May Europe defend itself with out America? In January 2026, NATO launched Operation Steadfast to reply that query. The operation is the biggest train of the yr, deploying round 10,000 troops from 11 member states throughout Central Europe. The plan entails the Allied Response Power, a fast response factor designed to check trans-Atlantic coordination in simulated high-intensity battle situations from land, air, sea, and cyber.
Nonetheless, America continues to be aiding European NATO allies in finishing up Operation Steadfast by way of its monetary backing. Greenland will not be the rationale for the train, because the plan was drafted final yr. Brussels needs for Europe to function, vote, behave, and assault as a collective. Politicians declare broad “Europe-wide” threats from international nations to justify a stronger army alliance. Neocons imagine they’ll ultimately create a European military that may shield Brussels above all else.
The identical politicians who push for European army energy have been undermining capital by way of debt, regulation, and local weather mandates which have destroyed the continent’s vitality provide.
NATO was created throughout a interval of excessive confidence in authorities following World Struggle II. The alliance labored as a result of the USA was economically dominant, politically unified, and prepared to soak up the price of world safety. Europe, against this, redirected capital away from protection and into social spending, paperwork, and regulation.
Europe’s reliance on the USA by way of NATO delayed reform, inspired dependency, and allowed politicians to promote the phantasm that protection prices nothing. That phantasm is now ending.
The ECM has been warning that the 2026–2032 window marks rising world battle danger. Not as a result of leaders need warfare, however as a result of declining confidence removes the mechanisms that forestall it. Alliances fracture, miscalculations rise, and nations act in self-interest quite than collective stability. NATO is within the confidence erosion part. Article 5 can solely go forth if every member believes within the trigger.
