EU accession progress has stalled, and created a vacuum on Europe’s periphery, encouraging the Western Balkan countries to pursue relations with other powerful external actors. This vacuum favours China, which seeks to leverage influence through the Belt and Road Initiative engagements in the region. The BRI has propelled the importance of China’s role in the region, financing numerous large-scale projects which reform crucial sectors (e.g. energy and transportation sectors), and allow for enhanced connectivity coupled with improved bilateral relations. However, the BRI faces scrutiny: bloated costs, transparency concerns, anti-corruption protests and fiscal sustainability risks plague the region, calling for a shift in approach. China steps in where EU momentum falls short, this regional dynamic prompts the central question: “To what extent does Beijing’s influence through BRI reorient the geopolitical balance in the Western Balkans toward China?”

Regional Dynamics

Beijing’s approach to the region is strategically important; the complex, multilateral nature of the region requires China to adapt to the unique economic structure and follow political priorities per country. China is confronted by differentiating challenges on varying dimensions, such as corruption protests, fiscal risks, overlapping spheres of influence and regional fragmentation.

“In my view, The Western Balkans act as a micro-cosmos for the current fragmented world order”
– Michel Michaloliákos

However, China’s interest in the region does not solely relate to the specific countries, rather their geographic position on the periphery of the EU, a significant export market for China. Beijing’s strategic approach to the BRI in the Western Balkans yields benefits by creating a trade-route, connecting the COSCO-controlled Port of Piraeus to central Europe through the Western Balkans, while providing additional, necessary sectoral reforms, thus allowing both economies to benefit.

“Given as Europe remains one of China’s most important export markets, the BRI engagements in the Western Balkans enhance connectivity and provide Beijing with access to the market”
– Michel Michaloliákos

The Western Balkan region is of significant importance to the EU. Geographically surrounded by EU Member States, the region is a necessity for EU security and stability. Enlargement serves as a security approach, by extending the reach and governance of the EU, it is able to apply its control and monitoring mechanisms to the region. Additionally, EU control of the region would limit the influence of third parties. Pressure befalls the European Union, as EU credibility relies on the success of the integration of the Western Balkans.

However, the uneven pace of EU accession in the Western Balkans marked by stagnation in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, shifts geopolitical orientation away from Brussels and possibly towards alternative external partners. Contrary to stagnation, Montenegro and Albania see accelerated accession through reforms, which strengthens EU ambitions and diverts influence away from external partners towards Western Influence.

“The stability outcome depends on whether diversification strengthens resilience, or instead entrenches fragmented standards, opaque deals, and external dependencies that amplify rivalries”
– Dr. Ivona Ladjevac

Western Balkans divided

The Case of Serbia

The EU has left a void in Serbia through the stalled accession process, where China, with ties to the countries through historical, political relations, stepped in. Meanwhile, significant Chinese engagement and investment projects such as the Kostolac Power Plant, the flagship Smederevo Steel Mill and Bor Copper Mining Complex serve as prospects for growth and infrastructural development in the Eastern European countries. The BRI-powered projects result in economic benefits through enhanced connectivity, job preservation and better manufacturing capabilities, though tainted by controversy. The lack of transparency, environmental concerns, accusations of democratic backsliding and corruption concerns are widely reported in the media, which scrutinizes the BRI. In addition, critics believe China provides the ruling government with necessary support through tangible results under current-potentially corrupt-leadership, creating context to highlight their ruling capabilities in Serbia.

“In the short term, it can support stability by delivering visible infrastructure, sustaining employment, and reinforcing state capacity narratives. In countries such as Serbia, this can strengthen political legitimacy and create a perception of economic momentum, particularly when EU enlargement appears uncertain”
– Dr. Ivona Ladjevac

Serbia is economically vulnerable towards China; Serbia’s bilateral relationship with China is coupled with a trade deficit estimating to USD 3.81 billion (EUR 3.24 billion) in 2022 and USD 2.23 billion (EUR 1.9 billion) in 2024. Serbian export to China consists of 5.9 per cent of the total exports in 2024, while Serbian imports from China consisted of 10.8 per cent. Furthermore, the total debt at sources estimating EUR 3.7 billion, 8.4 percent of its total external debt as of 2026, with repayments estimated until 2039.

“Large state-backed loans can increase fiscal exposure, especially where projects face delays, inflated costs, or lower-than-expected returns”
– Dr. Ivona Ladjevac

The Sino-Serbian relations increase at a steady pace, with planned expansion and the signing of the 2023 ‘Joint Declaration on the Establishment of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, deepening relations, enriching dialogues on all levels, enhancing political exchanges and cooperation, and supporting each country’s political challenges (e.g. Taiwan and Kosovo dialogue).

The Case of Montenegro

Beijing’s interest in Montenegro was fuelled by the Montenegrin need for infrastructure. Montenegro’s difficult terrain makes constructing highways difficult. With the construction of the Bel-Boljare highway construction, China provided most of the funding. Feasibility studies highlighted the risks of such loans, stating it could be detrimental to the future Montenegrin economy. However, the then-president Milo Djukanovic, marked by his oppressive political atmosphere and corruptive ethics, endorsed the Bel-Baljare project, regardless of the financial risks.

Montenegro has been the flagship example when raising concerns regarding the BRI. It struggled with loan repayment, as Montenegro borrowed an estimated USD 1 billion, resulting in China’s share exceeding a quarter of the total debt. As estimated in the feasibility studies, the total Montenegrin debt reached over 100 per cent in 2020, confirming earlier concerns and creating significant financial instability. The economic dependency on China, coupled with Montenegro promising to deepen relations with China, expanding to other sectors, creates worry among critics regarding Beijing’s increasing influence.

However, Montenegro is currently the frontrunner for EU accession, with accelerated progress and increased support. Even so, the newfound financial support is tied to increased conditionality, which acts as a vulnerability through a lack of incentive and availability of alternative, no-strings-attached support. The ultimate reward for reforms is EU membership, but as EU credibility has faltered, the reward is perceived as uncertain and distant.

Balancing of influences

The region’s relations with Beijing are primarily focused on economic benefits, through investments and financial engagements. Beijing’s BRI effectively acts as a geo-economic actor, offering capital, providing tangible results benefiting economy (e.g. infrastructural projects). The region acts as multi-actor landscape, allowing the BRI to operate alongside the EU, and other actors.

“China mainly benefits from Improved bilateral relations and expansion of economic influence through commercial opportunities, and closer diplomatic ties”
– Frans-Paul van der Putten

However, as an economic superpower, China holds significant influence over the region, creates economic dependencies and undermines EU integration– and accession, through a lack of action against negative political factors (e.g. corruption and poor environmental standards), effectively challenging a section of the Copenhagen Criteria. In addition, Beijing’s engagements are entangled with challenges to EU integration, and EU law and cause concerns regarding labour standards. China holds leverage over the EU through providing an alternative support contrary to EU’s conditionality.

“While Chinese involvement can generate long-term economic and political linkages, EU accession remains the dominant normative and institutional framework shaping the region’s trajectory.”
– Dr. Ivona Ladjevac

The EU’s influence through financial and structural support in the region, coupled with the reward of EU membership translates to dominance. The European Union remains the largest donor and trade partner to the region, accelerating the accession progress for the sake of stability, integrity and security. Moreover, Kaja Kallas stated in the 2025 Enlargement package, “The enlargement process is moving faster today than in the last 15 years. But we cannot afford to lose momentum. The global order is shifting, and Europe’s security is increasingly at risk”.

Conclusion

The EU remains the only regulatory credible framework for long-term institutional anchoring and the largest economic partner. While the region may not face a ‘reorientation’ toward China, Chinese influence is deepening, mainly visible where Chinese finance, procurement or technology is effectively entangled with infrastructure (e.g. in energy, mining or digital systems).

“Overall, public opinion tends to support a “both/and” approach, with the EU as the desired end-state (especially outside Serbia), but China as a useful partner for quicker delivery and fewer political conditions”
– Dr. Ivona Ladjevac

Beijing’s influence on the stability of the region ultimately depends on domestic governance quality, diversification of partnerships and the continued anchoring role of the EU integration process. While it does not necessarily shift the geopolitical balance of the region, economic asymmetries, fragmentation and translate into political leverage, which could complicate regional stability and challenge EU-reforms (e.g. through lack of compliance with EU standards).

It is tempting to read January 3rd as a technically remarkable raid, a mission that, by most accounts, executed its objective with surgical precision. That lens is not wrong but it is too narrow: it evaluates performance not consequence. Zooming out, the operation matters less as a feat of military craft than as a revealing episode in the current administration’s foreign policy.

A month has passed and Nicolàs Maduro remains in U.S. custody, awaiting trial on American soil. Yet the fate of Venezuela itself, of its people, its institutions, its future, stays undefined. The operation was months in the making, not only in secret rooms and training grounds, but in public. The informational terrain was prepared loudly and over months. Americans were told stories of a looming narco-state, of “narco-terrorism,” of pipelines anchored in Caracas, of drugs leaving Venezuelan shore, drugs reaching U.S. communities, a threat framed as national security.

Much has been said since about legality, about precedent, and about what this signals for the international order. Many across the democratic world felt relief at Maduro’s removal. He was indisputably a dictator: illegitimate, corrupt, destructive by any serious measure. For many Venezuelans, his removal will feel like the end of a long suffocation, even as the future remains uncertain. But Venezuela is more than the removal of a single man. Once the adrenaline and exhilaration of military might faded, and Maduro was in custody, the harder questions surfaced.

Tactical brilliance but strategic myopia

It is hard not to be impressed by the mechanics of the raid. From what has been reported, the operation unfolded with an almost cinematic smoothness. Months of surveillance and rehearsal compressed uncertainty into routine, until little was left to chance. When the night came, communications were cut, power grids across Caracas went dark, and U.S. forces moved with the efficiency of something long prepared. In purely military terms, it was competence on display and proof that American might remains unmatched. But competence alone is not a strategy, and reality is not a movie.

The morning after, Venezuela woke up with its state apparatus still standing, networks and lines still intact, and only a vacuum where one man had been. Maduro was gone, but the system that made Maduro possible did not vanish with him. In Venezuela, removing the head did not kill the snake, it simply forced the organism to adapt, and so it did. The regime did not collapse, it recalibrated around Delcy Rodriguez – for now- moving quickly to prevent any real break in control. And so, institutional continuity was preserved. And that is the hinge on which this turns. The real question is not whether the raid was “successful,” but what it was for.

What occurred was not regime change in the classical sense, but decapitation of leadership without articulated reconstruction. As Dr. Thompson, lecturer in American studies at the University of Amsterdam, notes in the current administration “decision making appears more instinct-driven and less tethered to a structured strategy than in previous administrations.”

If the purpose was a democratic opening, one would expect at least the outline of a strategy: a transnational unifying authority, a timetable, safeguards, perhaps international coordination, even if posthumous. None of that has appeared with clarity, then or since. In the first press conference, the narcotrafficking angle surfaced only briefly giving way to a different priority: oil, leverage, and absolute control. Most striking was what was absent. Democracy, the word that once made so much work in American rhetoric, was not mentioned once. There was no democratic horizon and, in its place, came the language of management, stability, and coercion.

