its invasion. For Beijing, the message on Taiwan is unmistakable. Aggression pays. Western unity eventually erodes if you wait long enough. Destabilising democracy by picking an ideological side to support will eventually yield results.

5. It creates a new iron curtain in Europe and formalises Russian spheres of influence

Points 3, 4 and 15.

These points are laughable given the circumstances. Europe, the United States and Russia would enter a non-aggression pact. We had a non-aggression pact, such pacts are based on Russia’s word, which is worth nothing. A permanent US Russia security working group is created to monitor the settlement.

Ukraine will be locked outside Western institutions. This builds a new iron curtain across Europe, dividing the continent into spheres of influence and accepting Russia’s authority over the security choices of its neighbours. Russia gets exactly what they want, and sells an amazing victory to the Russian people who were losing support for the war over time.

6. It eliminates accountability by granting total amnesty for every crime committed during the war

Point 26.

This point is the most morally egregious. Every atrocity, from torture to mass deportations to the targeting of civilians, would be legally erased. All sides must drop future claims. This wipes out Ukraine’s right to justice for massacres in places like Bucha. The hatred and violence that would occur from this lack of justice would tear Ukraine apart.

7. It exports Russian propaganda themes into Ukrainian schools and society and places obligations only upon Ukraine

Point 20.

This point looks like it was lifted from Russian state television. Ukraine must change its education system, adopt new ideological rules, adjust its treatment of language and media, and ban the plan’s preferred definition of Nazi ideology. These demands copy longstanding Russian narratives.

Do we really think Russia will now champion anti-discrimination and foster cultural tolerance? This point is embarrassing to include. The enforcement mechanism applies only to Ukraine, making the cultural section a one-sided political & cultural weapon to fracture the current unity in Ukraine.

8. It destabilises Ukraine by forcing elections in 100 days

Point 25.

Holding elections within one hundred days, while millions are displaced and territories remain occupied, guarantees instability. This point is likely a core issue for Putin, who wants Zelensky gone as a prerequisite for peace. The point provides the perfect opening for Russian interference and increases the chances of a pro Kremlin candidate taking power at the moment Ukraine is most vulnerable. It is a continuation of the war through subversion.

9. It is financially exploitative and shifts Ukraine’s reconstruction into US and Russian controlled investment schemes

Points 12, 13 and 14.

On the surface this point seems positive - $100 billion USD of frozen Russian assets are placed into rebuilding Ukraine. Yet, the United States takes half the profits. A separate US Russia investment vehicle controls other frozen funds. Russia receives new long term economic agreements in energy, minerals and infrastructure. Instead of empowering Ukraine, the plan binds its future to the interests of the two great powers that negotiated the deal over its head, like conquerors dividing the spoils.

10. It leaves Ukraine responsible for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant while giving Russia half the power output

Linked clause: Point 19.

The plant would be run under IAEA supervision, with its electricity split 50/50. Yet Ukraine retains the burdens of operation, risk and long-term disposal. Russia gains energy from a plant it seized by force and avoids the financial and environmental liabilities. This is almost a medieval policy in which you reward the invader with tribute resources from a vassal.

A Strategic Disaster

Peace is a noble goal, but this is not a peace plan. All 28 points surmise to be the perfect launchpad for Russia’s next conquest in Europe.

If the West accepts this agreement, it will signal the end of the post-Cold War settlement, the end of NATO’s credibility and the end of any claim that the rules-based order still exists. Ukraine would lose its sovereignty. Europe would lose its security. The United States would lose its leadership. China, the main victor, would gain a blueprint for reshaping the world by attritional force.

Even if you set aside the moral travesty of this document, it is an open invitation to future wars. Europe and what is left of the wider democratic world cannot afford to pretend otherwise.

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There’s a danger few in Westminster are willing to say out loud. Britain is at risk of becoming a US talent depot in the emerging age of artificial intelligence - a nation that trains the minds, but not the companies, of the future.

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The resource being extracted isn’t oil or minerals. It doesn’t lie under our soil; it walks our campuses, codes in our labs, and defends theses in our universities, before boarding flights to California.

In the twentieth century, the United States built its strength on other nations’ resources: immigrants from around the world, Saudi oil, Latin American minerals, Asian manufacturing. In the twenty-first, it is building on other nations’ minds. And Britain, with its world-class universities, English language, and open flow of skilled graduates, has become the best place to draw from. The UK comprises around just 0.84% of the global population, yet 17% of the top universities (QS 2026) are based in the UK, with 4 being in the top 10.

These universities have been quick to support high quality technology-related courses at remarkable scales. In 2022 the UK graduated around 46,000 students from AI-related programmes - more than any other country in Europe – with Germany second at 32,000. That should be the foundation of a domestic AI industry. Instead, it risks becoming our next great export.

Speak to the people inside that number - a PhD student in Edinburgh, an engineer in London, a computer science undergraduate in Cambridge - and the pattern repeats. They are applying for American scholarships, raising venture capital from Silicon Valley, or accepting job offers that pay twice as much abroad. Britain is helping to producing the intellectual fuel for the AI revolution, while others build the engines that run on it.

The Upside - and the Depot Risk

On one level, the influx of US tech capital into the UK is unquestionably welcome. For example, Microsoft Corporation has announced a US $30 billion (≈£22 billion) investment in the UK between 2025-28, including $15 billion of capital expenditure to build cloud and AI infrastructure and a UK-based supercomputer with more than 23,000 GPUs.

Similarly, US-tech firms under the UK-US “Tech Prosperity Deal” have pledged around £150 billion over 10 years – a titanic sum given the size of the UK economy.

And Palantir has signed a UK-government deal to invest up to £1.5 billion and base its European defence-HQ in London, creating up to 350 high-skill jobs and mentoring UK SMEs.

But there is a deeper dimension. This capital and infrastructure will help US firms access British talent, British compute, and British data-centres - and use them as bases for global operations. The UK is providing the raw inputs; the US firms are providing the strategic architecture and capturing the value. In effect, Britain is acting as a talent and infrastructure depot for US innovation - not building/scaling its own companies, its own AI brands, or taking the lion’s share of value-capture within its borders.

For the UK to break free from its role as an extraction hub, the path forward is clear. Talent must not only be cultivated domestically, but the enterprises it creates must be anchored here - with intellectual property, corporate headquarters, and profits retained onshore. Without this, such investments reinforce dependence rather than build independence.

Why the US Keeps Winning the Talent Game

1. Terrible Incentive Structures

The gravitational pull of American pay is hard to overstate. A mid-career AI engineer in the United States can expect total annual compensation of around $240,000 (roughly £190,000) according to Levels.fyi’s global dataset. In London, the typical range for comparable roles is closer to £75,000–£95,000. Outliers at major tech firms and hedge funds exist, but the averages tell the story of 50% cheaper talent, for talent at universities of comparable quality.

Things are worse at the startup level. Under the Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) regime, founders and early employees can sell up to $10 million worth of startup shares free of federal tax. This has now increased to $15 million as of July. The UK is going in the other direction. Entrepreneurs pay a reduced tax rate (10%) on the sale of their business or shares, but only on the first £1 million of lifetime gains. From April 2025 that rate rose to 14%, making the scheme laughable compared to US rates.

Over time these differences shape where talent concentrates. Bright engineers and researchers don’t just cross the Atlantic for a bigger pay cheque; they move because the upside of success - the ability to take a shot and keep the reward - is structurally greater. Britain ends up training the talent, but America captures the entrepreneurs.

2. The Capital Gap

Even if pay were competitive, money builds ecosystems, and almost all the money is in the United States. In 2024, about three-quarters of all private AI investment worldwide flowed there - roughly $109 billion, compared with around $4.5 billion in the UK, according to the Stanford AI Index. That disparity doesn’t just look bad in a chart; it decides who gets to rent the next generation of AI chips, hire teams at scale, and reach global markets first.

For British founders, the path to serious growth capital still runs through San Francisco. The result is predictable: headquarters shift, intellectual property migrates, and the UK becomes the R&D wing of the US, Japan etc.

If Britain cannot close the gap in both pay and capital, it will continue to play the same role in the AI economy that it once did in manufacturing: providing skilled labour and ideas, while others build the giants that go on to create substantial long-term value.

3. The Compute Gap

AI runs on computing power - supercomputers stacked with specialist processors that train and run models. These are the new oil refineries.

The UK is making progress. Isambard-AI in Bristol and Dawn in Cambridge, both part of the new AI Research Resource (AIRR), are major steps forward. Microsoft has pledged to bring 20,000 advanced chips to UK data centres by 2026. But the world’s biggest and most flexible clusters remain in the US. British startups looking for large-scale computing still find the best access on the West Coast.

4. Uncompetitive Energy Prices

It is no secret now that energy requirements for AI is extensive. Training and running modern models consume vast amounts of power. Modelled estimates suggest emissions stemming from AI will surpass all global aviation emissions. This is why China has been accelerated all forms of energy generation in preparation for this future. Britain’s industrial electricity prices are twice the EU average (Figure 1), making them the highest in Europe, and far above those in the US. Every company training models here pays a built-in premium that has been labelled as commercial unviable for many startups and companies. It is the cost of energy that makes the US tech investment dubious. Energy prices will have come down dramatically in the next 5 years if the UK is to see more firms like Graphcore or Synthesia, or another DeepMind or Oxford Ionics, purchased by Google and IonQ respectively.

Figure 1. Average Industrial Electricity Prices (kWh) for the UK and 14 EU countries, measured by the medium consumer in late 2024 (Turner 2024).

5. Visa Structure

The UK attracts tens of thousands of international students into AI-related degrees each year - but too many leave after graduation. Proposals to shorten the post-study visa from two years to eighteen months send exactly the wrong message.

Meanwhile, US firms offer relocation packages and handle all visa bureaucracy. Britain pays to train talent, then waves it goodbye.

Wasted Human Capital

Being acquired by US giants is not inherently a bad thing - it provides access to capital and resources, but it also means the UK loses geopolitical leverage and autonomy in the decisions that will define the future. It increases the likelihood of fewer UK-listed public companies, which means less corporate activity and ultimately less tax revenue flowing directly to the UK. While US subsidiaries of these firms may still pay some UK taxes on their local operations, the bulk of profits, intellectual property, and strategic decision-making often shift offshore. This typically results in lower overall tax receipts, fewer high-value headquarters jobs, and less reinvestment in the domestic ecosystem.

The UK workforce will remain at the whims of the US giants. Layoff rounds can be distributed abroad to countries like the UK, when needing to downsize while avoiding domestic criticisms in the US.

Above all, what’s missing is real power over decisions that will shape the next decade and beyond.

None of the world’s top 25 companies (by market cap) are headquartered in Europe as of mid-2025, and certainly none of the new technology behemoths.

Consider AstraZeneca: it played a major role during the Covid-19 pandemic, yet today the UK has no emerging tech company capable of playing a similarly outsized role in the future. Worse still, AstraZeneca is moving closer to the US capital markets. In September 2025, the company announced plans to undertake a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, tapping U.S. investor depth while maintaining its UK listing and headquarters in Cambridge.

Without such anchor institutions staying and growing at home, with headquarters, intellectual property, high-value jobs and decision-making remaining local, investments risk reinforcing dependence rather than creating genuine independence.

