Europe Must Accept That We Are Living Through a New Cold War
A political argument that Europe's post-1991 assumptions about peace, trade and American protection have collapsed, and that recovering a Cold War-era seriousness about deterrence is now unavoidable.
For three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe behaved as if history had ended.
The ideological confrontation was over. Russia was no longer an existential enemy. Economic interdependence would moderate political conflict. Trade would produce cooperation. Energy dependence would create mutual interests. Military power could be reduced because the United States would remain the ultimate guarantor of European security.
That illusion has now collapsed.
Europe must accept that we are living through a new Cold War.
Not a perfect repetition of the confrontation between 1945 and 1991, but a new long-term strategic conflict involving military power, cyberwarfare, espionage, political interference, disinformation, economic coercion, technological competition and the struggle to define the future of Europe.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine did not create this confrontation. It made it impossible to ignore.
Europe mistook American protection for permanent peace
During the original Cold War, the United States maintained the military power, alliances and strategic credibility necessary to deter Soviet expansion. Western Europe benefited from that protection while gradually developing a more comfortable and less dangerous political and economic model.
After 1991, this dependence became even more pronounced.
European states reduced their military capabilities, neglected ammunition stocks, allowed defence industries to shrink and became increasingly dependent on foreign energy and technology. Many governments assumed that major war was no longer a realistic possibility on the European continent.
At the same time, Europe developed a political and economic strategy based on the belief that Russia could be integrated into a cooperative European order through commerce, dialogue and mutual dependence.
Europe bought Russian gas. It financed Russian state revenues. It welcomed Russian capital. It built political and economic relationships with Moscow while treating warnings from Central and Eastern European countries as exaggerated or driven by historical trauma.
This arrangement was made possible by an underlying assumption: if Russia ever became truly dangerous, the United States would protect Europe.
Europe could therefore afford to be naïve.
It could criticise American power while relying on American power. It could demand that Washington respect European preferences while expecting Washington to defend European territory. It could flirt with Moscow because the consequences of failure would ultimately be absorbed by someone else.
Europe had outsourced the most serious responsibility of sovereignty: the ability to defend itself.
The end of strategic innocence
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that Europe cannot outsource its survival indefinitely.
The United States remains indispensable to European security. But American political priorities can change. American voters can become less willing to carry the financial and military burden of European defence. Washington may increasingly expect Europe to assume primary responsibility for its own region.
This should not be interpreted as a reason to abandon the transatlantic alliance. It is a reason to make the alliance more credible.
A stronger European pillar within NATO would not weaken the United States. It would strengthen the Western alliance by making Europe a more capable partner rather than a permanent dependent.
The central question is no longer whether Europe prefers peace to confrontation. Every sane person prefers peace.
The question is whether Europe is willing to pay the price of preserving peace.
Peace is not sustained by declarations. It is sustained by military capability, political resolve, economic resilience and the credible ability to impose costs on those who seek to change borders by force.
What a new Cold War economy means
Entering a new Cold War economy does not mean abolishing capitalism or transforming every European society into a permanent military camp.
It means recognising that certain sectors are strategic and cannot be governed exclusively by short-term efficiency or the lowest possible price.
Europe must rebuild and protect its capacity in:
- defence production and ammunition manufacturing;
- energy generation, storage and distribution;
- semiconductors and advanced electronics;
- telecommunications and secure digital infrastructure;
- cybersecurity and satellite systems;
- transport and logistics;
- critical minerals and industrial supply chains;
- civil protection and emergency preparedness.
A factory that produces artillery shells, a company that secures communication networks and an energy system capable of surviving disruption are not merely commercial assets. They are components of national and European security.
The same applies to public opinion.
A society that can be paralysed by disinformation, political manipulation or fear is strategically vulnerable even if it possesses advanced weapons. Democracies must defend not only their borders, but also their information space and institutional trust.
The mentality Europe must recover
The most important change is psychological.
Europe must stop thinking of defence as an unpleasant expense that can be postponed whenever budgets become tight. It must stop treating military preparedness as an embarrassing relic of the past. It must stop assuming that economic relations will automatically prevent war.
The populations of Western countries need to understand that freedom has operating costs.
Resilient energy systems cost more than dependence on an authoritarian supplier. Secure technology can cost more than vulnerable technology. Domestic defence production can cost more than importing weapons when convenient. Maintaining trained reserves and military infrastructure can appear wasteful — until they are urgently needed.
The Cold War generation understood this reality. It knew that deterrence required permanent effort. It knew that the Soviet Union could not be transformed simply through goodwill and commercial exchanges. It knew that the defence of democracy required institutions, money, industrial capacity and collective discipline.
Europe forgot those lessons because somebody else was carrying the burden.
We chose comfort
It would be convenient to say that Europe was merely deceived by Moscow. That would be incomplete.
Russia exploited European weaknesses, but Europe also chose those weaknesses.
European governments chose cheap energy over strategic independence. They chose commercial optimism over geopolitical analysis. They chose reduced defence spending over preparedness. They chose the illusion of post-national peace over the hard work of preserving power.
The problem was not simply that Vladimir Putin misunderstood Europe.
The problem was that Europe misunderstood itself.
It believed that its prosperity made it immune to history. It believed that its legal norms were sufficient to restrain regimes that rejected those norms. It believed that interdependence was always a source of peace, rather than sometimes a weapon in the hands of an adversary.
That era is over.
A free Europe must behave like a power
Europe does not need to become militaristic. It needs to become serious.
It must behave like a political community that intends to remain free. That means supporting Ukraine for as long as necessary, rebuilding military capabilities, protecting critical infrastructure, confronting hostile influence and accepting the financial consequences of strategic independence.
The purpose is not permanent war.
The purpose is to make aggression fail.
Europe’s objective should be a peace in which borders cannot be changed by force, authoritarian regimes cannot blackmail democracies through energy and economic dependence, and the United States is treated as an ally rather than as a permanent security provider.
The Cold War ended because the free world maintained enough strength, unity and patience to outlast the Soviet system.
A new confrontation has begun.
Europe must now recover the mentality that allowed the free world to survive the first one.
Europe must stop behaving like a wealthy market waiting for others to fight for its survival. It must behave like a power that intends to remain free.