The raid itself had been carefully prepared; the aftermath was not. For the first week, even the basic question of who would run the country remained unanswered.

Out with the new, In with the old

Read against American history, U.S. intervention in Central and Latin America is not new. The impulse to treat the Western Hemisphere as a territorial extension of the contiguous United States finds numerous precedents throughout the decades. The intellectual and “legal” lineage runs from the Monroe Doctrine

(1823) to the Roosevelt Corollary, from Taft’s “dollar diplomacy” to Wilson’s “moral” interventionism. Together, they created a durable template: US intervention justified as prevention and protection of interests. The premise was simple: instability and debt in America’s backyard invited European footholds, thus Washington reserved the right to intervene, militarily or otherwise. What followed in the early 20th century was not full annexation, but something closer to managerial control: customs houses, fiscal receiverships, Marines on the ground, and local governments reshaped around “order”. That is a U.S. aligned order. The clearest case of such strategy was the Banana wars: national sovereignty was formally preserved, but in practice it became conditional.

Dr. Thompson explains, “if you put Venezuela next to earlier U.S. interventions in the hemisphere, the differences are easy to overstate. Washington has repeatedly treated the region as a “backyard” and removed regimes it disliked, especially when stability and U.S. interested were at stake”. And indeed, that historical pattern matters because it shows that American power has long had a hemispheric mode in which geo-strategic and commercial motives fuse together. “Stability,” “security,” and “good governance” functioned as the legitimizing wrapper, but the mechanics mostly revolved around access, debt control, and private investment protection. In that sense, today’s geo-economic language has deep roots: the Western Hemisphere as a space where the United States can claim special rights.

However, history also shows that this posture was not inevitable and course correction could be applied. FDR’s “Good Neighbor Policy” represented a deliberate rhetorical and operational retreat from overt intervention, partly because occupations were costly and unpopular and partly because legitimacy and diplomacy were deemed as more effective than coercive supervision and brute force. The pivot did not end U.S. influence, it transformed it: less direct control, more negotiated partnerships.

That duality in American outward impulses helps clarify the present moment. If the early twentieth century offered a model of direct hemispheric intervention, justified in the language of stability and “management”, the Good Neighbor turn showed that the United States could choose a different theory of influence, one built on restraint, bargaining, and legitimacy. As the world reshaped itself after WWII, Cold War logic reasserted a harder hierarchy of priorities: containing communism outranked liberal ideals around the world, while Washington still paid lip service to democratic values. In Latin America, there is a long record of destabilizing interventions made in the name of “security.” As Dr. Thompson points out “during the Cold War, U.S. officials would admit the tradeoff: supporting right-wing dictators wasn’t ideal, but they argued it was preferable to the alternative.”

From this perspective, the Venezuela raid signals a return to the past. Yet the old Corollary-style logic – whether it is Roosevelt’s or Trump’s- lands as anachronistic and discordant in a densely interconnected world. What troubles more than anything, perhaps, is that the moral vocabulary that once varnished American intervention, however inconsistently practiced, has disappeared entirely and ceded ground to unabashed imperialism.

NSS and Venezuela: correlation does not mean causation

This doctrinal change should not come as a surprise. The 2025 National Security Strategy accurately described the priorities of this administration. However, one should not interpret the 2025 NSS as a literal operational blueprint. Dr. Thompson cautions “such documents rarely function as straightforward roadmaps. They are better understood as a window into an administration worldview rather than a prescription of specific actions.” Moreover, Dr. Paul Van Hooft, research leader at RAND and expert in American grand strategy, notes “National Security Strategies are artifacts of compromise and best understood as Venn diagrams of overlapping interests within the different factions that shape an administration’s foreign policy.” Thus, what the 2025 NSS provides is not a script, but a constellation of motives and a hierarchy of priorities within which such an intervention becomes politically intelligible.

The NSS was not the causal driver of the intervention: Venezuela was a long-running thorn in the side of U.S. hemispheric policy, well before Trump’s second term. Dr. van Hooft argues “Venezuela has occupied a structurally fraught position in US foreign policy. An intervention was predictable, and it would have been predictable seven years ago as well.”

What distinguishes January 3rd is not the objective of removal, but the modality through which it was executed. Unlike past interventions, this operation appears narrowly tailored. It did not seek to reshape governance. Its logic was more transactional than transformative: remove the individual who obstructs U.S. strategic and economic priorities and allow the existing system to recalibrate under more pliable leadership.

Equally striking is the absence of the traditional framing devices that once accompanied American interventions. Even when imperfectly applied, previous administrations tended to use military action within a minimal architecture of legitimacy appeals to international law and references to regional security and stability. Those frames were merely rhetorical but still signaled that power was being exercised within a normative order. In Venezuela, the intervention followed a more direct logic: the capability to execute existed, therefore the operation followed. This is not simply a tonal difference: it suggests a recalibration of how power is justified and deployed. And so the question shifts from “is it legitimate?” to “is it feasible?”.

Read in that light, the 2025 NSS becomes analytically relevant and offers a grammar that makes the raid in Venezuela and its modality comprehensible. Not only it treats the Western Hemisphere as a core priority, but it also treats economic assets (oil, rare earth materials and so on) as instruments of national security and economic prosperity. And so, Venezuela becomes a case study of this doctrine, where regional primacy materializes in practice as regime removal and coercive control of local sources.

It is also important to note how prominently the National Security Strategy invokes the language of sovereignty. Yet this very concept is applied selectively and rather asymmetrically. For the United States, it is treated as absolute; for others, it becomes conditional, or as Van Hooft puts it “rights for me not for thee.” Venezuela is the fourth and, so far, clearest case but far from the only one. The threats and coercive rhetoric towards Greenland, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia all reflect the same logic. And thus, the sovereignty principle functions less as a universal norm and more as a hierarchy of rights where might makes right.

Hegemonic downgrade and “flexible realism”

The administration has offered its own label for this shift: “Flexible Realism”, a foreign policy that claims to see the world “clear-eyed” and not through the lenses of “utopian idealism”. Power and strength become the organizing principles of a new world order, one where the theoretical preference for strength over norms is expressed through kinetic action. The United States, long a global hegemon, is increasingly and willingly acting as a regional superpower rather than stewards of a rules-based order. This reads effectively as a downgrade in the sense that global leadership is replaced with spheres of influence politics.

That shift is a risky bet and has direct consequences beyond values. In an interconnected world, still structured around multilateral institutions and collective security alliances, a model that prioritizes short term gains over long term stability not only erodes American power, but it also invites copycat actions. Rivals like China and Russia might – or already- mirror these coercive postures generating international instability.

If, as Stephen Miller put it, the old “international niceties”of diplomacy are a thing of the past, a question naturally arises: what replaces them exactly and what kind of world awaits us? A world in which hubris goes unchecked and might becomes the primary metric of policy rather than stability and cooperation.

Perhaps, a counterweight will not come from the hegemon itself, at least not now. It may emerge from middle powers acting in concert, forming coalitions that still see value in rules, law, institutional constraint, and that choose consent over coercion.

Introduction

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, more commonly referred to as Quad, is a strategic partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. It was officially established in 2007, but ceased operations in 2008 following withdrawal by Australia in an attempt to manage its relations with China. Almost 10 years later, in 2017, the partnership was revived again with the intention of supporting a peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. However, since Trump 2.0 has entered the stage, questions surrounding Quad’s continuation and prospects have emerged. Therefore, is Quad still viable given the current capriciousness of Trump, and if it is, what is its added value?

Quad has had moments of success, from launching various programs, to hosting joint naval exercises, technology dialogues, and supply chain initiatives. In a rapidly changing geopolitical environment, Quad has attempted to reinforce regional security and provide a framework for maritime security cooperation. However, the momentum is not always strong, and has been lacking significantly in recent months. A catalyst for this was the increased tension in India-US relations, leading India to postpone the 2025 Quad Leader’s Summit, with a new date still unknown and unlikely. In addition to this, general unpredictability and lack of reliability of the US under Trump 2.0 has also contributed to the decline of Quad.

In his second term, Donald Trump’s policy toward the Indo-Pacific region has shifted. The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) indicated that Washington’s primary focuses will be on domestic matters and on maintaining dominance in the Western Hemisphere. While the NSS does mention Quad briefly, the 2026 National Defence Strategy does not, however, it does allocate attention to maintaining a peaceful and balanced Indo-Pacific region. The document emphasised that its allies in the Indo-Pacific region should increase their defence spending as the US has subsidised them for too long, reinforcing the transactional nature of the administration. Additionally, the administration’s imposition of tariffs across the region has impacted supply chains and damaged relations, leading many to question the reliability of the US.

Trump 2.0 has also shown that this administration no longer aligns with some of the priorities that Quad originally held. Quad had previously set out to improve regional health security, by launching the Quad Vaccine Partnership among other initiatives, but this is contrasted starkly with Trump’s Health Secretary who has actively contributed to dismantling vaccine research and funding. Other priorities had included expanding humanitarian and disaster relief aid, and climate change, however, with the cutting of USAID and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, it can be seen that these priorities no longer hold with Trump 2.0.

Australia

David Andrews, Expert Associate at Australian National University’s National Security College, agrees that at present, the foreign policy priorities of Trump do not align with those of Quad. From the Australian perspective, Andrews explains, Quad has not been a focus in foreign policy discourse in the past year, particularly as the Albanese government seeks to diversify Australia’s bilateral relationships in Asia and the Pacific. He elaborates that Albanese is “gently distancing himself and his foreign policy from that of President Trump, trying to stress to regional partners the enduring nature of Australia’s presence and interests throughout the Indo-Pacific”.

Within Australia, there is no direct opposition to Quad but there is a clear decrease in momentum since Trump re-entered office. That being said, Andrews believes that all would benefit from a clearer definition of Quad’s values, intended role, and long-term prospects, as he finds that “even now there is no consistent set of principles or objectives which we have access to”. He is unsure whether Quad is the best vehicle to address the topics that they have already approached: regional norm-setting, vaccine diplomacy, disaster response, cyber security, and maritime domain awareness. He does, however, find that Quad is a good opportunity for “senior officials, ministers, and leaders of the four nations to meet together, hold discussions, and pursue opportunities to collaborate together in the Indo-Pacific”.

When asked about the trilateral relationship between Australia, Japan and India, Andrews stated that strengthening it would be beneficial, but the US’ economic size, technological advancement, and military capability are not replaceable. Therefore, they would leave a large void that would be difficult to fill. Despite this, the trilateral relationship “could form the basis for a larger and more inclusive regional framework of middle powers”.

Japan

Katsuya Tsukamoto, Japanese Defence Analyst at the National Institute for Defence Studies, shared his personal insights into the Japanese perspective on Quad. Tsukamoto stated that the new Takaichi administration is yet to make their perspective clear after the land-slide victory in the general election, but he believes that they are likely to inherit the same outlook on Quad as the previous administration, that it is a way to continue to promote Japan’s notion of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. However, he believes that currently, Trump doesn’t appreciate the importance of Quad, hence a current lack of momentum, and hopes that this will not lead to efforts to scrap the framework entirely.