The UK has done the hard work: world-class universities, a deep graduate pipeline, English speaking, and access to one of the world’s economic powerhouse cities - London. Yet instead of compounding those advantages, the country’s setbacks we discussed collectively smother innovation. Left unchecked, the cycle is simple. Britain trains the talent. The talent leaves or is under external leadership. The ecosystem loses density. Fewer mentors remain to train the next generation. That is what the road to becoming a talent petrostate could be: exporting the raw resource, importing the finished goods.

Possible Solutions

1. Make Compute Abundant and Predictable

Computing power is oxygen for AI. Without it, start-ups suffocate or emigrate. The UK must treat computing as national infrastructure, not an academic luxury.

That means scaling public supercomputers and opening them to businesses as well as researchers. Publish clear prices and allocation schedules so start-ups can plan. Integrate compute credits into every innovation grant. Streamline planning for new data centres and tie their electricity supply to stable, (ideally but should not overshadow cost) low-carbon baseload power.

2. Attack the Electricity Delta

AI is an energy-intensive business. At the current absurd energy prices, the UK can never hope to compete with Europe let alone the US and China. The UK cannot outcompete America’s cheap hydro and gas overnight, but it can narrow the gap.

Accelerate investment in renewables and nuclear to provide predictable low-cost baseload power. Offer targeted tax reliefs for data centres and AI computing clusters until those costs fall. This is not about permanent subsidies. It is about bridging a structural disadvantage so British firms can compete fairly.

3. Match the Equity Upside

People follow opportunity. The US system rewards risk with life-changing outcomes. Britain’s current rules cap ambition.

Raise the lifetime limit on tax-relieved share sales, restore the 10% rate for qualifying disposals, and modernise employee share schemes to allow meaningful ownership without bureaucracy. The message should be clear: if you build in Britain, you can win in Britain.

4. Fund the Scale, Not Just the Seed

Britain is good at starting companies but poor at scaling them. Angel investors and early-stage schemes are active, but the large, late-stage funds that turn start-ups into global players are mostly American.

The UK should direct pension funds and sovereign-style capital pools into domestic growth funds focused on technology. It should back homegrown vehicles capable of writing £50–100 million cheques and leading major rounds. Without that, the UK will continue to incubate companies that mature elsewhere.

5. Make “Stay” the Default

The UK trains tens of thousands of international students in AI, computer science, and data. The easiest way to build a dense ecosystem is to keep them.

Keep post-study visas generous and predictable. Create elite fellowship programmes that tie top graduates to British research labs and start-ups for five to ten years. Retaining trained talent is cheaper (and faster) than trying to lure it back later.

The Choice in Front of Britain

Talk to ambitious young people in the UK and you’ll hear the same refrain: “I’ll raise money in the US, incorporate there, or just move.” Why? Because pay is higher, upside is higher, capital is deeper, computing is cheaper, and energy is affordable.

None of that is destiny. The UK already has the biggest talent pool in Europe, the right language, and a global financial hub. The question is whether it uses those advantages to build its own ecosystem or to fuel someone else’s.

Do nothing, and Britain becomes Saudi Arabia in the AI age: exporting raw human talent, importing refined technology. Act decisively, and it becomes the refinery itself - turning knowledge into products, jobs, and influence.

Progressing will be slow and certainly woke make headlines, but it will decide whether the UK builds the future or merely supplies it.

References

Dealroom (2024) Global AI Funding Report 2024. Dealroom.co.

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (2024) AI Opportunities Action Plan. London: GOV.UK.

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (2025) New strategic partnership to unlock billions and boost military AI and innovation. London: GOV.UK.

Edwards, C. and Race, M. (2025) US firms pledge £150bn investment in UK as tech deal signed. BBC News, 17 September 2025. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.

The Quantum Insider (2025) UK and US seal tech pact with £31 billion AI and quantum push. London: The Quantum Insider.

Frost Brown Todd LLP (2024) Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) Overview. Available at: https://frostbrowntodd.com

Greenberg Traurig LLP (2024) QSBS Tax Treatment and Upcoming Changes. Available at: https://gtlaw.com

IT Pro (2024) Microsoft to Invest £2.5bn in UK AI Infrastructure. ITPro.com.

Levels.fyi (2024) Global Compensation Data for Machine Learning Engineers. Available at:

https://levels.fyi

Office for National Statistics (2024) UK Industrial Electricity Prices. London: ONS.

UK Research and Innovation (2024) AI Research Resource (AIRR) Programme Overview. UKRI.gov.uk.

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Every country that lives beside a larger and more powerful neighbour must master the choreography of coexistence. The steps are rarely graceful, yet when performed well they can yield advantages unmatched by any other form of partnership. The most adept dancers turn proximity into leverage: they stay close enough to remain in rhythm and benefit from the spillovers of power, but never so close that they lose their footing or sovereignty. Mexico has largely maintained this balance, demonstrating that the real goal is not absolute independence but sustainable sovereignty: the capacity to endure and adapt without surrendering agency.

Mexico has been doing this dance with the United States for more than a century. Their relationship is built on both interdependence and resentment. They share more than three thousand kilometres of border, trillions in trade (each other’s largest trade partner), and a complex history. Each Mexican administration must answer the same question: how do we balance sovereignty with practical cooperation?

Ukraine now faces its own version of that dilemma, but the choreography is far more perilous. Its northern neighbour is not a democratic superpower with global obligations, but an authoritarian aggressor that seeks to erase its independence. In the near term, Ukraine’s survival, reconstruction, and security depend heavily on Washington. In the long term, however the war concludes, Ukraine will still share a border with a state it may resent, distrust, and yet must manage and engage with regularly. Survival will demand a choreography of contradictions. Gratitude without servility toward Washington, endurance without reconciliation toward Moscow.

Mexico’s story, though rooted in different soil, offers pragmatic lessons on what to emulate, what to avoid, and how to keep dignity intact beside a larger power.

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Negotiating from the Weaker Hand

Mexico learned long ago that proximity to a stronger power entails perpetual bargaining rather than permanent alignment. Its diplomacy rests not on sentimental notions of friendship or shared destiny, but on negotiation and compromise - a posture shaped by strategic ambiguity, in which Mexico deliberately keeps its stance toward other state actors unclear. This tactic has proved especially effective under the current transactional US administration, where no country has been spared from threats or tariffs, regardless of the relationship.

In such an environment, effective bargaining requires discipline, not deference. Smaller powers rarely hold the stronger hand, but they can control tempo and tone. Bluffing, when supported by credible alternatives, can strengthen a negotiator’s position. Mexico’s example shows how to extract value from necessity without mistaking compromise for weakness.

In early 2025, when Trump threatened a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports unless the “migration chaos” stopped, Mexico’s finance ministry responded not with protest but precision, publishing cost estimates showing that US manufacturers would suffer $15 billion in supply-chain disruption within a month. Behind closed doors, Sheinbaum proposed sending ten thousand National Guard troops northward, increasing deportations, and expanding asylum processing in exchange for Washington dropping the tariffs and reinstating development aid for southern Mexico and Central America. Trump claimed victory on television; Sheinbaum told Congress she had defended national dignity. Within three days, the tariffs were dropped for the time being.

That is the Mexican method in miniature: calculate what you must concede and make sure the ledger balances. Ukraine, by contrast, often leans on moral and existential appeals, presenting itself as a defender of democracy, civilisation, and the “free world.” Those arguments fell on deaf ears with the more isolationist Trump administration. Reciprocity, what each side gives and gets, is measured more easily in capital than in sentiment. It is also the language Russia understands. Just as Mexico must negotiate with the United States while never forgetting the land it lost to it, Ukraine will eventually have to speak with a neighbour that either occupies its soil or contests its borders. Appeals to moral principle will remain important for identity and purpose. However, in an increasingly amoral and fragmented world, survival will depend on leverage.

Yet this method does not guarantee success. Deals struck under pressure can turn one-sided, as shown by the Ukraine–US critical minerals agreement, which granted Washington access to Ukrainian resources without securing equivalent commitments on technology transfer or the support against Russia they were hoping for. Mexico’s approach offers a useful contrast. By playing down its dependence on the US and presenting itself as a partner with alternatives through outreach to Europe, China and Brazil, it preserved leverage. The message was clear: cooperation was desirable, not indispensable.

Ukraine needs Western backing, but against a transactional administration it must present the minerals agreement as a competitive opportunity, not as a bid for sympathy or aid. Inviting US participation on balanced terms alongside other partners. This would have created pressure for a fairer deal while reinforcing Ukraine’s sovereignty and agency.

Leverage: Knowing What the Neighbour Needs

Mexico’s power doesn’t come from strength but from leverage - from knowing what Washington cannot easily replace. Industrial supply chains, resource flows, and yes, even migrants, are resources the US depends on.

Yet, despite the US need for migrants, Mexico’s ability to halt migration (often central Americans) is perhaps their most potent leverage. The US tolerates many foreign risks but not waves of uncontrolled migration. In 2025, Mexico reportedly cut crossings by nearly one-third in a month after deploying troops to the border, prompting the US to resume development funding in southern Mexico and Guatemala. For Mexico, that meant jobs and infrastructure; for the Trump administration, an immediate political win.

If migration is a stick, trade is Mexico’s carrot. Mexico is America’s largest trading partner, volume that gives any tariffs political blowback. When the US floated stricter rules of origin under USMCA in March 2025, Mexico quietly filed a dispute under the agreement’s arbitration clause and hinted at disruption to Tesla’s plant in Nuevo León. Washington (for the time being) backed off. Mexico turned interdependence into insulation.

Mexico sits between two poles of power: the United States and China - who it is doing more business with. It navigates the tension between dependence on one and opportunity with the other, a balancing act that defines its modern diplomacy. China is the more dependable trading partner, yet, due to the size of US trade and the political pressure it was able to exert, Mexican officials reportedly told Chinese EV firms in April 2024 that they would be denied incentives such as low-cost public land, tax breaks, or subsidies.

Energy and water also carry bargaining weight. In return for US LNG access via Mexico’s Dos Bocas terminal, Sheinbaum secured American investment in Mexican renewables. On water, Texas senators threatened retaliation after Mexico fell behind on its Rio Grande treaty obligations; Mexico countered by proposing joint desalination infrastructure - a trade, not a threat.

Ukraine has its levers to pull with the United States: food corridors, defence technology, but above all, vast critical mineral reserves (Figure 1). China have been ramping up critical mineral restrictions to the West, with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reporting that further restrictions are to be made (October 9, 2025). Ukraine should renegotiate its US deal. In future, even constrained trade or transit arrangements with Russia could become such levers - channels of necessity, not trust, where control and calibration become instruments of strategy.

Figure 1. Map showing deposits of Ukraine’s rare earth elements and other critical raw materials (Ukrainian Geological Survey: Rubryka 2025).

Trade is unfortunately not a lever in which Ukraine could/should pull with an autocratic nation like Russia. In the Atlantic, Anne Applebaum observed that Germany and other European nations were naïve to think trade with Russian oligarchs would produce mutual interdependence. Rather, a dangerous one-way dependence on Russia was evident once the 2022 invasion of Ukraine began. This dependence was likely a major factor in Putin’s (misguided) strategic calculations on a European response to invasion. Trade only works as a diplomatic tool if the nations care about the prosperity of their people.

