By: Veton Surroi
1.
Presidents Putin and Trump, over the past three years, have—without prior coordination or conscious planning—become unlikely collaborators in shaping Europe’s identity for the 21st century. In doing so, they have unwittingly summoned Europe’s philosophers—Plato, Fichte, Hegel (and the list could stretch to the present day) to assist in this endeavor.
President Putin, with his full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022, compelled Europeans to redefine their identity in terms of opposition. Since 2022, Europe has been rebuilding itself as a response to a precedent-breaking act unseen since 1945: the aggressive invasion of one European state by another. In this sense, Europe is being forged anew in resistance to Putin’s politics. It is no surprise, then, that Sweden and Finland—longstanding paragons of neutrality—opted to join NATO. In doing so, President Putin inadvertently expanded NATO’s European flank and enriched it with the tradition of two Nordic states.
President Trump, by signaling that the United States may no longer bear the responsibility for Europe’s security, has also nudged Europe toward self-definition. Thus, Europe—after contributing two more members to NATO—now faces a new reality: the need to imagine its security architecture potentially without the American protective umbrella.
2.
Let us turn to the philosophers—Plato, Fichte, Hegel—for guidance. Today’s Europe is defining itself through what it is not, or what it does not wish to become. It does not want to be a vulnerable continent, one where Russian tanks could roll in any day on the whim of a president who decides that this or that nation, or people, should no longer exist. Nor does it want to be a continent that, after nearly 80 years of uninterrupted peace (conveniently overlooking the wars of Yugoslavia’s dissolution as “non-European”), suddenly finds itself exposed to insecurity due to a shifting relationship with the United States.
Plato would remind us that the “One” cannot exist without the “Other”—that Europe can only understand itself in relation to what it is not. Traditionally, that has meant not being Russia; now, perhaps, it also includes discovering that it is no longer—at least not fully—transatlantic America.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte argued that the “I” cannot exist without a “not-I”—a subject becomes self-aware only through confrontation with a challenge or opponent. Today’s Europe is profoundly Fichtean, coming to terms with the fact that the United States may no longer be the uncontested “great European power,” a role Europeans had come to take for granted. And Hegel shows us that identity forms through dialectical struggle: that the interests of the U.S. and Europe may no longer align, and that Europe must now rediscover how to forge a new compatibility of interests in a world where Pax Americana is no longer a given, no longer a promissory note backed by the full faith of its guarantor.
3.
What is already clear in this initial phase is what Europe does not want to be: an unprotected continent, exposed to Russian aggression, or one abandoned by its transatlantic ally.
If that’s the case, then the continent has entered an urgent phase of self-definition—not merely military or geopolitical, but also philosophical and existential. This is a Europe that must now define itself not as a project built on eternal peace and external guarantees, but as an entity capable of defending and safeguarding its own autonomy.
The first stage of this is military arithmetic. Former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker once called for improved coordination of Europe’s armies and unification of its defense efforts—satellites, AI in defense, cyber threats. “We have 174 different weapons systems; the U.S. has 34. We have over a dozen types of infantry fighting vehicles; the U.S. has three. We have an unknown number of tank models; the U.S. has one,” he noted.
At this early stage, citizens in major European states are paying attention. In a poll by the Franco-European think tank Le Grand Continent, 50% of respondents in the Netherlands and Belgium, 48% in France, and 43% in Germany and Spain said it was now urgent for the European Union to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP.
But these are only the first—and urgent—signs of awakening.
4.
Fundamental questions will follow. For example: what is Europe, in terms of a security zone? The obvious answer is the space stretching from the UK to Turkey, including the part of Ukraine that Ukrainians will control. But even here, new conceptual ground is being broken: Canada now wants to join a European industrial defense union. And if Canada—a “European” country on the American continent—can be part of it, why not South Korea and Japan, which already cooperate closely with NATO members?
This reimagining of a new security architecture clearly demands its own political framework. That might be the NATO we know today—the most powerful alliance in human history—but with a renegotiated internal contract, especially between the U.S. and Europe. It might also take the form of a strategically autonomous Europe (a long-standing French vision, since De Gaulle), still within NATO. It could take on new, inventive forms—strategic defense partnerships with countries not yet in NATO. Or it could be something we have yet to imagine.
Ultimately, the fundamental challenge facing Europe—from the UK to Turkey and Ukraine—is how to build a shared European security zone with full responsibility assumed by European states themselves.
This challenge goes beyond the current thinking within the EU, beyond individual member states, and beyond non-member countries like the UK, Turkey, or future members like Ukraine, with its increasingly evident defense capabilities.
This challenge also exceeds the capacities of existing European political and security institutions.
5.
The Western Balkans are now at a historical moment analogous in weight to that of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. Back then, the region’s identity was also defined by what it was not, or did not want to be. It was no longer communist, and most of its countries aspired to independence. Since then, these countries have been engaged in an identity struggle over what they do want to become—presumably democratic, functional states at peace with their neighbors. This process is still unfinished; some states remain not fully democratic, not fully functional, or not fully at peace.
Now, a new and even greater challenge presents itself: how to define their identity within a Europe that itself is undergoing an identity crisis. Perhaps the first step toward this deeper self-awareness is to ask the most fundamental question of all:
How do we live together in a shared space of security?