Tsukamoto explained that Japan has had two major concerns when it comes to Quad, the first being that Trump 2.0 doesn’t respect many of the values that Quad is trying to promote. As well, the Trump administration isn’t active in developing Quad, putting the other members in a difficult position as everyone expects the US to take the lead. Tsukamoto mentioned the second main concern to be India, given its ties to Russia, particularly as Japan supports Ukraine, thus there are doubts about India’s alignment with Japan and Quad’s interests. However, since Japan views Quad as a more values based framework, and because both India and Japan hold similar views of China as a security concern, Tsukamoto said that this makes it easier for them to accept their differences.

Overall, Tsukamoto believes that the trilateral framework is important, but for Japan, Quad is more relevant as it is essential that the countries aggregate their power against China, which requires the US. He emphasises that “Japan wants to build up in terms of multilateral frameworks and has hopes that Quad can grow into something similar to NATO, but it all depends on how China acts”. Tsukamoto elaborates that Quad can still expand cooperation in many ways even though the members may not agree on today’s geopolitical reality. “The countries do share many interests and they should focus on these even though Quad is not ideal, it is still a great framework that can be useful”.

India

The Indian perspective, as provided by Rajeev Lachmipersad, geopolitical analyst at The Hague Institute for Geopolitics, varies from that of the Japanese. Lachmipersad shared that India joined Quad because it provided them with a great opportunity to balance China without confrontation, contribute to maritime security, and gain access to strategic technology. It was important to India that Quad didn’t carry the label of a (military) alliance, and instead emphasised that it was nothing more than a talking forum. Lachmipersad notes that under Trump 1.0, Quad was strengthened but since Trump 2.0 emerged, everything has changed, particularly in India-US relations which has subsequently been reflected in Quad. With the new India-US deal, it could improve relations temporarily, but it is unlikely to make lasting change.

Within India, Quad is not a prominent focus as they are fearful of how it is framed vis-a-vis China, particularly with Trump 2.0. Lachmipersad explains that “India is very cautious of the US, they don’t know what the US wants to do vis-a-vis China and India doesn’t want to give China extra reasons to escalate the current border tensions in the Himalayas”. Rather, India would prefer to become their own player, as they continue to grow economically, they also want to become a bigger geopolitical player and not rely on alliances with other partners. As it currently stands, they would rather be a follower than a leader within Quad, and therefore, are unlikely to lead any movement to revive it.

Lachmipersad, however, emphasised that the trilateral relationship between Australia, India and Japan, is very important to India and they would rather channel energy into this than Quad. He believes that the three countries are better aligned as they act in the interest of their countries, whereas the US currently acts in regime interests. Additionally, their geopolitical interests in the long-term align well, and the trilateral relationship is less threatening to China which India prefers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, as David Andrews mentioned, the members of Quad would indeed benefit from a clearer definition of their values and intended role, as currently, the members perceive the partnership differently. Quad is ultimately still viable but may continue to lie dormant over the coming years due to difficulties in alignment among all members with Trump 2.0. Quad does, however, offer a valuable opportunity to expand to a more multilateral framework in the typically bilaterally focused Indo-Pacific. In the meantime, Australia, India and Japan could benefit from strengthening the trilateral relationship given the importance of democratic middle powers coming together. The trilateral relationship may not be able to achieve such significant feats in the absence of the US, but they could still shape the regional agenda and set norms in a way that is manageable for middle powers to sustain.

Introduction

The Arctic as a region has lately gained increased international attention, not just in the context of the Trump administration’s renewed interest (read: threats) towards Greenland, but more broadly the region is seen as a new epicentre of geopolitics. The reasons for this growing interest seem diverse and at times intransparent, and there exist different theories to explain the renewed relevance of arctic regions in the geopolitical discourse, from emerging trade routes and resource extraction to military-strategic relevance based on geography.

This first article of the Arctic-series aims to contextualise the increased international interest in the Arctic region, uncover some myths and semi-truths about popular narratives about the Arctic and to set the stage for following geopolitical analyses. It asks: To what extent is the Arctic a Geopolitical Epicentre? And if it is, why?

Claim 1: The Arctic has vast amounts of untapped oil, gas and mineral resources that powers are now fighting to control

When citing the Arctic’s geopolitical relevance, many sources point to the region’s vast and untapped potential of natural resources. This narrative, however, requires contextualisation:

The Arctic is not a homogenous region, especially when it comes to extractive industries. Local conditions determine the feasibility of drilling and mining, which is why Norway, the US and Russia have been able to exploit Arctic oil resources at scale, whereas northern Canada abandoned Arctic offshore drilling in the early 2000s, and Greenland never developed a national oil and gas industry. In fact, Greenland’s government even banned oil and gas exploration altogether in 2021, arguing that the environmental and economic costs were too high. Even in Alaska, major pipelines now operate at less than a quarter of their capacity, partly due to the rise of fracking in the contiguous U.S.

Plans for increased oil and gas extraction are therefore unlikely to explain the renewed geopolitical attention on the Arctic, critical minerals and rare earth elements (REE) are more plausible drivers. While Arctic resources have been tapped for centuries, the green energy transition has intensified global demand for minerals such as lithium and REEs found in Greenland. The island’s REE reserves of ca 1.5 million tons match the U.S. 1.9 million tons, yet are vastly more compressed on territorial scale, making these resources non-negligible, as Arctic researcher Lukas Wahden points out. However, “either of these are a fraction of China’s proven 44 million tons, or Russia’s (supposed) 28 million. U.S. reserves can’t currently cover domestic demand, so there’s an inherent incentive towards expansion, but the true bottleneck isn’t really the size of deposits, it is refinement capacities, of which China holds at least 90%, and has lower environmental standards, cheaper labour and decades worth of state subsidies. The U.S. and others can’t replicate these conditions easily, quickly and at scale.” Against this backdrop, the EU and U.S. have signed Memoranda of Understanding with Greenland to support the development of critical raw material value chains, but, as Wahden points out, it remains a misconception “to assume that Arctic resources are extractible at competitive cost levels” compared to China. Furthermore, given the realities of harsh weather conditions and lacking infrastructure in many Arctic regions, “it remains difficult to move large commercial investors to invest in government-pushed projects.” Ultimately, the Arctic’s resource potential may be geopolitically symbolic, but regional and structural constraints limit extraction capacity significantly.

Claim 2: The Arctic ice is melting, and soon cargo vessels will be able to transport goods through the Arctic on a large scale – whoever controls the Arctic, controls global trade.

Roughly 90% of global trade is transported by sea, so the reported 40% increase in ships entering the Arctic Polar Code area over the past decade has generated considerable enthusiasm. As rising temperatures make Arctic waters more accessible, new Arctic trade routes are expected to reduce travel times between Europe and Asia and bypass geopolitical chokepoints such as the Suez Canal and the Malacca Strait.

China, Arctic Council Observer state since 2013, formally embraced this potential in 2018 by incorporating the Arctic into its Belt and Road Initiative under the label “Polar Silk Road.” A recent voyage by the Chinese cargo vessel Istanbul Bridge along the Russian-controlled Northern Sea Route (NSR) reportedly halved transit time compared to southern routes, reaching the UK in 20 days.

Despite the reported 50% time reduction, the NSR usage is constrained by numerous obstacles: As Mark Drinkwater, former head of ESA’s Earth and Mission Science Division points out, the NSR remains a niche, seasonal corridor. “Currently, many people view the NSR-project with a huge degree of optimism, but in reality the establishment of regular commercial use of this route lies quite far in the future.” Reduced transit time is often offset by higher insurance premiums, the need for (nuclear) icebreaker escorts, and unpredictable weather conditions that limit reliability. Recent incidents involving Russian vessels trapped in Arctic ice, like the shadow-fleet LNG carrier Lynx in 2025, showcase operational risks. The Russian authorities’ negligence concerning the high risks connected to Arctic shipping poses a threat to the crews of the vessels, but also to the Arctic environment, as accidents and oil spillages in the high north cannot be addressed with the same search and rescue infrastructure as in the south.

While Arctic shipping is growing, it is unlikely to replace southern corridors in the foreseeable future. Its significance is therefore less commercial than strategic. In Russia and China’s vision, northern routes offer a way to reduce dependence on US-influenced maritime chokepoints. In turn, this dynamic may help explain Washington’s renewed attention to Greenland and the broader Arctic region.

Claim 3: The Arctic is located at a crucial point for defense and power struggle. Its geography determines great power conflict lines.

The history of Arctic geopolitics in the second half of the 20th century can be seen as a story of alternation. During a period of Arctic exceptionalism from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, it was widely believed that the region’s harsh conditions would prompt cooperation even between former enemies like the US and the Soviet Union – a belief that took its last blow with the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Long before that, a gradual militarisation in the region, marked by individual events like the placement of a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole in 2007, or the relocation of Norway’s military headquarters to Bodø in 2009 slowly rang in a new age of competition in the Arctic.

In the following years, Arctic as well as non-Arctic states drastically increased their military presence in the north. Joint Russian-Chinese military exercises in the Arctic and heightened Russian military activity as well as growing NATO-presence are markers of the military strategic interest in the Arctic.

The reason for states’ strategic military interests in the region can be explained in part with geographical position. The Arctic is physically located between two great powers, and its resources and maritime routes can prompt competition between these powers. Moreover, the Arctic holds some strategically sensitive pressure points, such as Russia’s second-strike nuclear capability on the Kola Peninsula, or the GIUK gap between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom, that restricts the Russian fleet’s access to the North Atlantic.

However, The Arctic’s geopolitical importance cannot be understood through geography alone: As Arctic and geopolitics researcher Dr. Eda Ayaydin points out, “Once actors begin to frame the Arctic as strategically significant, investments increase (military exercises, infrastructure, icebreaker fleets, diplomatic rhetoric). Those actions then serve as evidence that the region is “militarising,” which further justifies strategic attention. This creates a feedback loop, not because geography changed, but because political meaning did.”

Conclusion

The Arctic is increasingly framed as a geopolitical epicentre, yet much of this perception rests on simplified narratives. Resource wealth, emerging shipping routes and renewed military activity undoubtedly attract global attention, but material constraints remain significant. This increased interest itself alters the realities on the ground, in a self-reinforcing cycle of growing attention and militarisation. However, many contemporary analyses neglect the role of long-term developments and regional limitations that greatly influence trade, militarisation and resource extraction in the region. After all, even if Arctic Exceptionalism is declining, the Arctic remains an exceptional region.

Drones and the New Face of War

Russia’s war in Ukraine has brought out numerous parallels from the previous wars and conflicts, including comparison with WWI when it comes to the warfare in trenches or the assessment of the global effects compared to WW2. One of the most distinguishing elements of this war, except for the role of information, is the drone technology. Even though the use of the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) dates back to the 19th century, only now have drones become a revolutionary addition to the traditional means of combat. They are cheap, accessible and easy to master, making a drone operator job one of the most demanded in Ukrainian army.

Nowadays, drones are an essential part of all the military operations happening in Ukraine. From FPV (first-person view) drones saving lives in the battlefield, to the naval drones damaging the Crimea Bridge, long-range drones targeting critical infrastructure in Russia, and interceptor drones – that are protecting the skies for civilians and covering critical Ukrainian infrastructure from Russian combat drones.