The Theatre of Cooperation

Mexico’s foreign policy is also built upon what is known as the Doctrine of Estrada, named for a 1930s foreign minister who argued that no state should meddle in another’s internal affairs. That doctrine, in modified form, remains a reflex: cooperation, yes; intervention, never. Even when Washington presses for deeper coordination on drug cartels or border control, Mexico often responds with a familiar posture: guarded, public, firm.

When US lawmakers proposed in early 2025 to label the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (thus permitting strikes on Mexican soil), President Sheinbaum issued a sharp public rebuke, declaring there would be no military incursion. Behind the scenes, however, her security team expanded intelligence-sharing with the DEA, opened access to wiretap data in Mexico City, and extradited twenty-six cartel figures.

That sudden bounty of high-value extraditions exposed something deeper: the transactional, almost theatrical quality of the relationship. Mexico could apparently “pluck” dozens of wanted men from its own territory precisely when negotiations demanded it, suggesting not a seamless partnership but a calibrated exchange. To some observers, it looked less like law enforcement cooperation than a hostage swap with diplomatic polish, proof that transparency often fades when political equilibrium is at stake.

Washington accepted the gesture as sufficient, each side maintaining its narrative. Sheinbaum protected Mexican pride, the US secured leverage. That capacity to appear dependent yet remain autonomous is what Ukraine must refine. Kyiv’s security now rests on American money and matériel (now largely paid for by Europe, but nonetheless American), but its political future depends on proving it can use that support without becoming defined by it.

Ukraine could borrow that same theatrical realism. Kyiv’s tone toward Washington sometimes swings from dependency to defiance. Mexico demonstrates a more sustainable posture: be difficult - to show independence - without blocking meaningful cooperation. That same poise will also serve Kyiv in the east. When the guns fall silent, the world will need a modern equivalent of the Estrada Doctrine for dealing with Russia: engagement without endorsement, coexistence without compromising sovereignty, whether in relations with Moscow or even friendly nations, as the lessons of the Budapest Memorandum remind us.

The Domestic Balancing Act

In democracies (even ones with major flaws), public opinion still rules major decisions. This can be incredibly difficult when your consistent foreign policy strategy comes up against dramatic shifts in public attitudes. President Sheinbaum has been experiencing one such conflict. A July 2025 survey showed Mexican favourability toward the United States collapsing to 29% percent from 61-63% under Biden range (Figure 2). Decades of interference, cross-border crime and volatile rhetoric have taken their toll. Yet the bilateral relationship endures because Mexico practices symbolic sovereignty - ceremonial independence that cushions every compromise.

Figure 2. Mexican favourability (as a percentage) towards the United States between 2002-2025 (Pew Research Centre 2025).

The Mexican government often engages in symbolic gestures to appease domestic audiences while avoiding direct confrontation. At times, this approach pushes the limits of balance, revealing the tension between pragmatic foreign policy and nationalist public narratives. In August 2025, the Senate’s Permanent Committee descended into a shoving match between Senate President Gerardo Fernández Noroña and PRI leader Alejandro “Alito” Moreno. The televised spectacle reinforced Mexico’s performance of internal sovereignty even as the government pursued pragmatic deals abroad. It was a reminder that Mexico’s independence is as much performed as it is protected.

Sheinbaum understands this rhythm well. She routinely invokes history, reminding citizens of the 1914 US occupation of Veracruz, as a symbolic shield, even as she quietly signs new accords with Washington. That juxtaposition, loud independence and quiet cooperation, is the essence of Mexican balancing. Sheinbaum knows she cannot be too publicly cordial to an administration disliked by the vast majority of Mexicans.

With Western fatigue - especially in public support for sending more weapons - Ukraine faces a similar dilemma. As donor fatigue deepens and criticism of allied influence (and lack of aid) grows at home, Kyiv will need to craft its own pragmatic language of symbolic sovereignty: gestures that assert independence without jeopardising support.

In wartime, Ukraine has little reason to worry about public opinion on Russia - the enemy is clear. After the war, that clarity will fade. Whatever the outcome, Ukraine will have to confront the painful task of living alongside Russia while managing the emotions the conflict has unleashed. Outrage will endure, but so will the need for regulated borders, limited trade, and some form of security dialogue. Mexico’s experience shows that nationalism and pragmatism can work together when managed deliberately. Ukraine will need that same choreography to turn survival into a pragmatic strategy.

One aspect of domestic strategy Ukraine would be best avoiding is in Mexico’s corruption-as-leverage. Mexico’s political economy is riddled with corruption and criminal entanglement. For example, Mexico’s handling of the huachicoleo fuel-theft scandal, implicating cartel networks, local officials, and business elites, reveals how the fight against corruption often follows US political pressure, given the complicated domestic attitudes/entanglements in organised crime.

A fuel theft centre in Ecatepec (Special: Mural 2021).

Estimates suggest that 16-27% of Mexican fuel consumption derives from stolen supply. Yet, when Washington’s tariff threats began to bite, Mexico suddenly rediscovered its enforcement capacity. Within weeks, federal forces staged high-profile raids, seized millions of litres of stolen fuel, and arrested dozens of officials and businessmen long thought untouchable. The message was clear and faintly cynical: Mexico could act decisively against at least some of the criminal networks but often waits until political pressure makes it unavoidable. As Ukraine’s own battles with corruption suggest, such leverage rarely justifies the domestic cost.

Cultivate Horizontal Channels

Mexico never treats Washington as a monolith. It deals with the US as an ecosystem - lobbies, governors, agencies and rivals. Its embassy runs continuous outreach to congressional committees, engages border-state governors, and courts business lobbies, think tanks, immigrant networks and defence contractors. The logic: if the White House turns cold, someone else will pick up the call.

When Trump threatened tariffs in 2025, Mexico’s ambassador mobilised governors from Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, states economically tied to cross-border trade. Business lobbies warned that tariffs would “kill American jobs before touching Mexican pride.” The pressure forced a reversal.

Ukraine’s diplomacy in the US still leans heavily on the executive branch and a few sympathetic senators. That’s a risk. American power shifts fast. To survive partisan swings Kyiv needs allies across the spectrum: Republicans sceptical of Russia, Democrats protective of liberal norms, business coalitions eyeing reconstruction, and governors seeking contracts with Kharkiv. Mexico’s lesson: resilience lies in number and diversity, not loyalty to a single patron. The same logic will apply with Russia’s neighbours, where Kyiv must engage multilaterally through regional and cross-border mechanisms rather than singular dependence on Western mediation.

Patience, Timing and Strategic Ambiguity

Mexico also knows when not to act. During the 2024 US election cycle, Sheinbaum avoided headline-grabbing confrontations. Border and migration disputes were quietly postponed; provocations deferred. As one diplomat put it, “Why give them a headline when you can give them a handshake six months later?” By the time Washington’s political dust settled, many of those threats had evaporated.

Ukraine must learn that timing is half the craft. Washington’s moods are cyclical. There are moments when noise wins headlines, and others when silence secures results. Knowing which is which is as important as any military strategy.

Mexico also practices strategic ambiguity, saying one thing and doing another. Sheinbaum and her predecessors rarely meet US presidents in dramatic face-to-face settings. Trump cancelled a meeting this term - and perhaps that was preferable. Maybe Zelensky should avoid public confrontations and focus instead on transactional clarity.

Still, ambiguity has its risks; too much can be read as evasiveness. Ukraine will need to calibrate it carefully, especially with Moscow. Ambiguity can be a shield or a trap. The art lies in appearing open while retaining control.

The Dance Continues

Mexico’s relationship with the United States will never be tidy - born of necessity, not affection. Yet, it endures because it is carefully negotiated, choreographed and buffered to ensure sovereignty.

For Ukraine, the parallel is imperfect but nonetheless illuminating. The United States is not its neighbour, yet it has become the indispensable partner in security, reconstruction, and diplomacy. Russia, meanwhile, will remain the immovable neighbour - resentful, intrusive, and unavoidable. Mexico’s experience offers a quiet lesson: how to garner support without forfeiting agency, and how to coexist beside a greater power without being consumed by it.

What Kyiv can learn from Mexico is that survival beside a larger power demands more than strategy; it requires posture, with sovereignty as its compass, strategic ambiguity as its method, and patience as its discipline. As Ukraine knows better than anyone, a nation can lose many battles and remain in the war. The choreography ahead will be imperfect, but in learning to move with power rather than against it lies the essence of sustainable sovereignty.

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References

Baskaran, G. (2025) China’s New Rare Earth and Magnet Restrictions Threaten U.S. Defense Supply Chains. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 9 October. Available at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-new-rare-earth-and-magnet-restrictions-threaten-us-defense-supply-

Lippert, J., Miner, W. and Hernandez Ramones, S. (2025) With Trump back in office, people in Mexico view the U.S. much more negatively. Pew Research Center, 11 July. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/ (Accessed: 10 October 2025).

Rubryka. (2025, February 5). Rare earth elements for peace: What you need to know about Ukraine’s critical minerals. Rubryka. https://rubryka.com/en/article/ukraine-critical-minerals/

Russia has weaponised the feed. Social media is now one of Moscow’s cheapest and most effective weapons. A permanent, low-cost insurgency against European citizens. Unlike tanks or missiles, disinformation needs no factories, no soldiers. It hijacks what Europe prizes most: open societies and free debate. Platforms built to connect communities now serve as amplifiers of distrust. For the price of a few troll farms and targeted ads, Russia can erode faith in governments, fracture alliances, and tilt elections.

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Moscow’s playbook is not invention but amplification. The Kremlin identifies Europe’s existing wounds such as migration, energy insecurity, NATO expansion, and the “decadence” of liberal values, and forces them open. Russian-linked accounts, masked as ordinary citizens, pour accelerant onto these sparks. A fabricated refugee crime in Berlin, a twisted sanction statistic in Rome, a false claim about NATO in Warsaw - each spread not because people trust Russia, but because it connects to fears already embedded in public debate.

The machinery has grown more refined. Where once troll farms and bot swarms clumsily dominated, now algorithms flag trending topics, automated accounts inject polarisation, and human influencers (wittingly or not) carry the message into mainstream discourse. A falsehood can be born in the morning, dominate feeds by noon, and by evening force officials to address it - often amplifying it further when politicians address the disinformation. By the time fact-checkers publish corrections, the damage has been done.

The aim is not persuasion but corrosion. Moscow doesn’t need Europeans to believe its lies; it wants them to doubt everyone else. Each campaign leaves behind a residue: a little more suspicion, a little less trust, a little deeper cynicism. Over years, this compounds into systemic weakness - the ideal substrate for authoritarian influence. Europe is learning the hard way: information warfare is not episodic. It is structural. And Russia treats it as a permanent theatre of conflict.

Social Media – An Existential Threat to Global Democracy?

Social media has been a technological gift to authoritarian regimes – anonymous continuous access to their adversaries’ personal lives - appears to be impacting global democracies around the world.

Although not yet proven to be causal, the rise of social media closely mirrors the global decline of democracy. Figure 1 illustrates this troubling reversal for liberal democracies after their late-2000s peak. The number of liberal democracies surged after the fall of the Soviet Union, reaching a high of 45 in 2009 - before collapsing to just 29 by 2024. That date is not incidental. 2009 marks the moment social media shifted from novelty to infrastructure - Facebook passed 200 million users, Twitter exploded globally, and smartphones made feeds the default lens on politics.

