It has been decades from the end of the Second World War in which the United States played a key role in defeating the Axis powers, and then reinforced transatlantic relations through the establishment and rise of NATO in 1949.
The alliance managed to maintain a united front and remained steadfast in the face of the Warsaw Pact throughout the four decades of the Cold War. Moreover, Washington provided crucial support to Western Europe in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
However, a pressing question has imposed itself into the heart of the debate in Europe: What does the future of US-European relations look like, and what implications will change to this relationship have for NATO’s future?
It is well known that before Vladimir Putin launched his military operation in Ukraine, there had been a lot of talk about whether NATO was “brain dead.” Advocated by France, the development of a European military force, which would not necessarily be a definitive alternative to NATO, was the subject of extensive debate in Europe.
With Donald Trump returning to the White House once again, commentators and analysts around the world are now closely following the relationship between Washington and Brussels. Many are asking: “Has Gaullism been revised?” A retreat from the era of US-European military alliances, similar to that seen during President Charles de Gaulle’s tenure, when France distanced itself from NATO’s structures in the 1960s), is now a real possibility.
Two scenes from the past two weeks present powerful omens that a serious rift may be upon us if the Trump administration moves forward with the vision he is currently putting forward. Strangely, his young vice president JD Vance, not Trump himself, was the center of both. We have previously noted, rightly so that he is the intellectual powerhouse of this administration and the driving force behind the “Heritage Foundation,” which laid out “Project 2025:” a program to reshape the US that turns away from the conventional federal bureaucratic state.
In Paris, Vance raised significant concern after voicing the White House’s stance on artificial intelligence, which starkly contrasts with many European perspectives. For today’s America, AI is no longer an abstraction or technology that will be used in the future, but the key to global power, economic dominance, and societal transformation. Moreover, it is clear that Trump and the tech oligarchy have positioned AI as the cornerstone of their national security and economic agenda, especially after “Stargate,” scrapping the regulatory caution of previous US administrations in favor of an aggressive, pro-growth, and competitive strategy.
Vance also sharply criticized the Europeans in Paris, warning them against what he called the “excessive regulation” of these emerging technologies through the EU’s “Digital Services Act” and its data privacy regulations.
From Paris, Vance (who has deep ties to the American branch of Opus Dei) headed to Munich. There, he criticized Europeans for what he saw as a retreat away from “freedom of expression.” “The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within: the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values” - striking words that were not well received by the Europeans, who historically have led the Enlightenment and championed freedom of speech, belief, and faith from the Renaissance to the present day.
Vance went even further, voicing his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, prompting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to call out what he saw as interference in Germany’s election.
Have Western democracies abandoned their long-standing principle of avoiding political or military attacks on one another?
There are other causes for concern about the future of NATO. Indeed, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth informed European allies that NATO would not be part of a future peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
He also affirmed that no US forces would take part and that the European participants would bear the costs of their participation. The decisive blow, however, came with his assertion that NATO would not come to the rescue of any European country participating in this force if it were attacked by Russia, directly contradicting Article 5 of the NATO charter.
Is the alliance that has endured for eight decades now at a crossroads? Let us wait for the meeting between Trump and Putin, which could well lay the groundwork for a new global order.