The latter is an urgent issue for Europe now, since the Shahed drones spotted in Polish skies were shot down using AIM-120C-7 missiles that cost between $1.5 and $2 million. This could have been done using an interceptor drone that has a price range of $300 to $2,000 depending on the functionality. There are a lot of initiatives coming from the European MilTech (Military Technology) companies that are working on the development of the interceptors for their own governments and NATO, however, the doctrines on this are still to be updated.

This poses the question: How can Europe make sure to develop an effective mechanism of protecting its skies against Russian (drone) aggression?

From Patriots to Interceptors: A Cost Revolution

As many other drone developments, the interceptor drones came out as a solution to the Russian mass air attacks that Ukrainians cannot afford to effectively deter with traditional military means. Through sophisticated self-navigation elements, these drones are able to pursue the drone of the adversary using a wide range of payload capabilities –net launchers, electronic jammers, or even kamikaze-style impactors.

Ukrainian drone “Sting” of the Wild Hornets company

The drones, however, have limited lethality level, together with being comparatively slow.

Fabian Hoffman, a missile industry expert and Doctoral Research Fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project (ONP) argues:

“Interceptor drones hold a cost advantage, with a capability drawback in their use”

The involvement of these technologies is increasingly changing the economy of war, where instead of costly Patriots (or other air-defence), the parties are turning to a mass-production of the cheaper alternatives. This can be seen on the battlefield with the FPV drones that are used for reconnaissance and also attacks, compensating for the lack of artillery. Mirroring this development, interceptors are replacing the expensive systems quite effectively, as seen in the table below:

Price comparison

Attacking drone | Cost of the drone | Defence system | Cost of the system | Ratio

Rapid Innovation Under Fire: Ukraine’s Drone Advantage

The effectiveness of Ukrainian drone technology lies in the model of their development.

“Ukraine is the world leader in drone design and execution, with drone technology evolving, on average, every six weeks”

– stated the UK Government after signing an agreement on drone cooperation with Ukraine.

Introducing the interceptor drone came out as a response to mass attacks performed by cheap Shahed drones. The initiative was brought by Mykhailo Fedorov, a former Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, who recently became the new Defence Minister, as a part of Zelenskyy’s government changes. This also reflects his will to develop the industry and focus on the new technologies in Defence. The new minister started to act directly in the sector, setting to Deliver 40,000 Interceptor Drones to the Military by the end of January which has to help build an anti-drone-dome eventually, since only in 2025, Ukraine was attacked by up to 100.000 drones.

There are various ways of production that happen in a collaboration with the Ministry of Defence, volunteer funds, MilTech companies and drone operators in the military units. The fact that the drones are made with precise feedback of the operators has a direct impact on their development, making the process as effective as possible. This short feedback loop is reducing bureaucratic actions that make the process quick and efficient. The Russian side is working on the interceptor drones as well, having their Yolka drone as a flagship that is backed by Artificial Intelligence.

As a part of the recently released The United States’ NDS (National Defence Strategy ), the federal government made claims, encouraging European states to take a greater responsibility for its own defence, developing security infrastructure. Considering the input of the US to NATO before the Trump Administration, EU leaders started to put more emphasis on domestic production. As mentioned before, relying on conventional air-defence systems to stop cheap Shahed drones is not sustainable. That is why European countries, in cooperation with Ukrainian experts, must continue developing their own counter-drone technologies and domestic UAVs for defence.

A New Paradigm for European Air Security

The European defence industry is already aware of the opportunities that interceptor drones provide for the new era of non-conventional air defence. The industry is present in France, Netherlands, and many more countries including Latvia, where Origin Robotics recently received a €4.5 million investment from the European Defence Fund. Interceptors are already included in the European Commission’s Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 as a part of European Drone Defence Initiative (EDDI), embedding drone technology in its doctrine.

Unlike Ukraine, Europe has a great technological advantage with its industry, it only needs to develop stable mechanisms of testing the new prototypes. This can be done in collaboration with Ukrainian companies that would be willing to share the experience with their partners and potentially hold testing in Ukraine. This mechanism of work can be seen at the French ALM Meca, which developed a jet-powered interceptor, designed to put down Russian Shaheds, which demonstrates the readiness and commitment to solving the drawbacks outlined before.

“Drone development in Ukraine and Europe is two different ecosystems that work at different paces, with both having their own advantages and downsides”

Fabian Hoffman

It is now crucial for European policymakers to merge the advantages of these ecosystems, creating a competitive, highly technological industry that will bring effective air protection to the continent. European industry should incorporate the quick testing and provide more opportunities for growing MilTech companies in the drone area. With Ukrainian battlefield testing and European technology, the drones can reach the level needed to effectively deter Russian mass-attacks.

The continent’s greatest advantage is time – and using it decisively will determine Europe’s future air security.

Hungarian oil and gas company MOL is leading the race to acquire Russian Gazpromneft’s majority stake in Serbia’s NIS, adding to the Orbán government’s list of controversial foreign economic and political ties. This deal highlights several aspects of Orbán’s geopolitical thinking and the extent to which Hungarian foreign policy under Viktor Orbán is intertwined with his personal and business interests and illiberal governance.

Since Viktor Orbán became prime minister in 2010, Hungary has been in the process of democratic backsliding, becoming a well-known example of illiberal populist governance. He pioneered in setting up an illiberal system within Europe, inspiring several parties and politicians across the continent. The question is whether he played such an influential role in shaping populist foreign policy-making and geopolitical thinking as well or whether his is a unique case. Two renowned Hungarian foreign policy experts, Botond Feledy (Red Snow Consulting) and Zsolt Kerner (24.hu), contributed to the analysis.

Orbán, the Populist Norm Setter?

Both Botond Feledy and Zsolt Kerner agree that it is difficult to answer which populist characteristics originated with Orbán or whether, amid fractures in the post-Cold War world order, many others came to the same conclusion at the same time.

Botond Feledy argues that “when it comes to foreign policy trends generated by populist domestic political positions, it is difficult to decide who is the real trendsetter among Viktor Orbán, Donald Trump, the AfD, Marine Le Pen, and Benjamin Netanyahu: the players have learned a lot from each other, and after a while, they are shaping each other’s geopolitical space, a process that is now harming each other’s interests.” He further continues that in foreign policy populism, Donald Trump can be considered a trendsetter, while Orbán is more of an innovator in “shaping domestic political manoeuvring to suppress his opposition.”

Zsolt Kerner argues that there are indeed thematic similarities between European populists that can be traced back to Orbán, such as opposition to migration, concern over population decline and anti-Ukrainian sentiments regarding foreign affairs. He adds that in terms of themes, the MAGA movement also uses many of the same topics, but Orbán’s extreme state intervention in the economy is much less common, as it is quite foreign to American politics.

The Reality of Orbán’s Foreign Policy

The overlaps highlight that Orbán has indeed been influential in shaping the repertoire of populist themes and political communication, however, the influence could not be that directly applied to foreign policymaking. Among the reasons, Zsolt Kerner emphasized it is since his foreign policy can be considered unsuccessful from the nation’s point of view, arguing that Hungary’s foreign policy over the past 16 years has been largely Orbán’s personal foreign policy, based on his and his circle’s personal and business interests. Zsolt Kerner adds that it is why entrepreneurs close to the government attend diplomatic events, an example of which is the growth of the company 4IG and the fact that its CEO, Gellért Jászai, was present at a meeting with Trump and Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago.

Botond Feledy largely agrees and notes that such “particularistic, hyper-pragmatic and often very materialistic steps” are the essence of populist foreign policy. He highlights the key factor that distinguishes Orbán from other populists: “as the state became increasingly captive, foreign policy increasingly pursued particular interests. From relations with Russian oligarchs to Chinese investors, the interests of smaller economic groups close to the government and successful strategic corruption channels in third countries were able to create decision-making situations, rather than the consistent pursuit of national interests.”

Therefore, Orbán’s rise to prominence is not solely the result of his populist political style and his own political talent, but above all the consequence of the illiberal domestic system that has been in place since 2010, in which the checks and balances have been so weakened that foreign policy has fallen into the trap of Orbán’s personal and economic interests. Such depth of the state capture has not yet been achieved by other European populist parties; leaders such as Marine Le Pen, Alice Weidel, or even Robert Fico operate within more competitive political systems.

Narrative Versus Reality

Experts agree that there is a significant gap between narrative and reality in populist foreign policy. On the one hand, Botond Feledy highlights that the rhetoric of Orbán as a visionary leader who transcends the nation’s size has been less in line with the reality of achievements; regardless of his personal connections and strategy to hold close ties with all great powers, Russia still sells gas at high prices, and investors face legal uncertainty. Furthermore, “without EU funds, the domestic economy has been steadily falling behind even its regional competitors, with living standards and inflation among the worst in the EU.”- says Feledy. However, Orbán has still managed to gain international recognition, as the narratives prepared for foreign audiences do not concern economic performance or the interests of Hungarian citizens.

On the other hand, Botond Feledy highlights the strong and multi-layered divisions within the Patriotic group, which refutes the populist model and Orbán’s leading influential role. As examples, Feledy mentions Le Pen’s refusal of the AfD, forcing German radicals to form a new EP group; Meloni and the Polish PiS, which are cooperative and compromise oriented with the European platform parties. Zsolt Kerner agrees with the notion of differences within populists in Europe, highlighting that while Fico and Babis are the closest allies with Orbán, they always find a way to compromise on the EU level, understanding that Orbán’s level hostility led to the loss of billions of euros through the EU fund cuts.

Feledy continues highlighting the differences in foreign affairs: “Hungarian foreign policy reflects the interests allowed in by Orbán, while the French RN, for example, is fundamentally attentive to the interests of French workers, as evidenced by its opposition to Trump’s tariff policies, and Alice Weidel also criticized the intervention in Venezuela as a violation of sovereignty, in contrast to Vox, which supported it because of its pragmatic political relations with Venezuelan leaders“. In addition, both experts agree that there will always be tension between net contributors and net beneficiaries in the EU, regardless of ideology.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is no coherent foreign policy model within European populists, in fact, they are becoming increasingly divided on geopolitical developments. Furthermore, Orbán’s case with Hungary is not a generalizable example; Orbán is rather overestimated in his influence on other populists because the state of state capture is an underestimated factor.

His electoral support allowed him to build a domestic illiberal system, which then allowed him to personalise (among other areas) foreign policymaking and align it with his and his circle’s personal and business interests to an extent that other European populist leaders could not replicate. His real innovation rather lies in setting up the repertoire of a populist leader from themes to political communication, as well as in building an illiberal domestic system.

Feledy adds that “foreign policies that are fundamentally based on national interests, even if they choose different tools for their implementation and communication for ideological or party reasons, are fundamentally different from the much narrower foreign policies of countries in a process of state capture”, concluding that “the populist model is basically a communication recipe book rather than a profound reinterpretation of international relations.”

Regional Update Europe and the Mediterranean Sea | At the beginning of January, U.S. President Donald Trump once again put the stability of the transatlantic relationship under pressure. On 6 January, he escalated his rhetoric on Greenland by refusing to rule out military annexation. This came despite a trade agreement highly favorable to the United States, through which European governments had hoped to secure transatlantic stability, and in particular the American security umbrella.

Several European governments, including the Netherlands, responded with firm support for Denmark and announced a joint exploratory mission for an exercise in Greenland. Trump then threatened new import tariffs, causing the dispute to expand from geopolitics into trade.

