Plain Sight

Part 1: The Collapse of Transatlantic Alliance

By Publius (of the 21st Century)

Within 48 hours, the operational doctrine of the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy has moved from text to action. The extraction of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and Stephen Miller's announcement that the United States intends to acquire Greenland from Denmark represent not provocations or negotiating tactics, but the unveiled logic of a new American hemispheric policy. For Europe—and especially for its three major powers—these events mark the definitive collapse of assumptions that have structured transatlantic relations for seventy years.

The Trump Corollary in Action

Miller's CNN appearance on January 5, 2026 was remarkable not for its bluntness but for its precision. His statement that “nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland” was not bravado. It was threat assessment. His question—”by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?“—delegitimizes a NATO ally's territorial sovereignty using language borrowed from anti-colonial discourse. His conclusion—”the United States is the power of NATO”—reduces alliance to hierarchy.

This tracks directly with the 2025 NSS framework. The “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” explicitly authorizes unilateral action to secure “key geographies” in the Western Hemisphere. Greenland—though formally under Danish sovereignty—is treated as falling within this expanded American sphere. The successful Maduro extraction demonstrates operational capability. Miller's announcement demonstrates strategic intent.

The message to Europe is clear: American protection now comes with a price. That price may include territorial concessions.

Europe's Asymmetric Power Structure

Before the Danish Prime Minister warned that a U.S. occupation of Greenland would effectively end NATO, the structural fragility of the alliance was already evident. The crisis now exposes what has long been obscured: Europe's dependence on American security guarantees has produced not partnership but subordination.

Yet Europe is not uniformly paralyzed. France and the United Kingdom—though vastly different in their relationship to the EU—have maintained credible independent military capability. France possesses an autonomous nuclear deterrent, expeditionary capacity, and a strategic culture that never fully accepted American hegemony. Britain, despite Brexit, retains significant intelligence capabilities (Five Eyes legacy), a professional military, and naval power projection. Both nations, critically, never psychologically disarmed.

Germany is different. For decades, Germany built policy on assumptions that no longer obtain: that security could be delegated to the United States, that economic interdependence would pacify adversaries, that economic weight and moral posturing could substitute for military capability, and that institutional processes would constrain great power behavior.

This reflects a deeper psychological trap. Germany derives a sense of moral authority from rigorous acknowledgment of past crimes—what the philosopher Hans-Georg Moeller terms “guilt pride.” This creates an inverted nationalism: Germans feel entitled to lecture others while simultaneously refusing the material responsibilities of power. Hopeful pacifism becomes not merely preference but identity. Hard power is treated as morally illegitimate—a position Germany can maintain only because American power has subsidized its security for three generations.

The result is structural asymmetry. Germany—Europe's economic center and industrial base—cannot function as a strategic actor. It is psychologically incapable of realpolitik. France and Britain possess military capability but lack Germany's economic scale. No individual European power can stand alone. But the three together—if they could align—would constitute a formidable bloc: French nuclear deterrence, British intelligence and naval power, German industrial capacity.

The question is whether such alignment is even possible. And if so, whether it can be forged quickly enough to matter.

The Alignment Question: Can France, Britain, and Germany Forge a Credible Core?

The logic is straightforward. France provides nuclear deterrence and expeditionary capability. Britain provides intelligence architecture, naval power, and operational military culture. Germany provides industrial base, logistics capacity, and economic weight. Together, these three powers could constitute a credible European security core independent of American guarantees.
The obstacles, however, are formidable—and not merely technical.

Obstacle 1: Incompatible Strategic Cultures

France has never fully accepted the logic of Atlanticism. Its strategic culture emphasizes autonomy, nuclear independence, and global power projection. French defense policy is presidential, centralized, and capable of rapid decision-making unencumbered by parliamentary constraint.

Britain's strategic culture remains fundamentally Atlanticist despite Brexit. The “special relationship” with the United States is not merely sentimental; it is embedded in intelligence sharing (Five Eyes), nuclear weapons cooperation, and interoperable military systems. Britain's defense establishment views France with professional respect but strategic wariness.

Germany's strategic culture is institutional, consensus-driven, and psychologically averse to power projection. Its political system requires coalition governance that makes rapid strategic pivots nearly impossible. Its public remains deeply pacifist. Its military has been underfunded for decades.

These are not merely differences of emphasis. They reflect incompatible assumptions about what power is for, how it should be wielded, and who decides its use.

Obstacle 2: The Nuclear Question

France's force de frappe is the cornerstone of any credible European deterrence. But integrating it into a tripartite security framework raises questions France has historically refused to answer: Under what circumstances would French nuclear weapons defend German or British territory? Who controls targeting decisions? What triggers escalation? How are costs shared?