Before that inflection point, autocracies often struggled to control their own citizens, let alone shape public opinion abroad. After it, they suddenly had a frictionless, unregulated window into the citizens of their adversaries. Today, bot farms, trolls, and state-sponsored hackers act as cheap asymmetric weapons, shaping foreign electorates in ways that are notoriously hard to attribute or deter. China demonstrates the full arc of this evolution: social platforms woven into surveillance systems, social credit scores enforcing conformity, and an entire population governed through the algorithmic management of trust and fear.

Figure 1. Chart showing various autocracies and democracy nation numbers by country from 1967 to the present day (Our World in Data: V-Dem 2025).

Feeding the Fractures: Russia’s Social Media Campaigns to Defeat Europe from Within

Three cases illustrate the consistency of Russia’s strategy:

• The “Lisa Case” (Germany, 2016): Russian media outlets and fake social accounts amplified a fabricated story that a Russian-German girl had been abducted and raped by migrants in Berlin. The claim, though quickly debunked by police, sparked protests and diplomatic pressure from Moscow. It was a masterclass in exploiting migration anxieties to generate real-world unrest.

• Brexit Referendum (UK, 2016): Russian-linked botnets and troll farms amplified pro-Leave narratives across Twitter and Facebook, pushing themes of immigration, sovereignty, and anti-elite anger. Studies later traced thousands of automated accounts pumping out divisive content in the days before the vote. The Kremlin’s objective was not to pick a side out of ideological alignment, but to weaken the EU by helping fracture one of its strongest members away from the bloc.

• COVID-19 Vaccine Disinformation (2020–21): Across Eastern Europe, Russian-linked networks spread anti-vaccine narratives. The intent was not to offer a coherent alternative, but to erode trust in EU health authorities while quietly promoting Russia’s Sputnik V as superior. In Slovakia and Bulgaria, vaccine hesitancy soared — proof that disinformation can directly translate into lives lost and institutions weakened.

• Energy Narratives in Italy (2022–23): As sanctions bit after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian campaigns amplified hashtags blaming Brussels for energy price spikes. Memes of “cold winters for freedom” went viral. The effect wasn’t to rehabilitate Moscow’s image, but to drive wedges between European citizens and their governments, boosting populist parties critical of sanctions.

If Moscow’s fingerprints were present in Brexit, the surge of far-right movements across Europe, and other destabilising shocks, then the conclusion is unavoidable: social media has inflicted more strategic damage on Europe than Russia could ever dream of achieving through conventional warfare against NATO.

Occupation and Telegram: Russia’s Digital Empire-Building

The social media campaign in Ukraine is a portent of darker methods to come. What Russia has tested in occupied territories today, it will deploy against Europe tomorrow. The Atlantic Council published a thorough report in August covering bot networks targeting occupied Ukraine. Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions extends beyond territorial control into information and cultural spheres, with Telegram serving as the central platform for influence operations. Investigators from OpenMinds and DFRLab analysed 3,634 automated accounts that posted nearly 317,000 pro-Russian comments across hundreds of Telegram channels between January 2024 and April 2025. These comments sought to portray Russia positively, undermine Ukraine, and inject abstract calls for peace. Messaging was often adapted to local conditions in occupied territories, where Russian restrictions on Ukrainian media and internet access left Telegram as one of the few accessible forums.

The study found that bots deliberately shaped perceptions of local consensus in favour of Russian occupation. While similar propaganda appeared on Russia-wide Telegram channels, comments in occupied territory channels focused more heavily on praising Russian governance, culture, and social services. This emphasis aimed to normalise occupation and discourage dissent. Accounts showed clear indicators of inauthentic behaviour - odd usernames, inconsistent profiles, repetitive posting, and unusually high activity levels. To avoid detection, operators regularly recycled accounts and used generative AI to produce variations of the same propaganda narratives, though these often-contained awkward phrasing or artificial tone.

The use of inauthentic comments reflects Russia’s broader strategy of manufacturing consensus in contested areas. By flooding occupied territory, Telegram channels with positive depictions of Russia and negative portrayals of Ukraine, Moscow reinforced an information environment already shaped by blocked Ukrainian media, forced use of Russian telecoms, and state-run propaganda outlets. This systematic information control-rooted in practices dating back to Crimea’s annexation in 2014 aims not only to suppress alternative viewpoints but also to condition local populations to accept Russian administrative authority. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for planning future reintegration of occupied regions once the war ends.

How do We Respond?

Change the Terrain

Europe will not win this fight with fact-checking. In the digital battlespace, speed and repetition always beat belated truth. The task is not to chase lies after they spread but to reshape the terrain. It will be a long road, but treating media literacy as national security, training citizens to spot manipulation like phishing, and building rapid-response systems around the pressure points Moscow exploits will be essential.

I often criticise the EU for overregulation, yet in this arena they move too slowly and timidly. Europe’s regulatory arsenal should be deployed with urgency, forcing platforms to throttle inauthentic behaviour at speed, and applying the same zero-tolerance logic to information warfare that we apply to unsafe aircraft or contaminated food.

The Best Defence…

Europe must move from passive defence to targeted offence. Russia’s networks run on money, proxies, servers and hosting - and those choke points can be lawfully and relentlessly struck. Freeze the finance: sanction intermediaries, payment processors and ad networks that monetise troll farms. Break the pipes: coordinated takedowns of botnets and hosting providers, court-ordered seizures of domains and servers, and expedited mutual legal assistance to pull covert platforms offline. Impose political cost: public attribution, criminal indictments, visa bans and asset forfeiture to make deniability dangerous. Sanction proxy media, compel platform transparency on ad buyers and amplification networks, and criminally pursue operators who profit from organised campaigns.

Safeguarding Institutions

Yet, any counterattacks will be in vain if liberal democracies do not focus on bolstering trust in their institutions. Russia does not need Europeans to believe its lies, only to doubt everything else. The real countermeasure is legitimacy. Confidence in institutions, credible media, and competent governance is the shield against social media attacks. Disinformation feeds on cynicism. The only permanent antidote is trust in institutions.

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References

Dukach, Y., Adam, I. & Furbish, M. (2025) Digital occupation: Pro-Russian bot networks target Ukraine’s occupied territories on Telegram. Atlantic Council, 16 July. Available at: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/report-russian-bot-networks-occupied-ukraine/ [Accessed 10 September 2025].

Herre, B., 2022. The world has recently become less democratic. Our World in Data, 6 September. Updated July 2025. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/less-democratic [Accessed 24 September 2025].

Meister, S., 2016. The “Lisa case”: Germany as a target of Russian disinformation. NATO Review, 25 July. Available at: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2016/07/25/the-lisa-case-germany-as-a-target-of-russian-disinformation/index.html [Accessed 24 September 2025].

Credit: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Introduction

Russia has not been subtle in articulating its strategy: to destabilise European politics, erode support for Kyiv, and undermine the collective response capacity of NATO and the European Union. Under most geopolitical circumstances, attacks on infrastructure - whether physical or cyber - along with GPS jamming, assassinations, election interference, and other forms of sabotage, would be considered acts of war, or at minimum, grounds for significant retaliation. Yet Europe remains constrained, retreating into the safety of terminology.

The term grey zone is widely employed by European governments to describe, and implicitly to justify, the spectrum of physical and cyber operations Russia conducts against them. The challenge with grey zone conflict is its lack of a universally agreed definition. It generally refers to actions that are difficult to attribute, difficult to classify as “war”, and difficult to address within the framework of international law. Despite the escalation in both physical and cyber sabotage, European leaders persist in framing these incidents as grey zone activities. This is partly because attribution to Russia can be hard to prove conclusively, even when it is obvious. More significantly, however, the terminology serves as a shield to avoid escalation.

A more accurate characterisation of the situation is hybrid warfare. As defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, hybrid warfare is “the use of a range of different methods to attack an enemy, for example, the spreading of false information, or attacking important computer systems, as well as, or instead of, traditional military action.” Grey zone is usually used to describe ambiguity, but that term no longer applies. Russia’s methods are unmistakably those of hybrid warfare and must be treated as such. Europe is no longer dealing with deniable, grey zone operations; it is now the target of a deliberate and coordinated hybrid campaign.

In this article, I cover the surge in recent and high profile physical and cyber attacks to Europe, using the latest data from the IISS, ISW and Insikt Group. These amazing datasets highlight the increased number of attacks, the scale of these attacks, as well as new/developing Russian tactics. From this dataset, I arrive at the following conclusion:

Europe remains stuck in a kind of wilful denial: by labelling Russia’s campaign as “grey-zone activity,” governments downplay what is in practice overt hybrid warfare - sabotage, subversion, disinformation, and coordinated cyber and physical attacks that surged after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Framing it as “below the threshold of war” has become a bureaucratic shield that fragments responsibility, slows attribution, and encourages reactive, incident-by-incident responses instead of a unified strategy against a sustained Kremlin operation targeting critical infrastructure, supply routes, defence industry, and public opinion. Political caution - fear of escalation, protecting sources and methods, and managing public anxiety - further delays calling out Moscow’s role, even as attack frequency and scope rises. The fact that most operations have avoided mass casualties is misleading; the cumulative effect is to erode resilience, raise costs, and normalise intimidation while keeping escalation risks uncomfortably high. Russia’s drone incursions into Poland are the latest evidence that the concept of the ‘grey zone’ is losing relevance; Europe is now facing a deliberate hybrid campaign that requires proactive and collective countermeasures.

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Proxy Sabotage

European intelligence services have reported multiple examples of Moscow orchestrating a sabotage campaign across the continent, blending arson, vandalism, and disinformation. This cost-effective proxy sabotage rarely involves Russian agents directly. Some operations target Ukraine-related infrastructure, while others are designed to spread fear and disruption. Together, they form part of a coherent hybrid strategy, not random harassment. In Lithuania, an Ikea store was torched. In Britain, seven people were charged over an arson attack on a company with ties to Ukraine. In France, five coffins marked “French soldiers in Ukraine” were placed beneath the Eiffel Tower. In Estonia, the car windows of the interior minister and a journalist were smashed. And in Poland, a series of suspicious fires culminated in a blaze that destroyed a major shopping centre in Warsaw. Viewed together, these incidents point to Russia’s intelligence services adopting a fragmented, deniable, and deliberately low-cost form of physical attack on Europe - dangerous, yet difficult to attribute.

The perpetrators are often small-time operatives, recruited online and paid in cryptocurrency. Some knowingly serve Russian interests, while others remain unaware of who is directing them. The professional officers behind the operations remain safely inside Russia, orchestrating events from afar. This picture of the sabotage offensive - drawn from court records in Britain and Poland, interviews with European and US intelligence officials, and accounts from associates of perpetrators, suggests a campaign that is calculated, chaotic, and destabilising by design.