At a meeting on 21 January in Davos, further escalation was avoided. After consultations with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump withdrew the announced tariffs against eight EU countries and declared that he would not use military force. The agreements remained limited and contained no structural guarantees.

These events prompted reconsideration in European capitals. According to nearly a dozen European diplomats and officials quoted by the Financial Times, the existing approach toward Trump was no longer sustainable.

“It appears that the days of trying to appease Trump are over,” said a senior European official. “The approach to dealing with Trump 2.0 does not work,” a second added.

The Davos deal did little to alter that realization. Instead, it made clearer what many analysts had already been pointing out for some time. The relationship between Washington and its allies is increasingly mediated less through fixed agreements and more through coercion. Threats, the exploitation of economic and security dependencies, and asymmetry now determine the pace and direction of negotiations. Trump explained his approach in an interview with The New York Times, in which he stated that his power as commander in chief is limited only by “his own morality,” in other words: “L’ordre mondial, c’est moi.”

“Not an era of change, but a change of era”

In this light, the Greenland episode is not an incident but a symptom of an interregnum. The old order is dying, while a new one has not yet been born. In the meantime, phenomena that had long been simmering beneath the surface are becoming more visible. Power relations and opportunism are coming out into the open. The mask has come off. The central question is therefore not how this structural crisis is managed, but what it reveals about Europe’s position in an international environment without a stable frame of reference.

From this broader perspective, Alex Krijger, geopolitical adviser and lecturer in Geoeconomics at Leiden University, and Michel Don Michaloliákos, in-house Europe analyst at HIG, reflect on the situation. They place the Greenland crisis within the structural transformation of the world order and outline the strategic implications for Europe and the Netherlands, as well as for the conduct of politicians, civil servants, media, and analysts.

Krijger explicitly places the current confrontation in historical perspective. Europe, he says, “still is not truly standing on its own feet, 81 years after the end of the Second World War.” Over the past ten years, he argues, this vulnerability has repeatedly become apparent. Not because dependencies suddenly emerged, but because they only became visible once they were put under pressure.

The war in Ukraine since 2014, the coronavirus pandemic, and the energy crisis have each served as wake-up calls about European dependencies. First, these concerned industrial and medical dependence on China, then the strategic vulnerability associated with Russian gas, and now increasingly dependence on American gas exports and security. Greenland fits into this series of wake-up calls, according to Krijger. “This is not an era of change,” he says, “but a change of era.”

Stop fatalism and reactivity, and look at what is possible

Precisely because these signals are accumulating, he is critical of the reactive way in which the debate is conducted in the Netherlands. Instead of translating these developments into a strategic reorientation, analysts and columnists, he argues, remain stuck in moral outrage over Trump. “That sentiment runs so deep that it blinds us and makes us geopolitically short-sighted,” says Krijger. “If you are obsessively focused on indignation, you miss larger trends and spend time and energy on something that yields nothing.”

He also finds the opposite extreme misleading. Not moral outrage but fatalism can be just as paralyzing. Analyses that write off the transatlantic relationship as definitively lost, according to Krijger, conceal a lack of practical agency rather than strategic realism. This is ironic, given that these analysts usually call themselves “realists.”

“The transatlantic relationship is larger than the leaders of our countries,” Krijger argues. “The cultural and economic ties are enormous.” The world order is shifting, he acknowledges, but this does not imply a rupture. It does imply the need for a different attitude.

A change in mindset

Michaloliákos likewise concludes that a change in mindset is necessary. In European capitals, he says, there is deep division over how the United States should be interpreted. He distinguishes three camps: one that still sees the U.S. government as a conventional government serving national interests; one that views Trump as a regime in the making but believes the transatlantic relationship can be saved by appeasing him and adapting to his agenda; and a third group, to which he himself belongs, that goes further. “This is no longer a normal government,” he says, “but a regime in the making that acts in its own power interest and is also hostile toward Europe.” “Therefore,” he concludes, “Europe must support the opposition in the United States as strongly as possible, while it still can.”

This distinction is essential, he argues, because it determines how Europe responds. “A government remains, however imperfect, broadly bound by the rule of law and existing rules of the game,” he explains. “A regime emerges when those in power actively change those rules in order to remain in power.” According to Michaloliákos, that is the direction in which the United States is moving, which makes this phase “so erratic and unpredictable.”

This analysis translates, in his view, into a strategic dilemma. Part of Europe, especially on the right and center-right, is inclined to align itself with Trump’s agenda in the hope of preserving the relationship. “But that hope is misplaced,” he says. At the same time, he does not believe in total confrontation. Like Krijger, he argues “explicitly not for breaking the transatlantic relationship.” “The point is precisely to save that relationship by recreating it.” What this requires is “targeted pressure,” not symbolic or moral, but strategic, applied where it has effect. In short, the language of power.

How should European neglect be addressed?

Both analysts also point out that European vulnerability is not solely the result of American assertiveness. Europe itself has left strategic dossiers unresolved for too long. Krijger points to defense, industry, and energy, where plans have been written but scarcely implemented. Of the industrial agenda advocated, among others, by Mario Draghi, he says “only about 11 percent has been implemented.” “How many wake-up calls do we still need?” he asks.

He does not see institutional reform as the first step. “There is simply no time left to keep seeking consensus among all 27 member states.” What does work is coalition building. “A coalition of the willing,” he says. Large countries that set the pace and take Europe with them. For the Netherlands, this does not necessarily mean leading from the front, but rather thinking about “how we can contribute constructively to a stronger and safer Europe.”

Krijger emphasizes that this reorientation is also moral. Anyone who continues to speak of a “rules-based order” will have to adopt a different attitude toward the Global South. “Three quarters of the people in the Global South have already accepted that this world order is over,” he says. If Europe continues to hesitate, the message elsewhere is simple: “fine, then we will create our own system.” Credibility, in his view, requires moral consistency and the abandonment of old reflexes.

Michaloliákos likewise stresses that European reorientation is not only about new measures, but also about political legitimacy and a shared self-image. In his view, it is essential “to make a collective European (civilizational) identity perceptible in order to legitimize more unified action.” At the same time, Europe must expand its geopolitical room for maneuver by “shifting the center of gravity through more intensive cooperation with multilateral, democratic middle powers.”

A similar diagnosis was voiced at a meeting where Joris Luyendijk spoke, attended by HIG. Luyendijk referred to what he called the “colonization of the European mind,” a combination of administrative inertia, intellectual complacency, and the outsourcing of responsibility. In that context, he argued that the current phase leaves little room for passivity. There is, he said, no time for “laziness and mediocrity.” Those who cling to them should “step aside” for those willing to take responsibility.

Luyendijk also warned that regaining European capacity for action will not be painless. Strategic autonomy, he argued, inevitably requires sacrifices: higher defense spending, political choices that provoke short-term resistance, and a redistribution of costs that have long been postponed. Avoiding that pain, he suggested, has contributed to the colonization of European thinking, in which security, energy, and strategic policy were structurally outsourced.

Like Alex Krijger, Luyendijk linked this analysis to the need to break free from paralyzing procedures and slow-moving bureaucratic structures. Not because rules are unnecessary, but because clinging to existing processes in an accelerating power environment itself becomes a form of risk. He too emphasized that the answer does not lie in imitating authoritarian leaders, but in regaining the capacity to act. This requires a form of patriotism that does not coincide with admiration for figures such as Trump or Putin, but is directed toward collective resilience, European independence, and the ability to make choices.

At the same time, Luyendijk qualified the call for speed. Rules and rule-of-law safeguards exist for a reason, he argued, but in exceptional circumstances a state of emergency is needed in which decisions can be taken more quickly, carefully recorded, and later reviewed. Speed and accountability do not have to exclude one another.

Conclusion: decolonize the European mind

The succession of wake-up calls has made painfully clear how deeply European paralysis and postponement have become entrenched. At the same time, they create the conditions for renewal: a decolonization of the European mind. The Greenland crisis functions as yet another icy bucket of water, forcing Europeans to wake up from administrative inertia and mental complacency. The question is not whether Europe possesses the strength to act, but whether it finally dares to mobilize that strength.

In November 2025, Australia announced it would be signing a new security pact, the Treaty of Common Security, with Indonesia. While the details of the agreement are still unknown and the official signing is yet to take place, this announcement has sent a wave of interest through the region, particularly as a great power rivalry takes place around their shores. Australia and Indonesia have fostered over 75 years of diplomatic relations but this time has not always been characterised by mutual trust and cooperation. What is the significance of this security pact given the complex history between the two countries, and given the growing geopolitical tensions in the region?

History of the Relationship

Australia-Indonesia relations began at the end of World War II when Indonesia gained independence from the Netherlands, and Australia supported this by boycotting Dutch ships. However, in 1963 Australia’s Prime Minister declared Indonesia a growing threat following their declaration of a policy of ‘Konfrontasi’ (confrontation) against Malaysia, destabilising the region. This marked the beginning of the volatile relationship between the two nations, with periodic moments of mistrust on both sides.

In 1995, Australia’s Prime Minister Paul Keating developed and signed the Agreement on Maintaining Security (AMS) with Indonesia’s President Suharto, arguably, this agreement was built by Keating for optics to help him appear statesmanlike during the election that year. Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, has stated that the new Treaty of Common Security has been modelled on the AMS. However, this agreement was ultimately unsuccessfully implemented, and in 1999 the agreement collapsed completely when Australia led INTERFET, a peacekeeping task force to East Timor following a violent outbreak after a referendum that showed overwhelming support for independence from Indonesia. This move by Australia deteriorated Indonesia’s trust and led them to the decision to abandon the agreement. Following this event, the relationship was strained, with renewed periods of tension in 2013 following an espionage scandal and in 2015 following the execution of Australian nationals associated with the Bali Nine.

Observing the relationship in more recent history, it has been characterised by greater periods of cooperation than turbulence due to mutual interests despite varying values. In 2018 their relationship advanced with the signing of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) which was built on five core pillars: enhanced economic and development partnership, connecting people, securing shared interests, maritime cooperation, and contributing to Indo-Pacific security and prosperity. The two countries also have the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) in place since 2019, which has been successful in bringing closer economic engagement. Additionally, the defence ministers signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement in 2024, which allows greater “practical cooperation and interoperability” between the two defence forces. During this time, Indonesia has, however, expressed concerns over Australia’s participation in AUKUS as it could impact their national security and potentially intensify regional competition. They worry that AUKUS may provoke China further, leading them to escalate their actions in the South China Sea, as well, they were concerned about potential nuclear accidents as some of Australia’s most important sea routes pass through Indonesian waters.

Schools of Thought

On one hand, there is the view that Australia and Indonesia are bound by their geographical proximity and, therefore, they must cooperate to manage strategic risks. As explained by Dr Gatra Priyandita, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, past policy discourse in Australia said that a threat to them would either come “from Indonesia or through Indonesia”. Therefore, Indonesia is significant for ensuring Australia’s security in the north, and for this reason, stability in Indonesia is essential for them. Contrarily, Indonesia considers Australia to be an important partner “for purposes of capacity-building, information sharing, and training”. Dr Priyandita elaborates that “these are important for Indonesia, as Indonesia continues to work on both military modernisation and improving its warfighting capabilities”.

