Beautifully Broken Issue #46: Why America Needs Europe More Than Ever

IDEAS, ART & WISDOM TO REPAIR OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD

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IDEAS:  Why American Needs Europe Like Never Before

The Power Vacuum: As America Retreats, Europe Rises

It was once unthinkable that America would relinquish its role as leader of the free world. Yet, today, a quiet withdrawal is underway. The retreat is not just military or economic but symbolic. As America turns inward, Europe is stepping into the space it leaves behind—especially France, with Germany close behind. The vacuum left by American disengagement is no longer theoretical; it is now visible on the battlefields of Ukraine, in the currency reserves of central banks, and in the halls of the European Central Bank. In America’s absence, a European-led order is emerging.

For decades, the United States stood at the helm of the Western alliance, a giant whose cultural, economic, and military reach shaped the globe. But today, the Trumpist reorientation—marked by nationalism, isolationism, and institutional distrust—has hollowed out America's credibility abroad. The January 6th insurrection and subsequent anti-democratic sentiments have further eroded the belief that America can still serve as a beacon of liberal democracy. What remains is a country ambivalent about its global role.

And yet, power abhors a vacuum. Into this void steps Europe, with its own imperfections and historical baggage, but increasingly with coherence, ambition, and purpose.

The European Moment

The European Central Bank has begun positioning the euro as a legitimate rival to the dollar. Christine Lagarde, ECB President, has signaled a willingness to foster a deep eurozone bond market, paving the way for the euro to act as a global reserve currency.

At the same time, Europe is rearming. France, Germany, Poland, and the Nordic countries are investing in their militaries at a pace unseen since the Cold War. President Emmanuel Macron has doubled France’s defense budget and called openly for European "strategic autonomy"—a vision where Europe does not depend on the United States for its security or strategic direction. At the Sorbonne, The Hague, and in Singapore, Macron has issued increasingly urgent appeals for a sovereign Europe.

These aren’t just speeches. France maintains the EU’s only independent nuclear deterrent. Berlin, once timid, is building the largest conventional army in Europe. Poland, meanwhile, is embarking on one of the most aggressive military modernization campaigns in the world.

Britain, the Broken Mirror

America has always had a special relationship with Britain, its cultural cousin and wartime partner. In the 1960s, Britain offered a kind of working-class counterculture that reshaped American music and film. The Beatles, the Stones, the Clash—they held up a mirror to American youth. The UK gave the United States a way to rediscover itself as much as the United States helped kickstart a new generational energy with the advent of rock ‘n roll.

But that mirror is cracked. Today, Britain is no longer a bridge between Europe and America. It is an island adrift. Brexit has isolated it from the European project it once helped shape. Its politics mirror America’s in unsettling ways: culture wars, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and deepening class divides. With a hereditary monarchy and a peerage class owning vast swaths of land, Britain is retreating into a version of itself that is more medieval than modern.

Even Labour, traditionally a party of working-class empowerment, now seems cautious and technocratic, offering little in the way of vision. The UK’s cultural export power has diminished, its global sway reduced. In this moment of Western redefinition, Britain offers nostalgia, not direction.

France, the Revolutionary Sibling

France, however, has always offered something more radical: a revolutionary sibling spirit. Like the U.S., it was born in revolt against monarchy and autocracy. Its motto—Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité—still echoes the Enlightenment values that inspired Jefferson and Franklin.