Disaffected young men are frequent targets. One example is a man who fled Ukraine to avoid fighting, openly supported Russia, and later struggled to make ends meet in Germany. He was offered $4,000 to locate and torch Polish businesses. Such recruits are typically paid in cryptocurrency and guided via Telegram, leaving little evidence of Russian involvement. In many cases, they likely never realised the money originated in Moscow, believing instead they were working for friends, businesses, or online contacts. Though these acts may seem petty and indiscriminate, Europe wrongly continues to classify them as ‘grey zone’ incidents, when in reality they are deliberate elements of hybrid warfare. Russia counts on this hesitation, which is why such operations have multiplied across Europe in recent years.

Signs of pushback are emerging. On 21 July, Martina Rosenberg, head of Germany’s military counter-intelligence service, warned of a “sharp increase in cases of espionage and hybrid measures”, a clear reference to sabotage. Just three days later, the UK sanctioned 18 Russian intelligence officers for “irresponsible, destructive and destabilising hybrid activity” worldwide. These responses suggest Europe is beginning to take proxy sabotage more seriously. Whether this becomes a genuine shift in posture depends on whether Europe follows through with sustained action and not just words.

Elections

European governments continue to label election interference as a ‘grey zone’ activity, but this framing obscures reality. At the scale and frequency now seen - and in combination with the other tactics outlined in this article - election interference is unmistakably a core instrument of hybrid warfare. Cyber intrusions, disinformation, and covert funding have become routine features of modern conflict, fuelling a constant arms race between hostile actors and the democratic institutions seeking to defend themselves.

Russian interference in elections is now beyond dispute. The most prominent Western case remains the 2016 US presidential election, documented in detail by Special Counsel Robert Mueller (2019), with sections 3a-d describing Russian cyber operations, GRU hacking, dissemination of stolen material, and influence campaigns.

In Europe, the impact is more immediate and acute. Elections in Moldova, Romania, and the Baltic states have been repeatedly targeted through cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns, and deliberate efforts to erode public trust in democratic processes. To dismiss these actions as merely “grey zone” is to ignore their strategic purpose: to destabilise fragile democracies, fracture European unity, and weaken support for Ukraine. Europe is not experiencing ambiguous harassment; it is confronting an organised hybrid campaign that strikes at the legitimacy of its electoral systems.

Moldova

What is happening in Moldova is a canary in the coalmine for the future of severe national sabotage and interference if left unchecked. Two reports shed light on recent developments in Moldova. An ISW report gives a Russian strategic overview in the region, while the Insikt Group dives deep into election interference and ‘Operation Overlord’.

I will start with the ISW report. The Kremlin is seeking to influence Moldova’s September 28, 2025, parliamentary elections, continuing efforts it pursued during the 2024 presidential election and EU referendum, in order to block Moldova’s integration with the West. Moscow is adapting its tactics from earlier interference in Moldova and from operations in Ukraine, Georgia, and Romania, aiming to deprive the pro-Western Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) of its parliamentary majority. A Kremlin-friendly parliament could reverse recent progress toward EU accession by exploiting Moldova’s constitutional neutrality clause to limit NATO cooperation or by passing a foreign agents law to derail EU integration. Despite Moldova’s significant movement toward the West since Maia Sandu’s 2020 election, Russia has consistently pursued its strategic objective of reasserting influence over Chisinau, leveraging ties to pro-Russian actors, funnelling money through figures like Ilan Shor, and maintaining a foothold in Transnistria. A successful campaign in 2025 would give Moscow the ability to undermine Moldova’s Western trajectory while simultaneously pressuring both NATO and Ukraine.

Operation Overlord

Recorded Future/Insikt Group conducted a thorough deep dive into Russian attempts to influence elections in Moldova. Ahead of Moldova’s September 28, 2025, parliamentary elections, multiple Russia-linked influence operations (IOs) are actively working to destabilise the political environment and obstruct Moldova’s path toward European Union (EU) accession. These IOs - including Operation Overload, Operation Undercut, the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Portal Kombat, and affiliated media assets -consistently target President Maia Sandu and the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) with narratives portraying them as corrupt, untrustworthy, and harmful to Moldova’s sovereignty. At the same time, they depict EU integration as economically and culturally destructive while presenting closer ties with Russia as a preferable alternative. Since April 2025, Operation Overload and the Foundation to Battle Injustice have focused on vilifying Sandu, while Operation Undercut has dedicated significant resources to anti-PAS and anti-EU content, including coordinated efforts on TikTok. Shor-linked outlets such as Moldova24 and covert Facebook pages tied to the Evrazia organization, as well as Pravda Moldova within the Portal Kombat ecosystem, are also amplifying these narratives across multiple platforms.

Operation Overload videos posted to social media in April 2025, impersonating the BBC and Deutsche Welle (Source: Recorded Future).

Insikt Group assesses that as election day nears, these operations will likely escalate in scale, posing risks to Moldova’s media integrity and public trust. Even if direct impacts on voter behaviour are hard to measure, the intent and coordination of these operations make clear that they are integral to Russia’s hybrid war on Europe. By amplifying claims of corruption, economic decline, or election rigging, Kremlin-backed IOs could depress turnout and erode confidence in democratic institutions. Their activity underscores Russia’s broader strategy to weaken pro-Western leadership and slow Moldova’s EU integration while bolstering pro-Kremlin alternatives. To mitigate these risks, it will be essential to monitor the identified networks, strengthen election-related cyber defences, and expose malign narratives before they can take root in Moldova’s political discourse.

Distributed Denial of Service

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are a common tool used by hackers to cause havoc to a nation by shutting down key services. Some notable DDoS attacks since the invasion of Ukraine include: The pro-Kremlin group Killnet launched DDoS attacks against Romanian government military, banking, media, and airport websites shortly after Romania declared support for Ukraine in 2022. Killnet then expanded to countries like Lithuania and Norway. In 2023, Germany was targeted by the Russian-linked APT28 (Fancy Bear), which infiltrated the Social Democratic Party and defence/aerospace sectors via Outlook vulnerabilities. That same year, other Russia-linked DDoS attacks occurred all across the EU, including elections, banking etc. In recent years, railways and aircraft have begun to be targeted more, showing that Russia are upping the ante.

I will pre-empt those who excuse Russia by claiming it is merely defending itself against the suppliers of its enemy. In reality, Moscow’s cyberattacks long predate the current war, from the major assault on Estonia in 2007 to the 2015 hack of Germany’s parliament. Russia persists in these operations because Europe has done little to deter them. When an autocratic bully undermines its neighbours, a weak, ineffective response is to look away or issue the occasional token sanction.

Europe’s Hybrid Warfare Reality

It should now be clear that Russia is conducting coordinated physical and cyber-attacks across multiple sectors and throughout much of Europe. Perhaps the most comprehensive IISS report on Russian sabotage ever made, consolidates data on confirmed and suspected incidents, and its findings leave little doubt: the scale, diversity, and targeting of these operations are not random disruption but the defining features of hybrid warfare.

Figure 1. Frequency of Russian hybrid-warfare activity across Europe between Jan 2018-Jun 2025 (IISS 2025).

From January 2018 to June 2025, recorded Russian hybrid activity against Europe’s critical infrastructure (ECI) rose sharply, with all 2022 incidents occurring after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a marked surge thereafter. Confirmed ECI sabotage increased by a staggering 246% from 2023 to 2024 (see Figure 1), effectively almost quadrupling, with early 2025 showing a dip in public reporting that likely reflects investigation lags rather than a genuine pause. The most frequently hit targets are facilities tied to the war effort and government sites, spanning energy, communications, transport, water, health, industry and military categories, and including undersea assets such as cables and pipelines.

Figure 2 from the same IISS report is perhaps the best piece of research on Russian sabotage to date. The dataset captures a broad sabotage toolset across physical and virtual domains: espionage, subversion, ransomware and supply-chain abuse, alongside information operations using disinformation, propaganda, deepfakes and conspiracy narratives. On the ground, activity ranges from arson and vandalism to GPS jamming and undersea interference. Some cases worth highlighting are the suspected water-supply tampering near German bases, attacks on telecoms towers along Sweden’s E22 corridor, the DHL parcel-bomb tests reported across Germany, Poland and the UK, and anchor-dragging by vessels that severed cables such as Estlink-2 and C-Lion1. Costs of repairs can run to tens of millions of euros, not accounting for economic disruption and policing burdens – or the morale effect on the populace.

Figure 2. Methods of Russian hybrid-warfare activity across Europe between Jan 2018 & June 2025 (IISS 2025).

The report also finds that exposure is amplified by structural weaknesses throughout Europe. Europe’s electricity grids average about 40 years in age, with roughly 60% of required EU investment needed just to modernise distribution networks – vital for military supply chains. Rail remains a single-point-of-failure risk for NATO logistics; cases in Poland showed local networks being monitored with track-side cameras. Dependence on the private sector is also a weak point. Around 90% of NATO military transport uses civilian assets, more than half of defence satellite communications are commercial, and three quarters of host-nation support is delivered by local firms. Undersea cables carry about 95% of global data and underpin an estimated 10 trillion US dollars in daily financial transactions, while over 70% of cable incidents annually arise from commercial marine activity, compounding the risk profile.

From Disruption to War: The Semantics of Sabotage

Semantics are critical in geopolitics. Elections, infrastructure, the economy, territory – all things critical to a sovereign nation, are all being attacked in Europe by Russia. In any war game scenario, attacks to these fundamental attributes to democracy would be assessed as hybrid warfare at the very least.

Russian surveillance drones have conducted frequent reconnaissance flights over eastern Germany to monitor Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, with Western intelligence services recording more than 530 sightings in the first three months of this year. Their purpose is to track shifting military transport routes in order to determine which weapons are bound for Ukraine and when new equipment or ammunition will arrive. German authorities have struggled to counter these espionage activities, as responsibility for security is divided: the Bundeswehr protects its own installations, while the Ministry of the Interior and civilian operators are responsible for infrastructure such as railways and LNG terminals.

At the same time, a suspected Russian GPS interference attack forced European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s aircraft to land in Bulgaria using paper maps after its navigation systems were disabled. Although no jamming signals were detected at the airport, Bulgaria reported that the aircraft could have picked up interference either from jamming signals or from other aircraft. The fact that Russia was immediately suspected, and the fear it provoked across Europe, speaks volumes about the escalating tensions that now extend well beyond Ukraine.

Poland has faced similar challenges. In fact, it is highly likely that these drone forays into Germany and Poland are for surveillance purposes as a prerequisite for future sabotage attempts. In early September, Poland tolerated the presence of Russian drones in its airspace without reprisals. Yet, in the early hours of 10 September, Poland - for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine - announced that, with the assistance of Dutch F-35s and other European allies, it had shot down multiple drones over its territory. The decision, it explained, reflected the sharp increase in drone incursions, which had already forced the closure of four Polish airports.

In response, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha warned:
“A weak response now will provoke Russia even more, and then Russian missiles and drones will fly even further into Europe.”

This assessment is persuasive. Russia continues to test the limits, confident that Europe remains vulnerable and fearful of escalation. Germany’s refusal to supply cruise missiles, despite the deployment of Storm Shadows and Ukraine’s development of the Flamingo cruise missile, underscores this hesitation. The parallel with 1939 is uncomfortable: a European strategy of denial and wishful thinking risks repeating the same mistakes. Poland, by contrast, seems less willing to accept the ‘grey zone’ framing that has paralysed European responses for three years.