This line of thinking attributes the persistence of the relationship, despite the continued volatility observed over history, to the pursuit of national interests. Friction is seen as inevitable but, ultimately, manageable given the primarily transactional nature of the relationship. Thus, they prioritise cooperation where interests align. Looking at the new security pact from this perspective, it is a move to upgrade the Defence Cooperation Agreement signed in 2024 in order to better address shared concerns about the regional landscape.

Within Indonesia, Dr Priyandita pointed out that while there is general support for increased military engagement with Australia, not all Indonesians think positively of it. In particular, nationalist politicians and some conservative segments of the military are sceptical of Australia’s intentions and question whether they are seeking to “undermine Indonesian sovereignty in West Papua, either through espionage or support for pro-independence groups”. This partially comes from the previously mentioned Australian support for East Timor’s independence, but Priyandita mentions that among these groups, there is also a general suspicion around foreign intent.

It is also observable that the stark differences in political systems, identities, and foreign policy strategies can be the reason for limits in the relationship and recurring tensions. Where Australia is an ally to the United States, Indonesia maintains a position of non-alignment, but is simultaneously deepening partnerships with countries that Australia is cautious of. This leads to conflicting expectations, as Australia often places a higher importance on its relationship with Indonesia, due to Indonesia’s geographical location, than is reciprocated. Indonesia, on the other hand, assumes that Australia will be a consistent and dependable security partner, even when faced by pressure from the US. This security pact, therefore, faces obstacles as its success depends heavily on how both countries meet implicit expectations.

China

The announcement of this security pact also raises questions about Indonesia’s potentially shifting relationship with China. Indonesia currently finds itself increasingly involved with China in “economic, foreign policy and security terms,” but this new pact could symbolise Indonesia’s move closer to ‘the West’ as China’s position as a superpower grows. However, under Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, their foreign policy has become more unpredictable, also becoming less concerned with its alignment to authoritarian states. Dr Natalie Sambhi, Executive Director at Verve Research, explained that “Indonesia’s foreign policy priorities have increasingly aligned with the current president’s personal ambitions to raise Indonesia’s international profile and thus his own standing as a global statesman”. Dr Sambhi elaborates that Indonesia has long had to balance its relationship with China and the US, maintaining economic and security ties with both. However, she highlights that now “ it remains to be seen whether the US National Security Strategy, which articulates a desire to dominate China economically, will require Indonesia to take stronger steps to limit Beijing’s influence in the region”.

Australia, conversely, despite being a close trade partner with China, is in a state of “permanent contest” with them in the Pacific region. Australia finds themselves concerned with China’s expansionist motivations moving closer to their borders and thus, finds it relevant to actively counter them. As the pact with Indonesia would require the two countries to consult each other on security activities, this could help Australia to avoid Russian or Chinese presence within its waters or airspace. Particularly as the current Trump administration becomes less reliable, Australia should be looking outside of this relationship and paying more attention to other partners, making this pact with Indonesia increasingly important.

Conclusion

In conclusion, despite the volatile history of Indonesia-Australia relations, they remain close strategic partners, not only because of their geographical proximity, but also because of mutual gains and shared concerns about the regional geopolitical landscape. Their combined power within the Indo-Pacific region makes them a strong counter-balance to China, highlighting the importance of democratic middle powers coming together. For Australia, signing the Treaty of Common Security is a great step for them to expand beyond the US and diversify their partnerships, particularly with the uncertainties under the current Trump administration. However, under Prabowo, while he is raising Indonesia’s international profile, the foreign policy strategies seem to lack some coherence which may lead to potential frictions in the future.

Munich as Reckoning

On the morning of February 14, a fragile confidence still persisted across Europe that the Transatlantic relationship, however strained, would ultimately endure. Minor disagreements between allies were a familiar occurrence. Relations had long followed a cyclical rhythm, shaped by elections and changing political moods across Europe and the United States. Governments shifted, rhetoric hardened, tensions flared only to recede and soften again. The underlying assumption, however, remained intact: the alliance was structural, durable, and anchored in a shared vision and common values. By the end of the day, that assumption was no longer tenable.

At the Munich Security Conference, a forum long associated with reassurance, continuity, and the quiet maintenance of order, senior representatives of the incoming U.S. administration addressed Europe in terms that felt unmistakably different. This was not the language of partnership navigating shared challenges, nor of allies managing friction. Europe was spoken to as a subordinate that had failed to meet expectations. The tone was not corrective but chastising and contemptuous, the posture not diplomatic but disciplinary. Europe, they suggested, had lost its freedoms, its democratic values, plagued by the specter of state censorship and incapable of defending itself from the flood of migrants.

In retrospect, Munich was not an outburst, nor a miscalculation. It was a rupture and a diagnostic moment of a strategic shift. The posture on display that day would soon find its doctrinal expression in the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy.

JD Vance at MSC 2025 (© MSC/Hecker) Source: Munich Security Conference 2025

From Leviathan to Arkhē

For much of the post–Second World War era, the United States functioned as a stabilizing sovereign creating order in a previously anarchic system. In Hobbesian terms, it approximated a Leviathan, it absorbed costs to enforce rules, underwrote collective defense, stabilized markets, and embedded its power within institutions that made cooperation predictable and legitimate. This posture reflected a strategic calculation: American security and prosperity depended on the stability of the order it had built. The 2025 National Security Strategy marks a decisive break from that logic. What disappears is not American power, but American responsibility for maintaining order. The language of stewardship and shared governance gives way to a vocabulary of sovereignty, mercantilism, extraction, and control. Institutions once framed as force multipliers are recast as constraints on freedom of action and national autonomy. Alliances are no longer instruments of long-term stability, but conditional arrangements evaluated by immediate return.

As Michel Don Michaloliákos has observed, “There is a clear shift in what the U.S. perceives as its vital interests and how to promote these. The NSS seems like a commercial strategy recorded by Silicon Valley and Wall Street, aimed at exploiting other countries as (digital) colonies.” The document seems to ask not how to defend an order, but what benefits the United States can extract from participation in it. Security becomes transactional, commitment is questioned based on direct gains, and legitimacy gives way to conditional engagement.

The Strategy does not represent American retreat from the world. On the contrary, it represents the deliberate relinquishment of responsibility for global order, in favor of a narrower conception of power oriented toward control, bargaining, and selective intervention rather than system guardianship.

A Return to a Gilded Age Logic

This impulse has clear precedents in American history. The document evokes the logic of the Gilded Age at the turn of the twentieth century, a period often misremembered as one of prosperity, but more accurately defined by extreme inequality, monopolization, corruption, and anxiety over immigration, national identity, and social cohesion. During that era, domestic instability was paired with strategic consolidation abroad. The United States narrowed its focus to the Western Hemisphere, asserting regional primacy while avoiding deeper entanglement in European politics. Instruments such as the Monroe Doctrine, the Platt Amendment, and later the Roosevelt Corollary formalized this approach. In Latin America, sovereignty was treated as conditional when instability, debt, or external influence threatened regional order. Through dollar diplomacy and episodic intervention, Washington justified its actions in a moral and civilizational register: stability, progress, and order were framed as collective goods, even when imposed asymmetrically.

The 2025 National Security Strategy revives this logic in updated form. The Western Hemisphere is once again defined as the core security theater. Migration routes, border enforcement, governance failures, drug trafficking, strategic assets, and external economic influence are cited as justifications for preemptive control rather than cooperative management. The structure is familiar: stability is again equated with controllability. The difference lies in context and in language. The Gilded Age unfolded within an international order the United States did not design and did not yet lead, British imperial power still anchored the system. Today’s retrenchment occurs within an order the United States strategically built after 1945. More strikingly, the new security doctrine strips intervention of even the rhetorical commitment to collective stabilization. Where earlier hemispheric doctrines cloaked power in moral purpose, the current Strategy speaks almost exclusively in the language of interest, leverage, and return on investments.

Sovereignty is elevated as a core principle, but primarily as an American entitlement. For others, it appears contingent, instrumental, and negotiable. The result is not a revival of Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim to “speak softly and carry a big stick”, but something closer to carrying the stick without the soft voice: coercion without the pretense of guardianship, intervention without the ambition to sustain order for its own sake. That shift is what makes the parallel destabilizing rather than cyclical.

Domestic Primacy as Strategy

The doctrinal shift is structural and is reflected in the document’s architecture. Previous National Security Strategies began with the international environment and treated American renewal as enabling leadership abroad. The 2025 Strategy reverses that logic. It begins at home. National borders are framed as the primary element of security, migration is treated as an existential force reshaping legitimacy and cohesion. Industrial capacity, energy dominance, supply chains, and even cultural and spiritual health are elevated to survival concerns. Only then does the Strategy turn outward, and even then, engagement is subordinate to national priorities. This is not isolationism, rather it is domestic primacy as strategy.

Alliances Without Allegiance

Nowhere is the rupture clearer than in the treatment of alliances. Anna van Zoest notes that “under previous administrations, alliances were understood as durable political commitments. Biden, and presidents before him, used NATO as a platform to build coalitions with like-minded partners. Alliances were a vehicle for furthering American interests”. However, under the current administration and its new doctrine, alliances are understood as “bilateral arrangements evaluated case by case”. It is up to Europe to “ hopefully gradually become less dependent or pair [of the U.S.]”. Van Zoest continues “In the meantime, Europe must demonstrate the strategic importance it can play in future fields like the race for the Arctic. Right now NATO Allies safeguard access to the North Atlantic and help the U.S. reinstate itself in an area where it competes with others for access and natural resources. In doing so, they show why NATO is a strategic asset for the U.S. too”. The NSS systemically redefines the concept of alliance: burden sharing becomes burden shifting, collective defense gives way to regional responsibility, support is conditional, potentially rewarded through trade concessions, technology access, or procurement advantages rather than concrete security guarantees. Europe is no longer framed as a stabilizing partner, but as a volatile entity weakened by demographic change, regulatory overreach, plagued by democratic erosion and cultural fragmentation. The European Union appears less as a force multiplier than as an elite-driven project, depicted as constraining national sovereignty and insulating decision-making from democratic accountability This downgrading of the EU is not merely rhetorical, as Don Michaloliákos argues, “ the neglect of European and Ukrainian security interests is closely related to the US attack on the rule making power of the EU”. Europe is chastised, paradoxically, for becoming what the post-1945 American order encouraged it to be. The Strategy rejects the values the United States previously championed: democracy promotion, institutional legitimacy, and rule-based cooperation are no longer security assets. Intervention, when contemplated, is stripped of normative language and justified purely instrumentally and stability matters only insofar as it benefits American interests. Openness is vulnerability, institutions are constraints operating from ideological frameworks, and legitimate leadership is expendable.

Thucydides’s Warning: from Hegemonia to Arkhē

Some describe this turn as Machiavellian, but the analogy fails. Machiavelli’s prince is preoccupied with durability and cautions against alienating allies or mistaking fear for loyalty.

The governing logic of the NSS 2025 aligns far more closely with the form of power Thucydides describes at moments of imperial decay. In his account, it is not power itself that corrodes authority, but the reduction- or abdication- of leadership to fear, shortsighted interests, and asymmetry. Justice and rules applies only among equals and cooperation endures only so long as it remains advantageous. For the Athenian historian, imperial decay precedes decline, for decline begins not with weakness, but with the abandonment of legitimacy.