France has jealously guarded nuclear autonomy precisely to avoid being drawn into conflicts not of its choosing. Extending that deterrent to Germany and Britain means accepting constraints on French sovereignty—constraints no French president has yet been willing to accept.

Britain possesses its own nuclear capability but one operationally dependent on American technology. Any attempt to integrate British and French nuclear forces would require Britain to disentangle from American systems—a step that would rupture the “special relationship” and compromise intelligence access.

Germany lacks nuclear weapons and, more importantly, lacks political will to participate meaningfully in nuclear strategy. German Greens and Social Democrats remain ideologically opposed to nuclear deterrence. Hosting French or British nuclear weapons on German soil would trigger domestic political crisis.

Obstacle 3: The Speed Problem

Even if political will existed, the timeline required for meaningful France-UK-Germany integration is measured in years, not months.

Industrial integration requires harmonizing procurement systems, standardizing equipment, and building joint supply chains. European defense contractors currently compete rather than cooperate. Consolidation requires overcoming national industrial policies designed to protect domestic champions.

Command integration requires building joint operational headquarters, establishing clear chains of command, and developing interoperable communications systems. NATO provided this infrastructure for seventy years. Replicating it independently requires time, funding, and trust.

Political integration requires treaty-level commitments with enforcement mechanisms—not aspirational declarations. This means binding obligations to deploy forces, share intelligence, and defend common interests. No European public is prepared for this.

The Greenland crisis demands response now. France-UK-Germany alignment, even if politically possible, cannot materialize quickly enough to affect this crisis.

Obstacle 4: The Trust Deficit

France and Britain do not trust Germany to follow through. Germany's decades-long pattern of promising defense spending increases and then failing to deliver has created deep skepticism. The Zeitenwende announced by Scholz in 2022 was supposed to represent fundamental change. Three years later, procurement remains slow, ammunition stocks remain low, and German public support for rearmament remains tepid.

Why would France or Britain subordinate their nuclear deterrence or commit their militaries to joint command structures with a partner that has repeatedly demonstrated inability to prioritize defense?

Germany, meanwhile, does not trust France or Britain to prioritize German interests. German strategic culture emphasizes multilateralism and institutional process precisely because it fears great power domination. Accepting French or British leadership feels, to German sensibilities, like trading American hegemony for Franco-British hegemony.

This is not trust that can be built quickly through summit meetings and joint declarations. It requires demonstrated commitment over years—commitment the current crisis does not allow time to develop.

Could Emergency Accelerate Alignment?

In theory, existential crisis can override political obstacles. The Greenland situation is unprecedented: a NATO member state facing territorial annexation by the alliance guarantor. This should trigger collective mobilization.

In practice, the pathologies run too deep. Germany's political system cannot pivot quickly enough. France will not surrender nuclear autonomy without ironclad guarantees Germany cannot credibly provide. Britain will not rupture Five Eyes intelligence sharing unless European alternatives are already functional—which they are not.

The most likely outcome is that France and Britain pursue closer bilateral defense cooperation while keeping Germany at arm's length as an economic partner but not a strategic equal. This perpetuates exactly the asymmetry that makes Europe vulnerable: military capability without economic scale, economic scale without military capability, and no power possessing both.

France-UK-Germany alignment remains the only path to genuine European strategic autonomy. But the obstacles—cultural, institutional, technical, and temporal—make rapid integration effectively impossible. Europe will not forge this alignment before the Greenland crisis resolves. It may not forge it at all.

European Response Options: An Inventory of Weakness

What can Europe do in the immediate term? The short answer is: very little. An honest assessment of European options reveals constraints so severe that the crisis may already be decided.

(1) Unified EU Response: Structurally Impossible

There will be no coherent EU response. The 2025 NSS explicitly aims to fracture European unity by cultivating bilateral ties with governments that prioritize American protection over European solidarity.

Eastern Europe—Poland, the Baltics, possibly Hungary—will remain silent or issue carefully tepid statements. They cannot afford to alienate Washington while Russian forces remain on their borders. Their strategic calculation is binary: American protection is existential; Greenland is not.

Western Europe—Germany, France, the Nordic states—will condemn the action forcefully. But they will speak as a coalition of the willing, not as “the EU.” This exposes what has long been true: the EU is not a geopolitical actor. It is a regulatory body with a common market and aspirational foreign policy rhetoric.

(2) Hard Power: Militarily Impossible

Europe possesses zero credible military options in the immediate term.
Naval power projection into the Arctic against the U.S. Navy is fantasy. Europe has depleted its ammunition stocks supporting Ukraine and lacks the industrial base to sustain high-intensity operations. Mobilizing against the United States while simultaneously deterring Russia is logistically and financially impossible.