Europe at a Crossroads

Russia has long understood the power of language in shaping Europe’s response. By operating in the margins of attribution and deniability, Moscow exploits the very ambiguity captured in the term grey zone. European leaders, in turn, have leaned on that terminology to postpone hard decisions, treating semantics as a substitute for strategy.

But words will not deter sabotage, drone incursions, or election interference. Nor will they prevent Moscow from pushing further so long as Europe signals it is more afraid of escalation than of attack. Outrage expressed in parliaments and press conferences achieve little if the incidents themselves remain categorised as something less than warfare.

Europe must therefore confront the reality: these are not grey zone activities, but components of a deliberate hybrid campaign. Recognising that distinction is more than semantics - it is the first step towards building the unity and resolve required to defend European sovereignty. If Europe continues to hide behind the language of ambiguity, Russia will go on defining the conflict on its own terms. If, however, Europe calls these attacks what they are, it may yet begin to seize back the initiative and even deter future attacks.

Europe is at a crossroads: continue retreating into the safety of semantics, or accept that the grey zone is over, hybrid warfare is here, and Europe must respond accordingly.

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References

BBC News (2025) Poland says it shot down Russian drones after airspace violation. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c147065pzdzo (Accessed: 10 September 2025).

Cambridge Dictionary (2025) Hybrid warfare. Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hybrid-warfare (Accessed: 10 September 2025).

The Economist (2025) Russian sabotage attacks surged across Europe in 2024. 22 July. Available at: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/07/22/russian-sabotage-attacks-surged-across-europe-in-2024 (Accessed: 6 September 2025).

Herre, B. (2022) The world has recently become less democratic. Our World in Data. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/less-democratic (Accessed: 8 September 2025).

Insikt Group (2025) Russian influence assets converge on Moldovan elections. 3 September. Recorded Future. Available at:

https://www.recordedfuture.com/

(Accessed: 8 September 2025).

Institute for the Study of War (2025) Russia continues efforts to regain influence over Moldova. 5 September. Available at: https://www.understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russia-continues-efforts-to-regain-influence-over-moldova/ (Accessed: 8 September 2025).

Urbanic, J. (2025) ‘Russian spy drones over Germany: Why the Bundeswehr cannot shoot them down’, Euronews, 5 September. Available at: https://www.euronews.com/2025/09/05/russian-spy-drones-over-germany-why-bundeswehr-can-not-shoot-them-down (Accessed: 7 September 2025).

U.S. Department of Justice (2019) Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. Volume I of II. Submitted by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.

Walker, S. (2025) ‘These people are disposable’: how Russia is using online recruits for a campaign of sabotage in Europe. The Guardian, 4 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/may/04/these-people-are-disposable-how-russia-is-using-online-recruits-for-a-campaign-of-sabotage-in-europe (Accessed: 6 September 2025).

Photo Credit: White House.

This article addresses an uncomfortable truth: Europe’s repeated concessions to the Trump administration exemplify a classic sunk cost fallacy. Having already invested substantial political capital in accommodating American demands, European leaders continue to double down on this approach, even as evidence mounts that it neither placates Washington nor advances Europe’s long-term interests. Rather than reassessing the strategic costs of compliance, they persist out of a misplaced belief that past concessions justify further ones. This posture of performative submission may appear pragmatic in the short term, but it has real consequences. This approach reinforces dependency, undermines credibility, and erodes Europe’s claim to strategic autonomy in the eyes of the wider world. Worse still, it corrodes democratic values globally by normalising the notion that authoritarian behaviour is tolerable, so long as it is exercised by our own side.

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Europe Adrift on America’s Rudderless Ship

In the Oval Office meeting, when discussing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump declared: “I want this war to end, this gentleman (pointing at Zelensky) wants it to end, and Putin wants it to end. The whole world is tired of it…” His words captured both his impatience with the war and his lack of strategic direction. Trump has no coherent geostrategic vision beyond his myopic obsession with “dealmaking” and quick press wins. This approach has completely eroded Europe’s initial stance and its goals of deterring Russia - and, by extension, an ever-watchful China.

That lack of consistency has been evident from the start. Within a month, Trump’s messaging on Ukraine swung wildly. He moved from expressing frustration with Russia - giving them a 50-day timeline, later shortened to 10 - to rolling out a red carpet for Putin and insisting that Ukraine must accept territorial losses. At one point, he even thanked Putin for claiming that the war would never have happened had Trump been president in 2022. He then veered back to blaming Russia for the war and accusing Biden of failing to provide Ukraine with sufficient offensive capabilities.

Though much attention has been paid to the berating of Zelensky in his first visit to the White House at the beginning of Trump’s term, it is the policies that are more telling as to the amoral “rationalism” coming from the US. The extortion of critical minerals - Ukraine’s future - in the small hopes the US will continue to even allow the sale of its arms (not gifts) shows a desperate Ukraine and an equally powerless Europe. Ukraine would never have signed such an agreement had Europe genuinely reassured Kyiv that they could support it independently of Washington.

Europe’s weakness has only deepened as leaders tethered themselves to America’s rudderless ship. Extolling Trump and showing deference, they hoped unrealistically to keep him onside. How has that gone? Since re-entering the White House, Trump has ruled out NATO accession for Ukraine, slashed funding, publicly humiliated President Zelensky, reneged on arms shipments promised under Biden, invited Putin — an ICC-indicted war criminal - onto US soil with full honours, and simultaneously admonished European leaders while slapping them with punitive tariffs.

The transactional character of US policy is further underscored by economic opportunism. More concerning still were recent comments by US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who boasted that Europeans are buying American weapons for Ukraine at a 10% price hike. Washington is, in effect, profiting from the conflict. The tone stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric surrounding the Second World War, when lend-lease to Britain was framed not as commercial gain but as a moral duty to defend civilisation. Even were Ukraine to emerge in a stronger position than appears likely in August 2025, the damage to the transatlantic relationship would remain indelible.

European Capitulation

As of 2025, the economies of European NATO members are roughly ten times larger than Russia’s, giving Europe far greater long-term capacity to fund and sustain defense production. Russia dedicates around 7% of its GDP and nearly 40% of government spending to the military, while European NATO members average just over 2%, leaving substantial room to expand. In purchasing power terms Russia channels significant resources into its armed forces, giving it a short-term edge (as seen in our naval comparison piece), but Europe’s far larger economic base ensures that, if mobilised, NATO members could easily surpass Russia in weapons, equipment, and industrial output.

In any tactical simulation, the European side would be the obvious choice for a near-certain victory over Russian aggression. Yet judged by European rhetoric alone, these realities appear inverted. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has declared that “US security guarantees [are] the only path to peace in Ukraine,” while Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz have both stressed the need for continued American backing. Only Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has cut through the illusion, noting in January that it is “five hundred million Europeans asking 300 million Americans to defend them from 140 million Russians.” This is precisely the inversion Moscow desires. Russia, a paper tiger in both military and economic terms, has nevertheless managed to convince Europeans that they have no agency. Yet clearly, Europe is the real tiger - with the population, resources, and industrial base to drive Russia out of Ukraine. By allowing this perception to persist, Europe risks squandering its credibility as a strategic actor and eroding its legitimacy as a force for good in the world, all while tying its fate to the whims of a US president steering his country ever deeper into autocracy.

Global leaders meeting with German, French and Japanese leaders standing above Trump in his first term (left); European leaders seated around Trump in the Oval Office in his second term (right).

Although a single photograph cannot fully capture the moods, intentions or outcomes of high-level meetings, body language can offer a revealing illustration of the shifting balance of power between Europe and the United States. Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, highlighted this by comparing two images: one from Trump’s first term featuring European leaders (left), and a recent meeting with European leaders following Putin’s visit to the United States (right). The Oval Office, with its design echoing 18th century European palaces, provides a fitting backdrop for European leaders still trapped in the past. Europe clings to the image of a recovering continent dependent on the United States for stability after tearing itself apart, rather than embracing the reality that it holds the capacity to stand as an independent power and assume the mantle of democracy’s defender.

In the earlier image, Trump’s authority was tempered by advisers who worked to rein in his tendency to lose focus or shift positions with the mood of the day. This dynamic was most clearly embodied by the presence of John Bolton at his side. Since then, Bolton has had his home raided by the FBI and his security detail withdrawn, a development that sent a chilling message to former aides who have turned against what they now see as Trump’s increasingly autocratic instincts.

Europeans often scoff at such meetings, with both news organisations and politicians portraying them as little more than exercises in manipulating the President through flattery. Yet the outcomes tell a different story. Trade imbalances remain, NATO defence pledges go unmet, Ukraine’s war aims have been drastically reduced, and efforts to rein in US technology monopolies have faltered. For all their mockery, it is Europe that finds itself consistently outmanoeuvred.

Take the recent US-EU trade deal signed in Scotland after Trump returned from playing golf at his Turnberry course. Though hailed as averting Trump’s threatened 30% tariffs (the usual anchoring technique deployed by the President), the agreement was essentially struck under duress, leaving Europe with weaker market access, higher costs for its exporters with 15% tariffs remaining, and symbolic promises in return. Critics argue correctly that not only does it undermines WTO principles, but it also erodes already tense European cohesion. French Prime Minister François Bayrou even called it “a dark day for Europe,” capturing the sense that this was less a balanced trade pact than a coerced concession to keep the United States on side.

Long-Term Consequences

How do European leaders imagine this approach will serve them in the long run? Submitting to the daily whims of a President who speaks fondly of Putin and Xi while belittling European counterparts is not a strategy. It is merely postponing hard choices, a gamble that they can keep winning at the roulette table of Trump’s fickle decisions. The consequences are already visible. During a recent visit to the United Kingdom, Trump abruptly declared to Keir Starmer, and to the cameras, that the Prime Minister needed to get a firmer grip on immigration. Had this occurred in reverse, the UK would be threatened with 50% tariffs like Brazil and India. The absence of pushback or defiance sent a message not only to Ukraine, but also to the Global South and to Russia: The United Kingdom has become little more than a vassal of the United States.

Writing in the Financial Times, Martin Sandbu, argues that European leaders, by indulging Trump’s performative style of politics, have normalised his tantrums and bullying on the world stage. In doing so, they’ve undermined their own credibility to defend international rules, instead embracing personalised “great man” deal-making over democratic consensus. He makes the crucial point that “Europe has squandered the political capital needed to lead a coalition for rules-based trade - and has let down American allies who had hoped Europe would resist Trump’s approach”. This point is emphasised by the concern that if Europe does not push back against the “grievance doctrine” of globalisation[1], how can it repel anti-European forces thriving on those views at home?

This grievance-driven political doctrine has also permeated the defence sphere. The Trump administration—particularly through Vice President Vance—has repeatedly invoked the charge of European “free-riding.” Yet the economic foundations of this argument are weak. European defence commitments impose comparatively little cost on the US, while delivering Washington substantial returns in the form of political leverage and sustained demand for American defence exports. The scale of these benefits is now more widely acknowledged in Washington itself, as policymakers recognise that tens of billions of euros spent annually on US equipment represent a structural subsidy to the American defence industrial base. Calls for Europe to “rearm” are therefore less about shared security and more about ensuring that rearmament is channelled through American suppliers.

