Trump’s strategy recasts Europe as political battleground
EU leaders warn of looming rupture as Washington backs far-right forces
The release of the National Security Strategy (NSS) by the current US administration, far from being the typical bureaucratic exercise, represents a truly dramatic and revolutionary shift in US foreign policy direction.
For Egypt and the broader Middle East, this strategy signals a potential destabilisation in the West that could have far-reaching geopolitical consequences.
The document effectively declares war not on a conventional adversary, but on European political consensus, its leaders, and the European Union itself, posing a profound threat to NATO.
Since the end of World War II, the US has been the primary architect of and fiercest advocate for European integration.
Figures like President Dwight D. Eisenhower viewed the creation of the European Economic Community, the precursor to the EU, as a monumental achievement, stating that it was about winning the peace through economic and political unity to suppress the destructive forces of European nationalism.
The European Union and NATO have worked in tandem to maintain stability and prosperity for over seven decades.
However, this new NSS not only departs from this bedrock principle but actively seeks to reverse it.
While conceding that “Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the US,” the strategy argues that the continent is facing the “stark prospect of civilisational erasure” due to the actions of “the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty”, alongside migration and the “suppression of political opposition”.
This interpretation is profoundly adversarial. It weaponises deeply divisive rhetoric, echoing the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory by claiming some NATO members risk becoming “majority non-European” and that the continent will be “unrecognisable in 20 years or less”.
Perhaps the most disruptive element is the strategy’s explicit call to revive European nationalism. It advocates for “unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history” and gives an unqualified endorsement to the “growing influence of patriotic European parties”, which it views as a “cause for great optimism”.
This is a clear, written endorsement of the far-right nationalist and populist parties that have risen across Europe over the last decade and a half.
These parties often campaign on platforms of weakening the EU, tightening borders, and taking a softer stance towards Russia.
For the first time, a US policy document calls for direct intervention in the democratic politics of its closest allies, prioritising “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”.
The NSS outlines methods for this intervention. Dramatic cuts to State Department and USAID funding could see these resources diverted and reprogrammed to support far-right parties and groups in Europe.
Given campaign finance limits in many European countries, even modest US funding could have a significant impact.
US technology companies, with backing from the administration, may ignore or resist European regulations, especially concerning content moderation, potentially amplifying far-right content in the European political sphere.
The NSS’s only mention of “democracy” is in the context of reversing supposed constraints on speech, suggesting that efforts to combat online hate speech or neo-Nazi ideology are viewed as an affront.
The NSS raises the spectre of the US intelligence community invoking tools and authorities, previously used to support pro-democracy, anti-communist movements during the Cold War to actively upend European politics in support of nationalist movements.
This policy signals an intent to orchestrate the downfall of current European political leaders, most of whom hail from centre-right and centre-left parties.
The assumption underlying the NSS is that European leaders are weak and will not stand up to this direct political intervention. This assumption is likely flawed.
As German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul noted in response, while the US remains a vital security ally, “questions of freedom of expression or the organisation of our free societies” are matters on which Europeans can debate and decide “entirely on our own… and do not need outside advice”.
Should the US act to implement this strategy, a major collision with the European Union and its member states is all but guaranteed. European leaders are unlikely to tolerate overt funding and operational support for domestic opposition designed to destabilise their governments.
The greatest paradox and most significant danger is the NSS’s approach to Russia.
The strategy appears to see the continent’s resistance to Russia as a sign of weakness and its concerns as “unrealistic expectations”, despite Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
By actively promoting pro-Russian parties on the continent while simultaneously undercutting the governments leading the war effort, the NSS effectively betrays the central defensive mission of NATO.
The strategy claims a core US interest is an “expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine” but places the blame for the stalled peace on European governments that supposedly “trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition”.
The NSS is a policy roadmap for internal sabotage of NATO, attacking its foundational principle of suppressing nationalism in favour of integration, and seeking to dismantle the political structures of the European Union.
This aggressive political interventionism, should it be executed, could trigger a severe and potentially final crisis in the transatlantic relationship, leading to the destruction of NATO as we know it, an outcome that would fundamentally redraw the global strategic map.
Mohamed Fahmy is the editor-in-chief of The Egyptian Gazette and Egyptian Mail newspapers
