Europe's Strategic Atrophy: A Call to Relearn the Art of Power

A Monocle opinion article highlights that Europe's strategic stagnation is a result of a lost intellectual legacy. Robert Kagan's remark—Americans from Mars, Europeans from Venus—fails to recognize that the pioneers of strategic thought, including Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Clausewitz, were European. The decline of grand strategy can be traced back to years of reliance on Washington for security, especially evident since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Germany's 2023 strategy set forth nine objectives for territorial defense, sidestepping fiscal considerations. The EU's 2022 Strategic Compass sought to establish itself as a 'security provider' but lacked specificity. France aimed for 'balancing power by 2030' in 2022, while the UK's 2023 review blurred the lines between objectives and methods. The article advocates for a cultural transformation in academia to prioritize strategic analysis and immersive war-gaming to better equip leaders for future conflicts.