Europe’s Moment of Truth: How Causality Shapes Power in a Changing World

Europe at a crossroads. (Photo: Unsplash)

The new US security strategy has created considerable debate, particularly in Europe. Many ask whether Washington still takes its most important security partner seriously. Moscow’s public welcome of the strategy has intensified the discussion.

The Global Governance Toolkit presented in my book “Dare We Hope? – A Swiss Ambassador's Insights” helps interpret these shifts and understand the deeper forces at play. One of its instruments is causality, which explains how predictable patterns in state behavior shape strategic expectations. The United States has drawn a simple conclusion: European states and the European Union will continue to hesitate, divide, and act only when pressure becomes overwhelming. In that sense, the new US strategy does not break with reality. It reflects it.

Yet causality does not tell the whole story. Another instrument in global governance is agency. States are not passive objects driven by external forces. Through their decisions and determination, leaders can interrupt causal chains, change development paths, and influence the course of history.

Europe has the economic, political, and military potential to act as a genuine global player. What it lacks is unity of purpose. Influence cannot be claimed. It must be exercised through collective action. Complaints and criticism do not replace strategy.

Europe’s central challenge is to reconcile two forces. On the one hand, individual states remain sovereign actors with their own interests. On the other hand, every national decision sends signals, shapes perceptions, and reinforces or breaks structural patterns. Capacity to act is not a licence for purely self-centered behavior. It is a responsibility to seek balance.

If Europe fails to bring causality and agency into alignment, the combined forces of change, inertia, and gravity will shape its destiny. The risk is clear. Europe may become what the new US security strategy anticipates: an appendage of the Eurasian continent.

The choice is still open. Leadership will decide.