Crucially, Thucydides draws a distinction between hegemony sustained through timē – honor, restraint, and leadership accepted by others- and a form of arkhē that prioritizes ōpheleia, short-term advantages, over legitimacy bestowed through consent. In Thucydidean terms, the danger is not that primacy disappears, but that legitimated leadership (hegemonia) is hollowed out, leaving space to a form of control (arkhē) increasingly reliant on leverage and coercion, a shift that corrodes authority and invites overreach. Such a system is not yet tyranny, but it marks the erosion of hegemony itself. To be more specific, the transition from hegemony to arkhē occurs when immediate gains and narrow self-interest are prioritized over collective benefit and leadership by consent. In this sense, America has not declined or collapsed, it has chosen to forfeit the foundations of its authority, consent gives way to coercion and leadership to dominance.

In this reading, the United States is not withdrawing from the world, nor is it in structural decline. It is making a strategic decision: to exchange the burdens of hegemonic leadership for the freedoms of unconstrained and self-interested power. It is reentering the international system on harsher terms, accepting a global volatility not as a condition to be mitigated, but as a terrain to be exploited.

What does this choice mean in practice? It does not amount to isolationism or a complete withdrawal. American power remains present, active, and often decisive. What changes is the nature of engagement: the U.S. no longer positions itself as the guarantor of a system but as an actor operating within it, advancing national interests and disengaging from obligations. This posture is sometimes framed as a return to America’s original instincts: a Republic wary of foreign entanglements and commitments. But the United States of the twenty-first century is not the republic of the thirteen colonies. It is the principal architect of the post-1945 international order, whether it seeks the role or not, for now the U.S. remains a point of reference in the international system. History suggests that when great powers abandon legitimacy in favor of leverage, they do not regain sovereignty, they instead accelerate the disorder they fear.

If America has long imagined itself as the shining city on a hill, then today its light feels unmistakably dimmer. The city still stands, but its gaze has turned inward, guarded, transactional, and war of the world it once sought to shape. The 2025 NSS captures this shift with unusual clarity. It reads less like a blueprint for sustaining the existing order than a diagnosis of national vulnerability. And in that diagnosis lies a deliberate departure from the role America once chose to play.

Regional Update Europe and the Mediterranean | In November 2025, the European Parliament’s center-right, right-wing and far-right parties approved the EU’s first Omnibus Simplification Package, cutting green reporting rules for companies, in order to support their competitiveness and boost European industries. Although political discourse following the decision was focused on the outrage around the center-right EPP voting with the far right, the legislation exposes a much broader issue: the great trilemma of the energy transition between climate ambitions, industrial competitiveness and strategic autonomy. Although these are mutually reinforcing to some, others argue that they clash under certain circumstances. This poses the question: to what extent will the EU be able to simultaneously achieve all three?

The 13^th of November was an important day for the EU’s climate ambitions as the European Parliament (EP) endorsed two adjustments. On the one hand, the EP decided to adopt updated rules as part of the Omnibus I simplification package in order to simplify and reduce sustainability reporting obligations and due diligence requirements in the name of ‘competitiveness and regulatory relief’. On the other hand, a cross‑party majority accepted watered‑down climate targets for 2040, agreeing to reduce domestic emissions by 85 percent (compared to 1990 levels) and the remaining 5 percent to be outsourced by purchasing international carbon offsets; in order to offer governments and industries more flexibility with decarbonization.

GREEN DEAL EUPHORIA IN DECLINE

The two decisions showcase that EU lawmakers passed through a reality check regarding the feasibility of climate ambitions and are now recalibrating those. While rapporteur of the Legal Affairs Committee Jörgen Warborn (EPP, SE) after the voting said ”Today’s vote shows that Europe can be both sustainable and competitive.”, reflecting optimism, the votes expose the growing difficulty for the EU to manage its climate ambitions, industrial competitiveness and strategic autonomy.

Strategic geoeconomic analyst Ron Stoop of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies shares the idea that the three aspects can be achieved at the same time, in fact, he argues “that ambitious climate policy measures can reinforce competitiveness and strategic autonomy if manifested through fast and thoroughly considered investment in new technologies in areas such as electric vehicles, batteries, solar energy, and smart grids as cleaner solutions are becoming cheaper and more efficient”.

On the other hand, geopolitical and geoeconomic analyst of Europe, Michel Don Michaloliákos of The Hague Institute for Geopolitics, argues that “lowering specific short term climate goals could strengthen European competitiveness and strategic autonomy, for instance, in strategic sectors where green alternatives for fossil fuels are not available or affordable yet, or where grid congestion limits electrification.”

However, both experts warn that slowing down or delaying the energy transition could potentially lead to a backlog in technological advancement, including future industries gaining momentum with the energy transition, further weakening the EU’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy.

SHIFT IN PRIORITIES?

The significance of the two votes reaches far beyond the party-political layer that the press and the general political discourse mainly dealt with afterwards. The magnitude of the hardship of the energy transition and the geopolitical and geoeconomic developments it brings has made EU lawmakers and citizens face a political reality of 2025 that is entirely different from the one in the 2010s.

According to Michel Don Michaloliákos, out of strategic autonomy, competitiveness and climate ambitions, “the latter clearly dominated the EU’s agenda from the mid-2010s, peaking in 2019, with the Green Deal and the electoral successes of Green parties. The EU was pursuing green normative leadership and tried to promote its regulatory approach. These policies changed the energy mixture of Europe with lasting positive effects, but also had some evident shortcomings. It underestimated the strain on the electricity grid. Additionally, there was a strong emphasis on phasing out fossil fuels, but not enough on delivering renewable supply at scale, which created the recipe for energy scarcity and high energy prices.”

However, the COVID 19 pandemic, then the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, soaring energy prices, and Trump’s election have turned the tide to some extent. Industrial competitiveness and strategic autonomy have taken center stage. He argues that this demonstrates a shift in priorities and adds two important layers to it: rising living costs that helped raise public concern and the growing influence of corporate lobbying. In his view, the two votes and especially the end of the traditional cordon sanitaire around the far right confirms the shift. According to Michel Don Michaloliákos, there is only one way forward: ‘’the EU should invest itself out of the trilemma by massive, large scale investments – private and public’’.

Ron Stoop also acknowledges that security and defence issues have become more important over the past two years but insists that Mario Draghi’s competitiveness agenda is compatible with Europe’s climate goals if it is used to support clean technologies rather than undermine them, therefore, none should be prioritised at the expense of the other. In his view, the EU focused too much on regulation and compliance costs and not enough on investment, constructive industrial policy, and the expansion of green industries. He believes that this shift is essential to make because “the technologies that drive the energy transition are the technologies that will drive Europe’s future economy.”

A NEW ENERGY ORDER

The ambitious climate objectives and the energy transition further increase the degree of dependencies, as the shift from fossil fuels to renewables requires an ever-larger amount of rare earth and critical raw materials, which are cheapest and most readily accessible in China. Nowadays, energy and critical raw materials are not merely economic commodities as during the heydays of globalization, but have increasingly become strategic and geopolitical tools, exposing the EU to significant vulnerability in energy security. Lacking capacity in the refining industry and lacking resource extraction are at the heart of this.

Possessing capacity in refining is crucial for energy independence and control over energy supply, however, the EU has been struggling with achieving it. There is a similar lack of current prospects in extraction as well: permitting new mines has been a slow process, furthermore, significant local and general social resistance is inevitable due to environmental concerns. Consequently, the EU has to rely on external supply chains which, in case of the refining of rare earth metals and other critical raw materials, has been highly concentrated in China that weaponizes its near monopoly geopolitically. Even though Chinese imports remain important, the EU has tried to lower its dependency by enacting the Critical Raw Materials Act in March 2024, setting targets of 10% extraction, 40% processing, and 25% recycling domestically. It is undeniably a step forward; however, the implementation so far has been criticized for lacking financial incentives and is in general considered unrealistic to achieve.

FROM STRATEGIC AUTONOMY TO STRATEGIC DEPENDENCIES

In this context, the EU has to realize that “strategic autonomy” should not refer to complete self-sufficiency but to the strategic management of inevitable dependencies. Michel Don Michaloliakos emphasizes that in order for Europe to manage or resolve the trilemma, it has to develop a new solution model, including the acceptance of possibly uncomfortable trade-offs for the sake of security of supply and energy grid.

In the long term, the aspects of the trilemma fundamentally reinforce each other, however, in the short and medium term, compromises are inevitable. Lowering climate goals may reduce the cost and regulatory burden on companies but could potentially slow down the pace and extent of technological innovation, not to mention jeopardizing Europe’s possible clean technology leadership and consequently its strategic autonomy. On the other hand, it is essential to prioritise the competitiveness of certain fossil-based industries (e.g., steel or petrochemicals) that struggle with sustainability, but this maintains dependence on external suppliers, such as Russia and Gulf States, undermining long-term strategic autonomy.

Ursula von der Leyen has already positioned the European Commission as a “Geopolitical Commission” during her first presidency, which showcases recognition of the broader geopolitical developments that the energy transition brings along. However, what we can see according to Ron Stoop is that “Europe’s main problem is that we still do not have a united strategy. Too many countries are pursuing short-term national interests instead of a shared European approach”. Michel Don Michaloliákos calls for a “stronger EU industry policy”, otherwise the EU will be unable to build its own technological base (which would be essential for regaining control over its energy system and economic security), resulting in the increasing loss of its autonomous geopolitical role and instead becoming another major battleground for the United States and China.

As a solution, both experts call for a twofold dependency diversification strategy: on the one hand, having deeper cooperation with democratic middle powers such as Australia, Japan, Korea, and Canada, and on the other hand, creating new partnerships with emerging middle powers in Asia, Central Asia, and South America such as Indonesia or Chile that combine mineral resources and growing industrial capacity.

At a time when the United States and European leaders are seeking a peace agreement for Ukraine, the country is struggling on the battlefield and with protecting its energy infrastructure over the winter. The army is now fighting for Pokrovsk – a key hub of the Donetsk region defence, and the civilians are suffering from Russian missile attacks on the critical energy infrastructure. Only in October 2025, Russia launched approximately 5,300 Shahed drones, 74 cruise missiles, and 148 ballistic missiles on Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine’s capabilities are finite, which is why strategists are looking to tailor them to cause maximum damage to Russia, and long-range precision strikes are exactly what Ukraine needs now. Obtaining different types of these weapons enables the attacks targeting internal energy and military infrastructure, which is both a tactical win and a psychological leverage. This approach is not new – since 2022, Ukraine has requested the ATACAMS missiles, which can reach up to 300km into Russian territory, and at that point, it seemed merely impossible to obtain them from Washington. By acquiring ATACAMS missiles and starting its own production of long-range missiles and drones, Ukraine tried to change the equation on the battlefield. Ukraine was trying to acquire even longer range missiles, such as the Tomahawks, at the beginning of October. This is an instrument that can help reach further targets, including military bases and oil and gas infrastructure, in Russia. This poses the question: how could long-range missile capabilities for Ukraine change the balance on the battlefield, in the war and even a post-war situation?

What is the Tomahawk missile?