Despite this, Chancellor Merz has chosen to validate the free-rider narrative in an effort to appease Washington, overlooking the fact that German rearmament was politically - and indeed strategically - unthinkable for decades, for well-founded historical reasons. A similar trajectory can be observed in Japan, which has only recently begun cautiously exporting military equipment abroad for the first time since the Second World War. Yet rather than challenge Washington’s framing, European leaders appear to have calculated that overt alignment with grievance politics is the safer course, in the hope of restoring the more stable US posture seen under President Biden earlier this year.

This approach, however, reflects a classic sunk cost fallacy. Having invested considerable political capital in accommodating Washington’s demands, European leaders continue to pursue this strategy despite mounting evidence that it does not yield the desired outcomes. Instead of reassessing the costs and benefits of alignment, they persist out of a misplaced belief that previous concessions justify further ones - thereby reinforcing a cycle of dependency rather than fostering genuine strategic autonomy.

There are at least some positive developments. Germany has pledged €9 billion annually to Ukraine for the coming years, as announced in Kyiv by Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, while Norway plans to provide $8.5 billion in 2026, confirmed by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre during his own visit to the Ukrainian capital. Together, these commitments amount to nearly 10% of Ukraine’s GDP. Furthermore, while the recent NATO funding increase is ostensibly the result of US pressure, much of this investment will in fact strengthen Europe’s own defence industrial base - giving it the capacity to become genuinely independent from American dominance. Take, for instance, the Saab Gripen: production is limited to barely a dozen aircraft per year, and the fighter still relies on a US-designed General Electric engine. Similarly, France’s Rafale - fresh off a confirmed training kill against an F-35A in exercises over Finland - also incorporates key American components and faces the same production bottlenecks as the Gripen.

The allocation of hundreds of billions of euros to this sector could allow European manufacturers to scale up, finally providing their partners with credible alternatives to US-built jets. The United Kingdom, however, remains tethered to Washington: its Trident nuclear deterrent depends on American launch systems, and its new carrier strike capability hinges on the F-35B. Yet London’s collaboration with Paris to coordinate a joint European nuclear umbrella reflects a clear ambition to secure greater autonomy.

Unfortunately, political missteps continue to blunt this momentum. Britain chose to present its initiative as “doing more of the heavy lifting for Europe”, all while reaffirming reliance on the US - an approach that undermines the very independence it claims to seek.

Reflections on Power and Dependence

The deeper philosophical problem revealed in this moment is Europe’s inability to imagine itself outside America’s shadow. From Hobbes to Arendt, political thinkers have argued whether power rests primarily on coercive force or on the ability to generate a shared world of meaning. Europe’s deference to Trump signals more than short-term weakness. Their rhetoric and behaviour towards the US mark a retreat from this democratic conception of power, betraying a loss of intellectual and normative confidence. By reducing politics to the management of Trump’s impulses, European leaders have effectively surrendered to a narrow, will-driven vision - one in which outcomes are determined by the preferences of a single individual rather than by institutions, shared principles, or collective agency.

To bend to Trump’s erratic demands cannot be excused as pragmatism; it is a concession that laws, treaties, and norms count for little when set against the force of personal authority. Such acquiescence risks eroding Europe’s self-conception as a normative power and reducing it to the status of a dependent appendage of the United States. The symbolism of this dynamic was laid bare when, during the signing of an executive order, Trump quipped: “they call me the President of Europe”. When Trump omits names or distinctions, it often signals less a slip of tongue than a declaration of how he already conceives reality – or wishes it to be.

Considering this shift in American views on power, Europe must rethink its approach to dealing with the Trump administration. How Europe positions itself in this incredibly uncertain period will shape how it is perceived on the world stage for years to come. Taking a firmer stance with Trump may bring short-term economic difficulties, through tariffs and other pressures that will hit exporters like Germany. Yet, it is essential if Europe is to restore the authority and global respect needed to counter the growing encroachment of Russian and Chinese influence on democratic nations. An influence growing in strength in the moral vacuum left by the United States’ shift from a rules-based order to a transactional, might-equals-right approach.

When the war in Ukraine finally ends, there will likely be many Ukrainians bitter with Europe. Instead of leveraging an economy ten times larger than Russia’s, Europe has been forced into a position of pleading with a US administration that openly sympathises with Putin and shows little hesitation in humiliating or extorting Ukraine. Ukrainians long looked to Britain and France as nations willing to fight larger forces against daunting odds for its allies. Yet rather than rising to the moment by scaling up their defense industries and taking ownership of the fight beyond a few GDP points, European powers have chosen to shift the burden onto an indifferent America.

Europe, in persisting with this posture of dependence, has succumbed to the very sunk cost fallacy that defined its concessions to Washington from the outset. By mistaking past deference for a justification of further compliance, it has abandoned the chance to act as a true strategic actor. The cost will not just be a weakened Ukraine, but a disillusioned continent remembered less for defending freedom than for outsourcing it. In so doing, Europe risks eroding both its credibility abroad and its autonomy at home.

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[1] The Grievance Doctrine is economist Richard Baldwin’s term to describe viewing globalisation through resentment, loss, or victimhood rather than opportunity or mutual benefit.

References

Cook, L. (2025) EU needs to end its military dependency on the US and arm itself ‘to survive,’ says Tusk. Associated Press, 22 January. Available at: https://apnews.com/article/eu-tusk-security-defense-spending-f206708f7b9e4899c3e6c59cc1774443 (Accessed: 26 August 2025).

Epstein, J. (2025) Price hike on US weapons sales to Europe may pay for American ‘air cover’ for Ukraine, Treasury says. Yahoo News/Business Insider, 21 August. Available at: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/price-hike-us-weapons-sales-162306688.html (Accessed: 26 August 2025).

Propper, D. (2025) UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer insists ‘US security guarantee’ the only path to peace in Ukraine. New York Post, 17 February. Available at: https://nypost.com/2025/02/17/world-news/us-security-guarantee-the-only-path-to-peace-in-ukraine-uks-starmer-says/ (Accessed: 26 August 2025).

Sandbu, M. (2025) Europe is selling its soul to Trump. Financial Times, 25 August. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/75609ba4-cc61-4556-8ca2-09381da721e9 (Accessed: 26 August 2025).

https://www.challengerresearchgroup.com/

“Getting Ukraine to join NATO was the key to inciting war with Russia... The invasion was no surprise to the Biden administration. They knew that would happen. That was the point of the exercise.” – Tucker Carlson (2022)

“We ignored the advice of George Kennan in the 1990s in bringing NATO right up to Russia’s door... It was absolutely a red line for the Russians” – David Sacks (2023)

The quotes above illustrate a popular myth amongst influential right-wing thinkers in the United States. This myth describes how Putin was forced to invade Ukraine. Why, for the inexcusable desire for Ukraine to seek the safety of NATO membership. No official NATO entry offer was made, and nations such as France and Germany were against Ukrainian membership so that Putin could not use Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO as casus belli for invasion. Nevertheless, this provocation argument still surfaces, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary, both from decisions made by Russia since the invasion began, as well as Putin’s own rhetoric prior to/during the 2022 war in Ukraine.

The influencers spreading the provocation myth have large followings and even roles in Trump's government. David Sacks serves as the White House AI and Cryptocurrency Czar in President Donald Trump's administration, a role he assumed in December 2024. In this capacity, Sacks is responsible for shaping U.S. policy on artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies, aiming to position the country as a global leader in these sectors.

As of March 12, Tucker Carlson had approximately 15.96 million followers on Twitter, while David Sacks has about 1.3 million followers. Both also host very popular podcasts that reach millions of people every month. Tucker Carlson holds no official role, but is a close confidant of the President, and one of the most prominent voices for the Trump administration.

The influence even just these two men carry means that their framing of the war in Ukraine has consequences. Support on the right for Ukraine is at a concerning low. As of March 2025, a Gallup poll (Brenan 2025) reported that 82% of Democrats and 52% of independents support Ukraine in winning back its lost territory – compared to just 22% of Republicans. Words carry weight. The anchoring bias – relying heavily on the first piece of information given on a topic – can mean that the NATO provocation myth may persist in public discourse long after it is falsified. This article outlines the strong evidence disproving the provocation narrative. I write this now, to help limit the damage done in polluting public discourse on the war in Ukraine. This is especially important at a time when Ukraine and Russia have had their first direct talks in years.

American support for Ukraine is a matter of profound strategic and moral consequence. Citizens have every right to shape the direction of that support, but they deserve more than slogans or partisan spin. They deserve the facts: clear, unvarnished, and rooted in reality. Only then can a democratic people make choices worthy of a free society.

Watch What They Do, Not What They Say

The argument from Sacks and other prominent voices on the right centres around game-theoretical concepts from realism and balance-of-threat theory. In a multipolar world, the dominant power (the US) should prevent the formation of a hostile alliance between the next two strongest powers (China and Russia). We have discussed at length previously that Europe is far stronger than Russia in GDP, manpower and innovation terms. It should be noted in irony that Sacks and Carson have nevertheless criticised Europe at length, helping to undermine the NATO alliance between Europe (the real third great power) and the US. To counter their claims, we will focus on what Russia does, not what they say.

Using their model of realism and game theory, they would have to concede two points. 1) If even the threat of Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO was casus belli for an invasion, then it would be rational to do the same to their other bordering neighbour, Finland. 2) If not outright invade Finland, Russia would at the very least bolster defences on the border with that NATO border immediately due to concerns of NATO aggression. Neither of these outcomes occurred. Finland joined NATO in response to the 2022 invasion without a shot being fired. More damning for the NATO aggression argument is in Russia’s response since Finland’s ascension into NATO.

Only in the past month (April 2025) have Russia finally begun to bolster defences and establish troops close to Finland, with a planned HQ 160 miles from the border. It seems likely that seeing an end in sight in Ukraine, Putin is preparing to strengthen his threat presence for future diplomatic talks with the United States. However, for three years of conflict, Russia’s actions near Finland’s border told a completely different story.

From the outbreak of the invasion, Finnish aerial photographic evidence suggests Russia pulled significant military hardware from the Finnish border to Ukraine. Finnish broadcaster Yle has analysed satellite images revealing substantial reductions in Russian military presence near Finland's border. At the Petrozavodsk equipment depot, approximately 50 armoured vehicles were removed between June 2023 and May 2024. According to Finnish intelligence sources in June 2024, approximately 80% of the personnel and equipment from Russian bases near the Finnish border have been redeployed to Ukraine. There are numerous OSINF satellite images of previously full sites of vehicles now largely empty. If Putin worried about NATO aggression, leaving their border almost completely defenceless for 3 years of conflict with a “NATO proxy” would be catastrophic. Russia would be leaving themselves vulnerable on a border that is now a NATO member, who can bring to bear a significant force trained for combat in the challenging sub-arctic terrain. Sweden also joined NATO after the outbreak of the war, yet they too have received this double standard from Russia.

If the United States declared a war on cartels and global drug trafficking, Sacks and Carlson would be very vocal in calling out a decision to reduce military force on the US-Mexico border, because they would rightly see it as counterproductive and strategically foolish. Yet, they both still believe that Russia is threatened by NATO, whilst it leaves swathes of its border more defenceless to NATO members than they were when not bordering NATO. The only cause for such action would be desperation in keeping up the fight in Ukraine. But this would completely contradict their narrative that Russia dominates the battlefield; with it being only a matter of time before Russia defeats Ukraine. Therefore, neither argument is consistent with the American Right’s NATO provocation argument.

