Europe's Strategic Atrophy: A Cautionary Tale of Dependency in a Multipolar World

The Uncomfortable Facts of European Decline

The poignant words of sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, “Nothing grows in the shadow of great trees,” serve as a powerful metaphor for Europe’s current geopolitical predicament. Europe has systematically outsourced the very pillars of its sovereignty—defense to the United States, industrial capacity to China, and energy security to Russia. This tripartite dependency has created a continent that mistakes comfort for strength, regulatory power for genuine influence, and temporary alliances for lasting security.

The statistics paint a damning picture of European vulnerability. In the critical domain of renewable energy, Europe’s transition is overwhelmingly dependent on Chinese technology, with over 98% of imported solar panels originating from China. Furthermore, China dominates the global supply chain for rare earth elements and permanent magnets—controlling approximately 70% of mine production, 90% of refining capacity, and 94% of magnet manufacturing. These materials are not mere commodities; they are the lifeblood of modern technology, from electric vehicles to defense systems.

Europe’s technological deficit extends beyond clean energy. In the accelerating artificial intelligence race, European institutions produced a mere three notable AI models in 2024, compared to forty from the United States and fifteen from China. The continent’s digital infrastructure is equally dependent, relying heavily on American hyperscalers for cloud services, as recent outages have painfully demonstrated. Europe possesses no competitive hyperscalers of its own, creating a critical vulnerability in an increasingly digital world.

The regulatory environment further compounds these challenges. The Draghi report highlights that the European Union operates under approximately 100 technology-focused laws overseen by more than 270 regulators across member states. This bureaucratic labyrinth stifles innovation and hampers Europe’s ability to compete globally.

Defense capabilities reveal perhaps the most alarming dependency. Despite the wake-up call of the Ukraine conflict, European defense spending remains at just 1.9% of GDP in 2024. The research and development gap with the United States is staggering—nearly €120 billion in 2023 alone. Europe’s defense industrial base suffers from chronic underinvestment, overregulation, and fragmentation, rendering it “too small, too slow, and incapable of meeting its security needs.”

The Geopolitical Context: A World in Transition

The global economic center of gravity has decisively shifted from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region. This area now represents more than half the world’s population, nearly two-thirds of global GDP growth, and the busiest trade routes. The rise of civilizational states like India and China represents not merely an economic transition but a fundamental challenge to the Westphalian nation-state model that Europe championed.

Europe’s internal weaknesses—fragmented markets, sluggish productivity, sprawling bureaucracy, and energy dependence—were manageable during the period of Atlantic dominance. However, in today’s multipolar world, these vulnerabilities have become existential threats. The continent faces what the article terms “Venetization,” referencing Venice’s failure to adapt when the center of gravity moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, reducing it to a museum city living on tourism and relics.

The pressure from Washington, particularly under the potential return of Donald Trump, serves as both warning and opportunity. While American demands for increased European defense spending are undoubtedly self-serving, they also highlight the untenable nature of Europe’s current position. The long shadow of American protection since the Cold War has atrophied Europe’s strategic muscles and discouraged the development of a competitive, autonomous defense industry.

Opinion: The Imperial Legacy and the Rise of the Global South

Europe’s current predicament represents the logical conclusion of a colonial mindset that has long prioritized external dependencies over internal development. The continent that once dominated the globe through imperialism now finds itself subordinate to new centers of power. This is not merely a strategic failure but a moral reckoning—the inevitable consequence of systems designed to extract value from others rather than cultivate internal strength.

The outsourcing of defense to the United States represents a particularly pernicious form of neo-colonial dependence. For decades, Europe enjoyed the benefits of American military protection while criticizing American foreign policy—having its security cake while eating its moralistic rhetoric too. This arrangement served American interests by maintaining European subordination while allowing European leaders to avoid difficult decisions about collective security and defense investment.

Similarly, Europe’s industrial dependency on China reveals the hypocrisy of Western economic models. European nations happily consumed cheap Chinese manufactured goods while closing their own factories, pursuing a race to the bottom that privileged corporate profits over national resilience. Now, as China asserts itself as a technological superpower, Europe discovers that economic interdependence does not necessarily translate to political leverage—especially when the relationship is fundamentally asymmetric.

The rare earths dilemma exemplifies this dynamic perfectly. Western nations, including Europe, were content to outsource environmentally damaging extraction and processing to China while maintaining the fiction of technological superiority. Now, China’s dominance of these critical supply chains represents not merely an economic advantage but a strategic weapon that could potentially be deployed in geopolitical conflicts.

Europe’s regulatory maze, while often framed as consumer protection, frequently serves as protectionism by another name—a bureaucratic fortress designed to shield European industries from competition rather than foster genuine innovation. The Draghi report’s findings about hundreds of regulators and technology laws suggest a system more interested in process than outcomes, more concerned with maintaining control than enabling progress.

The Path Forward: Lessons from the Global South

Europe’s salvation lies not in doubling down on Atlantic dependencies but in learning from the rising powers of the Global South. Nations like India and China have demonstrated that true sovereignty comes from self-reliance, strategic clarity, and long-term planning. They have resisted the siren song of outsourcing critical capabilities and have instead invested heavily in domestic innovation and industrial capacity.

The multipolar world emerging today offers Europe an opportunity to redefine its place based on partnership rather than paternalism. Instead of seeking shelter under American protection or Chinese manufacturing, Europe must develop its own capabilities while engaging with emerging powers as equals. This requires acknowledging that the era of Western domination is over and that new centers of civilization deserve respect and partnership.

Europe’s necessary awakening involves difficult choices: pooling defense capabilities to achieve scale, building genuine capital markets to fund innovation, investing jointly in next-generation technologies, and accepting that shared sovereignty among Europeans is stronger than borrowed sovereignty from others. These are precisely the kinds of decisions that civilizational states like China have made—prioritizing long-term strategic interests over short-term political convenience.

The “whatever it takes” moment Europe needs extends beyond saving its currency to saving its very soul as a civilization. It requires the courage to think and act independently, to grow and compete on its own terms rather than relying on others for protection, power, or purpose. This is the same courage that nations across the Global South have demonstrated in resisting Western hegemony and pursuing their own development paths.

Conclusion: Stepping into the Light

Constantin Brâncuși’s decision to leave Rodin’s studio despite his admiration for the master represents the moment of truth Europe now faces. The continent can either cling to the fading shelter of American protection and Chinese manufacturing, becoming gradually diminished in the process, or step into the light of strategic autonomy.

Stepping into the light does not mean turning away from allies but standing tall beside them as equals. It means recognizing that in a multipolar world, Europe’s future depends on its ability to contribute value rather than extract it, to build rather than borrow, to lead rather than follow. The nations of the Global South have already embarked on this journey—Europe must now join them or risk becoming what Venice became: a beautiful museum of past glories, but no longer a shaper of human destiny.

The choice is Europe’s to make. Will it remain in the shadow of great trees, or will it finally learn to grow on its own?