The center of the discussion is the BGM-109 Tomahawk – a cruise missile, arguably one of the most advanced precision weapons in the US arsenal. Even though it is usually launched from sea, it can also be used with an on-ground launcher called Typhon. The launcher is a very costly addition; however, Ukraine cannot avoid it since the country lacks surface navy capabilities. The subsonic missile operates at a low altitude, making it less visible to the air defence systems and more evasive. With its 1600 km range, the Ukrainian army can target the Tomahawks at the Engels-2 Airbase and the drone factory in Alabuga, Tatarstan, which are crucial for the mass attacks against Ukraine. The missile combines all the necessary elements – a large payload, accuracy, and the ability to strike at long range.

Source: Institute for the Study of War, Russian Military and Security Service Objects within Range of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles in the Russian Federation (Control of Terrain Assessment as of October 17, 2025)

What can long-range missiles do for Ukraine?

For Ukraine, Tomahawks and other long-range missiles like German Taurus would be a powerful addition to its arsenal that could not only strike military bases and weapon factories, but also Russian oil and gas facilities. Davis Ellison, a strategic analyst at the HCSS, said:” At the tactical level, the most effective use would be to continue using such systems against high-value targets in the operational theatre. Hardened command and control, logistics sites, staging areas, and so on.”

In his latest book “What will they fight with in World War III? New Ukrainian weapons”, Roman Romaniuk mentioned that the oil facilities are one of the most “sacred” foundations for the Russians. These kinds of attacks combine targeting state revenues, decreasing the amount of petrol for their army, and serve as a psychological risk.

In its first public press event, a Ukrainian weapon manufacturer Fire Point presented its achievements and goals, including the list of the infrastructure targeted inside Russia, that reached up to 1000 km deep into the adversary’s territory. The company also announced the trial runs of the “Flamingo,” a long-range missile capable of targeting up to 3,000 kilometers and carrying a 1,150-kilogram payload. The hopes are high for this kind of weapon system, and the Ukrainian missile industry is working to compensate for the absence of Western systems.

Except for the military effects, Tomahawk deployment is considered a political indicator of support from Western countries and a demonstration of readiness to have their missiles targeted inside the Russian territory. During the meeting with journalists, Zelenskyy mentioned that the Tomahawks will “strengthen Ukraine and force the Russians to sober up a little and sit down at the negotiating table.”

At the same time, Davis Ellison emphasized that if the Tomahawks were deployed to Ukraine, Washington would send a signal that it is stepping back from negotiations with Russia and committing to supporting Ukraine’s forces. He emphasised the strategic and political benefits of the Tomahawks, as Ukraine has begun developing its own long-range missile industry.

Can the acquisition of the Tomahawks be a game-changer?

According to experts, the Tomahawks would indeed strengthen Ukrainian forces and capabilities inside Russia; however, this would come with numerous difficulties.

Firstly, the missile itself and the Typhon launcher are very costly, and with the current system of Europe paying for the weapons, it would be a hardship for the allied countries.

Secondly, the effects of using the missiles highly depend on the quantity available. Fabian Hoffman, a missile industry expert, argues that, for example, to neutralize the drone factory, the Ukrainian army would need at least 150 Tomahawk missiles, which seems unlikely at the moment.

With the current development of the potential peace deal between Ukraine and Russia initiated by the US, Trump’s administration is not looking at strengthening Ukraine; it is looking at cooperating with Russia. According to the CSIS, one of the reasons why the US is not willing to supply Tomahawks is also the fact that the country is counting on these missiles itself, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

Even with the potential acquisition of Tomahawks, the Ukrainian cruise missile industry is still developing and is not comparable to the Russian one. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR), Russia currently has 2000 cruise missiles, and produces 200 ballistic and cruise missiles a month. At the same time, Ukraine’s focus remains on drone technology, which is a tool of compensation for the lack of missile capabilities, since it is more accessible and less costly.

Having taken everything into account, including the successes the Ukrainian army has achieved with its long-range capabilities, it remains unclear whether these strikes can have a tangible impact on the war.

“Long-range strikes on strategic targets will always support a front-line strategy, but by themselves, they cannot change the status quo on the battlefield. They can force Russia to reprioritize, adjust its strategy, and reposition its operations. Still, they won’t win a war,” an anonymous expert has stated, and it explains the fact that Tomahawks themselves cannot stand as a game-changing chance for Ukraine.

Broader NATO perspective

Since the INF Treaty in 1987, long-range precision strikes have not been as prominent in NATO defence operations, with greater emphasis on airpower. According to Davis Ellison, deep-strike capabilities will become a larger part of NATO strategies in the coming years, given Ukraine’s practical management of long-range capabilities. This is why following developments in Ukrainian warfare is crucial to transatlantic analysts; it is the only way they can see the practical use of weapons in an active war environment.

Ellison said: “Based on Ukraine’s experience, deep-strike is going to be very much a part of NATO strategy and doctrine for a long time to come.”

Conclusion

Concluding, the long-range missiles are an essential part of Ukraine’s strategy and can help the country achieve its strategic goals through targeting critical military infrastructure in Russia – both in a war and a post-war situation. However, the missiles cannot be a full game-changer for Ukraine in the current circumstances. With the present political developments, it is unlikely that Tomahawks would be deployed to Ukraine anytime soon, however, there is a higher chance of obtaining European long-range missiles such as Taurus missiles.In any case, Ukraine now has to focus on its domestic long-range capabilities. Inevitably, Ukraine’s experience will contribute to NATO’s doctrine and will be used to strengthen Europe’s security infrastructure in the future.

Regional Update Australia | In August 2025, Papua New Guinea (PNG) proposed a mutual defence treaty to Australia, its first since it gained independence 50 years ago. The Pukpuk Treaty, ‘pukpuk’ coming from the Tok Pisin word for crocodile, was officially signed by the two Prime Ministers in Canberra on October 6th 2025 and is now undergoing domestic approval processes. However, as Australia and China compete for power in the South Pacific, what implications will this treaty have on the geopolitical landscape?

The main features of the treaty include mutual defence commitments, capability enhancement, and safeguarding sovereignty and regional stability. For PNG, a large benefit of the treaty is being able to enhance their defence capabilities as they currently suffer from a defence capacity that is unable to protect itself. Additionally, it offers up to 10,000 citizens a pathway to Australian citizenship through serving in the Australian Defence Force which would help Australia with their recruitment struggles, and PNG with their high youth unemployment.

According to expert Mihai Sora, the Director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute, “this treaty will contribute to stabilising geopolitical competition in the Pacific because it is a clear commitment from PNG with respect to its national security and foreign policy”. The treaty reinforces that Australia is consistently PNG’s primary security partner. Given the capability differences between the two, it is, however, important that this treaty doesn’t lead to a situation of dependency, and rather, one of genuine partnership.

Indonesia has been one of the first to raise concerns with the treaty, asking both nations to respect its sovereignty and independence. This comes due to reasons associated with West Papua, a region of Indonesia that shares a border with PNG, and is currently experiencing conflict due to West Papua’s ongoing struggle for independence. Indonesia is concerned that should the conflict escalate along the border, Australia would come to aid PNG’s military. However, PM Marape has reassured that the treaty does not “compel Australia to assist his country in the event of a conflict on the Indonesian border,” and this is defined in article 2b of the treaty. Australia is incentivised to maintain a positive relationship with Indonesia as South East Asia’s largest country and a direct neighbour, making them an ideal strategic partner. Indonesia and Australia have fostered 76 years of diplomatic relations, including security cooperation as laid out in the Lombok Treaty (2006), and enhanced by a comprehensive strategic partnership since 2018.

While the treaty has alarmed Indonesia, China is the biggest player to be affected by this geopolitical move. As per Mihai Sora, Australia-China relations are in a state of competition regarding the Pacific, both countries seek to strengthen Pacific partnerships by expanding their diplomatic reach. The balance of power is changing, and this is also due to Pacific Islands asserting their needs more clearly.

In 2022, China signed its first bilateral security arrangement in the Pacific Ocean with the Solomon Islands. This move was met with concern by Australia, New Zealand and the United States as it signalled an expansion of China’s maritime presence and a reinforcement of its hard power in a strategic location of the Pacific region. The implications of this move on the geopolitical landscape of the Pacific region are substantial. Although the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands guaranteed that a Chinese military base in the country was not part of the security agreement, it still allows for greater maritime presence of the Chinese, which threatens regional security.

As stated by Casper Wits, an East Asia specialist at The Hague Institute for Geopolitics, China seeks to gain access to the South Pacific to push the US out of the region. However, due to the US’ chain of military bases in the Western Pacific, this is made significantly difficult.

Australia and PNG both have reason to be skeptical of China’s movements in the Pacific. In February 2025, Chinese warships appeared off the coast of Australia and conducted live fire drills in the Tasman Sea, and around that same time, a Chinese drone entered PNG’s airspace. Both of these occurrences happened without notifying the respective local authorities. These actions signal that China’s journey to gather intelligence on the South Pacific continues, and would allow them to be prepared for any future confrontations that could take place in the region.

Casper Wits believes that “while China currently favours soft power, such as investment in infrastructure and development finance, their interests don’t stop there, and building these relationships is only the first step”. Ultimately, “their long term goal is a continuation of their expansionism in the South China Sea and becoming militarily stronger in the South Pacific”.

Australia, however, walks a fine line with its relationship to China, favouring economic agreements with them, China being one of their top trade partners, but simultaneously feeling threatened by their expansion into the South Pacific Ocean. This also leads to friction in the Australia-US relationship as Australia is wanting to balance both its trade relations with China, and its alliance with the US.

The US is another key player in the geopolitical landscape of the Pacific region, however, their role is shifting under the new Trump administration. During Trump’s first term, the Pacific Islands saw a level of commitment from the US as they prioritised their importance to US national security. However, there has been a notable shift during Trump’s second term with the ending of USAID projects, the implementation of tariffs with significant impacts on the Pacific Islands, and a shift of focus away from the issue of climate change, seen by their withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

Gregory Brown, Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute USA and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, contributed that while the Trump administration has shifted its focus within the Pacific, they are prioritising putting money into what matters to US interests: defence access, resource security, and strategic positioning. Brown noted that “the shift we’re witnessing is from charity to transaction,” although in his analysis, their current spending is not sufficient to achieve their target outcomes.

As the US has decreased financial input to the region and damaged levels of trust, China has been able to step in and fill the gaps. To counter this growing presence of China in the region, Australia is needing to step up and challenge them due to the perceived threat to national security and interests. The US within the Pacific, as Gregory Brown explained, “needs denial of Chinese basing, operational access for contingencies, and resource security”. Therefore, they are prioritising focusing resources where interests align and managing competition where they don’t.

In sum, the geopolitical landscape of the Pacific is in constant motion with shifts in priorities and changing relationships. Australia has consolidated power and its position in the Pacific Ocean through the signing of the Pukpuk treaty, a tactical move in the broader strategy to counter China’s growing presence in the Pacific. Despite Australia serving as the primary security partner for many Pacific Islands, China will continue to inch its way further into the security sector of the Pacific to achieve its expansionist goals. Simultaneously, the US, under the current Trump administration, has redirected its focus in the region to be primarily transactional based on their current strategic goals.