By Denko Maleski
It couldn’t have been said more clearly. The new U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s controversial nominee who had to promise Congress he would quit drinking, laid his cards on the table before NATO defense ministers in Brussels yesterday. For the first time since World War II, Europe will no longer be America’s “primary focus.” Instead, the U.S. is shifting to Asia to confront the growing influence of China, the world’s potential new hegemon.
“The heart of our national interest lies in the Indo-Pacific,” Hegseth emphasized. In this new reality, the Cold War-era containment policy that once applied to the Soviet Union will now be directed at China.
In essence, this shift follows a historical pattern. The anarchic structure of international relations, where no central authority exists, inevitably leads to power struggles among rival great powers. The U.S. is determined to do whatever it takes to maintain its global primacy and prevent its greatest rival, China, from replacing it at the top of the global hierarchy. History has never seen a dominant power hold its position forever—empires rise and fall—yet the U.S. is committed to delaying the inevitable for as long as possible. Its national security strategy explicitly states that it will not allow itself to be overtaken by any other major power.
Can the laws of political physics—which dictate the rise and fall of great powers—be defied? Probably not. Books like The End of the American Era and The Decline of the American Empire have long predicted this shift, but that doesn’t stop U.S. policymakers from trying to postpone the inevitable.
Europe is in panic mode. Sheltered under the American nuclear umbrella for decades after World War II, European nations focused on an unprecedented experiment—transforming a continent plagued by centuries of war into a zone of peace, democracy, and prosperity.
While European countries built Kant’s world of democratic states that do not wage war against each other, the U.S. lived in Hobbes’ world, wielding a gladiator’s sword against the USSR in a constant struggle for survival. Under America’s protection, Europe created the most livable society in human history, prioritizing “bread and butter” over military spending. But that era is now over. Europe must adapt to a new reality.
Washington’s message is crystal clear: “No more free lunches.” Given the unpopularity of militarization and the slow, bureaucratic decision-making process of the EU, the future is uncertain. But one thing is clear: Trump is shaking up the world order—and as he himself says, that’s what Americans elected him to do.
And Europe’s Achilles’ heel? You guessed it—the Balkans.
What happens when American power withdraws? Henry Kissinger once wrote that America’s role in the Balkans is similar to that of the Ottoman Empire—to keep the quarrelsome Balkan states under control.
And it’s true. NATO membership resolved the region’s security dilemma—the perpetual fear of “what is my neighbor planning?”—which had historically led to war. The NATO umbrella halted further Balkanization, a process of fragmentation that began with the Yugoslav wars and made the term “Balkanization” a global synonym for chaos.
In fact, the Charter of the Organization of African Unity, signed in Addis Ababa in the early 1960s, explicitly states that African nations must avoid Balkanization at all costs.
Perhaps it’s time we reflect on why the world so often compares us to Africa.