Russia Claims It's the Victim, but Eastern Europe Has Seen This Playbook Before

Soviet Tanks in Prague, 1968. Image Source: Britannica

Ukraine, like many of its neighbours in Eastern Europe, spent generations under the rule of Russian domination that cloaked their suffering in propaganda and disinformation. To understand why countries such as Poland and Baltic states are among Ukraine’s most fervent supporters today, one need only examine who speaks most forcefully against Putin, who gives the most aid relative to their GDP and who has taken in vast numbers of Ukrainian refugees. The answer is always the same: those who have known Russian oppression masked as retaliation firsthand.

The Baltic nations and Poland in particular are unflinching in their opposition to Russian aggression. They do not need to theorise about what Putin’s vision of a “Russian world” entails, they have lived it. From mass deportations and crushed revolts, their histories are etched with the scars of Russian domination - cultural subjugation, brutal repression, and killings hidden from the world or masked as something else.

I recently returned from Prague, a city that still bears the memory of the 1968 Prague Spring, when Soviet tanks rolled in to crush a brief democratic awakening. The Soviets falsely claimed that Czechoslovak leaders had requested "fraternal assistance" from the Warsaw Pact to stop a supposed Western-backed uprising. Similar tactics were deployed in the 1956 Polish Poznań Uprising, which Russia claimed to be Western-instigated. Today, Czechia is home to over 370,000 Ukrainian refugees and Ukrainian flags hang from public buildings and private balconies alike. During my stay, the Ukrainian flag was as visible as the Czech flag, a symbol not just of solidarity but of shared memory. Hotel TVs had Ukrainian-language channels, as if to say: You are not just visitors - you are part of us now.

The Czechs understand the cruelty of this war with painful clarity. They know what it means to have your future shaped not by your own people, but by the dictates of Moscow. They also know what it means to escape that fate - through EU membership, through NATO and through democratic resilience. But Ukraine, another survivor of Soviet repression, has not been afforded the same geographical fortune.

Those closest to Russia are the most acutely aware of their geographical predicament. The Czech Republic is at least buffered by Poland and Slovakia. This is not the case for the small Baltic nations. Lithuania has the misfortune of being surrounded by Russian territory, with Kaliningrad to their southwest.

Again, the data speaks for itself when fearing Russian aggression. The Baltic states all rank in the top 5 supporters of Ukraine as of percentage GDP allocated to Ukraine support, according to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker (2025). In fact, Estonia is number 1. If the Baltic states and Poland believed Russia was lashing out because of Ukraine’s NATO hopes, they would not be leading on increased GDP allocations towards their own defence. Rather, they would assume that the war would start and end in Ukraine. This is, of course, ridiculous, and unlike Sacks and Carlson, they do not have the luxury of assigning causes for Putin’s aggression that best fit their own world view.

The Baltics, Poland and basically all of Europe cite Russia as their reason for ramping up military spending significantly in the past few years. Compare this to Israel and the Middle East & North Africa (MENA). Since Israel's response to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, several Arab nations have increased their defence spending in recent years. However, these increases are stated and predesigned to be driven by regional security concerns (Algeria/Morocco), modernisation efforts (Egypt), strategic priorities (Saudi Arabia and UAE) or some variation of all three. The difference between the MENA and European response to conflict perfectly illustrates the difference between a nation responding to a threat and one that has sought to dominate its neighbours.

What must those in Prague, Riga, Vilnius or Warsaw think when they hear Americans argue that Ukraine should have surrendered its aspirations in the name of “stability”? Likely, they remember that stability under domination is not peace, but submission. And they know better than most that if Ukraine falls, they could be next.

Imperialist Ambitions

In contrast to the popular narrative that NATO expansion provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a closer look at Vladimir Putin’s own words and actions reveals a very different motive—imperial ambition, not defensive strategy. In a televised address on February 21, 2022, just days before launching a full-scale war, Putin made no clear demands to halt NATO’s growth. Instead, he denied Ukraine’s legitimacy as a nation, declaring:

“Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia—more precisely, Bolshevik, Communist Russia... Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood.”

This speech, and others like it, were steeped in imperial nostalgia, evoking a vision of a “Greater Russia” and casting Ukraine not as a neighbour, but as lost territory. The rhetoric was historical revisionism dressed as statecraft—a worldview in which Ukraine, Belarus and even parts of Moldova are rightfully Russian. As Michael Cox wrote in LSE IDEAS (2022), the real target is not simply Ukraine:

“Putin himself has made it only too clear that Russia’s real target is not so much Ukraine - a nation which in his view has never existed anyway - but rather the United States, whom he claims tried to destroy Russia after 1991.”

This belief is echoed by figures close to Putin. Dmitri Volodin, Speaker of the Russian State Duma, described Ukraine as “a colony of the United States…occupied by NATO.” Such views illustrate a paranoid, zero-sum vision of international politics in which the West is an existential threat and smaller states are merely pawns.

Putin does not see Ukraine in isolation; he sees a world divided between great powers, with nations like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova as unclaimed territory in a broader contest between authoritarianism and liberal democracy. In this worldview, anything not yet protected by NATO is a potential opportunity for Russian expansion, not a threat to be deterred.

This imperial mindset is not just theoretical—it’s cultural. At a pro-war rally attended by Putin in March 2022, Russian pop singer Oleg Gazmanov performed a song that encapsulated this revanchist dream. Its lyrics proclaimed:

“Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, this is my country.”

March 2022 rally where Putin raised support for Russian troops and heard Oleg Gazmanov. Image Source: Rueters.

The true threat, then, is not NATO encroachment but Putin’s belief that these regions belong to a reborn Russian empire. The pattern is clear: Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, Ukraine in 2022—each a step in reclaiming perceived historical lands, not resisting Western encirclement. It is very telling how Putin has projected his own mindset of conquest onto his adversaries. When French President Macron began stating willingness to extend its nuclear umbrella in March, Putin compared Macron to Napoleon, stating that Napoleon failed to conquer Russia also. Putin interprets geopolitics as rulers would prior to the 20th century – every country has a goal of territorial expansion. From this lens, Putin’s hatred of the west makes sense, for he thinks western leaders are hiding behind the same desires for power that motivate authoritarian regimes.

If anything, NATO is the safety net, not the spark. To argue that Ukraine joining NATO provoked Russia is to mistake the lock for the burglar. Finland’s peaceful accession to NATO in 2023, without retaliation, further exposes the myth that NATO membership inherently endangers Russia.

Putin’s real intentions were so clear that many in the intelligence services knew of the invasion beforehand. Talking on the Rest is Politics podcast, Ex British Head of MI6 Sir Alex Younger realised Russia would invade Ukraine before any ‘exquisite’ intelligence reports. Rather, it was the essay Putin wrote on the destiny of Ukraine and Russia. He argues that this was: “not just Ukraine… but also about the unacceptability of eastern European states, formerly members of the Warsaw Pact… having an independent foreign policy of their own, and a demand they put limits on their own choice... He has been super clear about that. And when he talks about the root causes of the war, that is what he is talking about.” Only the Russian elite and the American right choose to disregard Putin’s own words in favour of NATO provocation narratives.

Empty Promises

Part of the provocation narrative is that Ukraine is just a pawn for NATO (mainly US) influence expansion. Ignoring Ukraine’s agency in this decision glosses over Ukraine’s betrayal by the West, when they relinquished their protection from Russia – nuclear weapons. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In an effort to promote global non-proliferation and regional stability, Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear weapons and accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In return, it received security assurances through the Budapest Memorandum, signed in 1994 by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Under the terms of the Budapest Memorandum, the signatories pledged to:

• Respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and existing borders.

• Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territorial integrity or political independence.

• Avoid economic coercion aimed at subordinating Ukraine’s sovereign decision-making.

These commitments were not vague diplomatic niceties; they were assurances exchanged for Ukraine’s disarmament. Yet two decades later, Russia flagrantly violated this agreement by annexing Crimea in 2014 and subsequently launching a full-scale invasion in 2022. Ukraine would have expected the US and UK to honour the independence of Ukraine’s sovereignty. This has evidently not been the case, with hawk-like Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, indicating that Ukraine should cede some territory to Russia.

These actions not only breached the Budapest Memorandum but also violated international law, most notably Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia is tasked with upholding this charter. Its aggression against Ukraine represents a stark betrayal of that responsibility.

Ukraine’s experience sends a clear message: international agreements and security assurances, in the absence of enforceable commitments, can prove woefully insufficient. To trust in words and promises from those who have already broken them in the path is not credible diplomacy. The lesson drawn is sobering. Only a strong and credible defensive alliance can offer real protection. While recent rhetoric from the Trump administration has cast doubt on the reliability of US commitment to NATO, the presence of the UK and French nuclear deterrents underscores that, even without US leadership, NATO remains Ukraine’s most viable path to lasting security.

The Provocation Myth: Why Blaming NATO Enables Authoritarians

This article has argued that the claim that NATO provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is both intellectually lazy and lacking in credible evidence. The anticipation of aggression does not validate the logic behind the prediction - particularly when it neglects more salient factors. Appeasers once suggested that Hitler would lash out if he felt encircled. He did – but not because he was cornered, rather because he was driven by a vision of imperial revival. The same logic applies to Putin’s war: not as a defensive manoeuvre, but as an expansionist campaign to restore a perceived Russian greatness. Putin believes this Russian empire is Russia’s right and is his key objective to reclaim.

Within this narrative lies something more insidious – a denial of Ukraine’s sovereignty. To argue that a sovereign nation has no right to determine its alliances, or that its wish to defend itself justifies a renewed invasion, reveals a profound moral and ethical failing in the reasoning of figures such as David Sacks and Tucker Carlson. This position suggests that smaller nations must subordinate their agency to the preferences of more powerful states. By that logic, if Britain and Germany were to enter a defensive alliance, it would somehow justify Germany invading – an obviously absurd proposition.

The lessons of the Second World War were meant to establish that sovereign states can chart their own course, provided they act within the bounds of international law. Accepting the arguments of Sacks and Carlson undermines this principle and sets a dangerous precedent – one that risks dragging us back to a 19th-century world order where power alone determines legitimacy.

Allowing this line of thinking to persist will embolden authoritarian states elsewhere. China is watching closely. As American support for Ukraine appears to weaken, Beijing is likely factoring this into its own strategic calculus. Each sign of Western hesitation becomes a data point in their Taiwan planning – and may eventually provide the justification they seek to act.

And yet, while frontline nations stand firmly with Ukraine, some prominent voices in the West suggest that Ukraine invited its fate simply by seeking protection through its aspirations to secure a peaceful future within NATO. The idea that NATO expansion provoked the war is not only factually incorrect, but also morally vacant. Appeasing a nation abducting Ukrainian children and committing countless war crimes on a democratic nation - in the hope that they join you against their closest ally - would be to fall into China and Russia’s trap. Sacks and Carlson’s approach gives Putin and Xi evidence to say: the West are hypocrites, they talk of morality, but they too just care about power and influence. This makes the provocation narrative not just misleading, but dangerously consequential for the West’s moral identity and its implications for future foreign policy with the developing world in particular should not be dismissed.