Invoking NATO Article 5 against the United States—the alliance guarantor—is a legal and political absurdity. NATO effectively ends the moment the United States annexes the territory of a member state. The Danish Prime Minister's warning understates the case: NATO is already over. It simply has not yet been officially dissolved.

The deeper strategic trap is Ukraine. Any European attempt at hard retaliation—denying airspace, imposing sanctions, withdrawing from joint operations—risks an American withdrawal from Eastern Europe entirely. The NSS has already signaled intent to “negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine.” A hostile European response accelerates a unilateral U.S.-Russia accommodation that leaves Europe isolated and exposed.

Europe needs American protection from Russia more than America needs European cooperation. This asymmetry is total.

(3) Symbolic and Economic Warfare: Performative and Futile

Lacking hard power, Europe will resort to moral theater and economic asymmetric actions—tools that align with European political culture but achieve little strategically.

Boycotting the 2026 FIFA World Cup is highly plausible. It is low-risk, high-visibility, appeals to public outrage, and costs nothing materially. It will also achieve nothing strategically.

Targeted sanctions and fines on U.S. corporations through the “Brussels Effect” regulatory power will be attempted. However, the NSS anticipates this and threatens counter-tariffs and economic escalation. A recession-prone, energy-dependent Europe cannot win a trade war with the United States.

Diplomatic expulsions would be dramatic but hollow, severing the channels needed to negotiate anything at all.

International legal action will produce a ruling the United States will ignore, further demonstrating the impotence of institutions Europe prizes.

These are not strategies. They are consolations. They allow European governments to signal outrage to domestic audiences while accepting the underlying reality: the United States has decided, and Europe cannot prevent it.

The Trap: Between West and East

Europe now faces predatory powers on two fronts. In the east, Russia wages attrition warfare in Ukraine and probes Baltic vulnerabilities. In the west, the United States no longer pretends alliance means partnership. It means hierarchy—and hierarchy means deference.

Europe's lack of “strategic autonomy”—a phrase repeated endlessly without corresponding action—leaves it with no viable path. The structural dependencies are too deep. European militaries cannot operate without American logistics, intelligence, and command infrastructure. European economies depend on access to American markets and technology. European security depends on the American nuclear umbrella.

Germany, in particular, has no exit. Its “peace dividend” economy was built on cheap Russian energy and guaranteed American security. Both pillars have collapsed. Its political culture remains trapped in hopeful pacifism and institutional faith. Its industrial base—once Europe's strength—now faces Chinese competition, American protectionism, and self-imposed energy constraints.

But France and Britain also face constraints. France's nuclear deterrent protects France—extending it to cover all of Europe requires political commitments France has never been willing to make. Britain's intelligence capabilities depend on American cooperation that would evaporate the moment Britain prioritizes European over Atlantic ties.

The fantasy was that Europe could remain a great economic power without becoming a strategic power. The fantasy was that moral posturing and institutional process could substitute for deterrent capability. The fantasy was that the “rules-based international order” was a fact rather than a preference that obtained only so long as the United States chose to uphold it.

That fantasy has ended.

The Likely Outcome

The most probable scenario is continued European fragmentation, rhetorical outrage, and gradual accommodation to American demands. Eastern Europe remains silent. Western Europe protests loudly but ineffectively. Economic sanctions are attempted and then quietly dropped when counter-escalation begins. Symbolic gestures—FIFA boycotts, diplomatic posturing—allow European publics to feel virtuous while changing nothing.

Greenland becomes American territory through a combination of coercion, inducement to Greenlandic authorities, and Danish capitulation disguised as “negotiated settlement.” NATO is not formally dissolved but becomes meaningless. The United States maintains a skeletal presence in Europe sufficient to monitor but not defend. European states scramble for bilateral arrangements with Washington, competing to offer concessions in exchange for minimal security guarantees.

France and Britain may deepen bilateral defense cooperation, but without Germany's industrial base and economic weight, this remains insufficient. Germany, paralyzed by its psychological contradictions and institutional constraints, cannot transform quickly enough to become a credible security partner. The alignment that could save European autonomy does not coalesce.

The transatlantic era has ended. Not with formal declaration, but with the demonstration that alliance has become extraction. Europe is learning what subordinate powers always learn: sovereignty is not a legal status. It is a condition maintained by capability. When capability is absent, sovereignty is fiction.

Continued in Part 2: Three Strategic Pathways and the Closing Window
Part 2 examines concrete strategic options available to Europe—the China card, technological sovereignty through open-source AI, Ukrainian drone warfare capabilities, and the narrow 5-year window before Russian military reconstitution forecloses these possibilities.

End of Part 1