By Graham Vanbergen: Let’s be honest and say the obvious. What was once viewed as a temporary aberration in Western politics has now hardened into a structural reality: the United States is no longer a predictable anchor of the liberal democratic system it once led. Thus is the age of stretegic disruption.

For Europe, Trump’s return to office is not simply an American domestic event. It is a geopolitical shock with far-reaching consequences, accelerating the breakdown of Western consensus, emboldening authoritarian challengers, and forcing the European Union to confront uncomfortable truths about its own security, cohesion and long-term viability.

We now know the coming decade will be defined not by democratic expansion, but by democratic stress, retrenchment and adaptation.

In reality, we have witnessed the definitive end of the post-Cold War settlement.

The liberal order that emerged after 1991 rested on several assumptions: American leadership was permanent; NATO was unquestioned; economic globalisation would tame geopolitics; and liberal democracy would gradually become universal.

Trump’s second term confirms that these assumptions are now dead in the water.

His return signals that American disengagement is not cyclical, but structural. “America First” is no longer a slogan; it is a governing doctrine with electoral legitimacy. The implication for Europe is stark: US commitment to multilateralism, alliance management and rules-based order can no longer be taken for granted beyond narrow American self-interest.

This represents a fundamental rupture in the Western democratic project.

Here lies another reality. America is now a source of strategic instability for Europe and the wider Western world. It is an unprecedented dilemma: its primary security guarantor is now also its greatest strategic uncertainty.

Trump’s renewed scepticism toward NATO, including open questioning of Article 5 commitments, has weakened deterrence by introducing doubt where certainty once prevailed. The absence of formal or even conditional security guarantees undermines the alliance’s credibility.

Equally destabilising is the US President’s transactional approach to foreign policy. European security, defence cooperation, and even support for Ukraine are now framed through cost-benefit calculations rather than shared values or long-term strategy.

This has immediate consequences: Leaving aside Ukraine’s impossible position, European defence planning has accelerated, but in an environment without clarity as strategic coherence fractures.

 

Russia: Strategic Opportunism in the Trump Era

Russia has interpreted Trump’s return not as a reset, but as an opportunity.

Moscow’s strategic opportunism is linked directly to the reality of Trump. It can now be taken for granted that Western democracies are divided, risk-averse and increasingly inward-looking. Trump’s scepticism toward Ukraine, ambivalence toward NATO and rhetorical hostility toward European institutions reinforce this perception as do those on the populist right.

And beyond Ukraine, Russia’s campaign against Europe has intensified through Cyberattacks on infrastructure and public institutions, disinformation operations targeting elections and social cohesion and espionage and sabotage activities within EU member states – all of which have been alarmingly ramped up.

These actions remain calibrated below the threshold of conventional war, exploiting democratic openness while avoiding unified retaliation.

For Europe, the danger lies not in a sudden Russian breakthrough, but in gradual erosion, political fatigue, economic strain and declining public support for confrontation.

 

China’s Advantage: Watching the West Fragment

Meanwhile, unlike Russia, China’s response to Trump’s second term is strategic patience.

Beijing sees an opportunity in the transatlantic fracture. American unpredictability complicates European alignment, while US pressure forces EU governments into uncomfortable choices between economic dependency and strategic loyalty.

China continues to pursue control over critical supply chains, influence in technology standards and infrastructure, with strategic investment in European assets.

Unlike Russia, China does not seek chaos. It seeks leverage, exploiting Western division to entrench itself economically and technologically.

Europe’s new reality is that the dilemma is acute: align too closely with Washington or Beijing or make a strategic move against Russia and risk economic retaliation from its supposed ally in America.

 

Democracy Under Strain: Ageing Societies and Broken Contracts

And if all of that was not complicated enough, geopolitical pressure now coincides with internal democratic fragility.

More realities are known, and arriving at the wrong time. Western democracies face ageing populations, shrinking workforces and rising fiscal burdens. Younger generations experience stagnant wages, unaffordable housing and declining prospects that is undermining faith in democratic institutions.

Trump’s political success in gaining power reflects, rather than causes, this breakdown. His return validates a broader Western trend: populism thrives where the social contract no longer delivers.

Across Europe, right-wing populist parties exploit similar grievances, often hostile to EU institutions, sceptical of Ukraine support and sympathetic to nationalist retrenchment.

This internal fragmentation weakens Europe’s external posture precisely when cohesion is most needed. And Trump’s return has acted as a catalyst.

Europe has begun to move, admittedly somewhat cautiously, toward strategic autonomy. With increased defence spending and joint procurement, greater emphasis on energy security and supply resilience, public opinion remains more resilient than elite politics suggests. 

Despite populist gains, a majority of Europeans continue to support EU membership, collective security and democratic norms.

The question is no longer whether Europe should integrate further, but whether it can do so fast enough.

 

The Likely Shape of the Next Decade

The next 10 years will not bring about the collapse of Western democracy, but they will fundamentally reshape it.

The emerging order will be defined by some notable characteristics: permanent geopolitical competition, a shift from efficiency to resilience, authoritarian assertiveness alongside a democratic system under strain

For Europe, the stakes appear existential. Without deeper integration in defence, energy, technology and capital markets, the EU risks strategic irrelevance, squeezed between an inward-looking America, an aggressive Russia and a patient China.

The age of assumption is over. Donald Trump’s second presidency confirms what many in Europe have long resisted acknowledging: that the liberal order cannot rely on America either now or into the future.

Europe must now choose between strategic adulthood or managed decline.

The next decade will test whether the European Union can evolve from a peace project into a power capable of defending itself economically, politically and militarily, in a world where values no longer guarantee security, or indeed, mean that much.

As the old saying goes, you are free to make choices – you are never free to escape the consequences.