Overview
Today and through the weekend, security officials and policymakers converge on the Munich Security Conference (MSC) for the year’s biggest talk-shop on the world order. Europe is still wrestling with a disrupted transatlantic status quo, in which the US has displayed three (sometimes contradictory) approaches to the continent: exerting political pressure, burden-shifting responsibility, or repackaging old transatlantic priorities. This confusion has pushed Europe toward strategic autonomy, but internal divisions and the steep climb toward developing strategic enablers have created hesitation. Amid transatlantic disruption, American companies face downside risks of a stranded European defense market. More broadly, the potential for an antagonistic security transition could risk economic consequences, like tariffs.
Post-Liberal Transatlantic Relations: Rupture, Transition, or Cosmetic Change?
The 2026 MSC reflects one year of a disrupted transatlantic modality. The transatlantic alliance rested on liberal internationalist assumptions that advancing economic interdependence and democratic institutions would provide for well-being. In a world of weaponized interdependencies, those assumptions are now perceived as misplaced. The US views the “public goods” it provided—the security umbrella, dollar reserves (causing trade deficits), development aid, and multilateral norm and institutional leadership—as bad deals for Americans. However, the “wrecking ball” US approach to rectifying perceived imbalances has put Europe on edge, most recently with threats to acquire Greenland. In a survey conducted by the MSC, the feeling of helplessness in G7 countries skyrocketed to an average 67%, a 13% increase in the past four years. The transatlantic order is in flux, and US policy towards Europe appears divided along three overlapping approaches.
Rupture
The first approach is embodied by Vice President JD Vance, which consists of stirring internal political pressure within the EU to deliver outcomes that Washington desires. This can include tacit support or even direct engagement with sovereigntist parties that seek to withdraw from or incapacitate NATO and the EU as they currently exist, a rupture from previous transatlanticism.
One year ago, at the 2025 MSC, Vance proclaimed that the most pressing threat to Europe is not a mobilized Russia or ascending Chinese power, but rather Europe’s exclusion of sovereigntist anti-EU parties from political participation. The latest US National Security Strategy (NSS) reaffirmed this view, suggesting that Europe’s productivity decline is driven by “regulatory suffocation” (particularly in the tech sector), the curtailing of free speech, antagonism toward Russia and Russian gas, and a political crisis caused by European governments excluding sovereigntist “patriotic” European parties from power. Vance, aligning with sovereigntist views, advocates for reduced American aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine.
The “Vance approach” looms over the 2026 MSC even as Vance does not plan to attend this year. Sarah Rogers, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and the administration’s new crusader against European tech regulations, met with representatives of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party and right-wing think tanks in the run-up to the MSC. Rogers reportedly discussed repurposing State Department funds to support right-wing perspectives in an effort to oppose regulations that the US considers discriminatory. Some Europeans fear this could represent a more formalized version of existing party-to-party contacts, such as the invitations of Hungary’s Fidesz, Poland’s PiS, and Germany’s AfD to the Conservative Political Action Conference, where these sovereigntist parties regularly rail against EU regulations or even the EU itself.
Transition
The second approach is embodied by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will lead the American delegation to the MSC this year. This approach consists of driving a lasting burden-shifting of the transatlantic alliance to whip Europe into shape after years of defense divestment. Rubio has played an active role in facilitating Ukraine peace negotiations, anchoring American diplomacy around a European-led security guarantee with an American backstop, which will likely include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support and the utilization of NATO’s US-led command and control structure. Rubio is widely perceived as an effective manager of transatlantic tensions during foreign policy clashes, such as when the US negotiated a leaked 28-point peace plan with Russia directly. Nonetheless, Rubio reflects a profound shift in thinking for the American foreign policy establishment. During his confirmation hearing, Rubio noted that US foreign policy needed a “complete recalibration” to reflect an increasingly multipolar power reality. Elbridge Colby, the Undersecretary of War for Defense Policy, shares this “transition” approach. On the eve of the MSC, Colby has called upon Europe’s “partnership rather than dependency” so that the US can prioritize its scarce resources into deterring China.
Cosmetic Change
The final US approach consists of preserving the old transatlanticist status quo. Legislators among the American delegation to the MSC—such as Senators Lindsey Graham, Jeanne Shaheen, and Roger Wicker—may have shifted their discourse to align with America First rhetoric, but they have institutionalized longstanding priorities in the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act. Among other things, Congress has limited a reduction of US forces in Europe to 76,000, preserved funding to the Baltic Security Initiative, and mandated that the head of the US European Command also serve as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), thereby keeping the US in NATO’s command and control structure. The presence of these legislators at the MSC will provide a reassuring voice for the Europeans.
Europe Confronts Uncertainty: Keep the Americans In or Embrace Strategic Autonomy?
All three of the aforementioned US approaches toward Europe are simultaneously true, competing for attention and molding government decision-making. Nonetheless, the train has left the station: In two of the three approaches, the US significantly reduces its engagement in NATO. Now Europe faces its dilemma in picking up the slack: preserve dependencies in an attempt to keep the US in, or pursue strategic autonomy?
Calls for strategic autonomy have become more popular over the past year, especially after the US launched tariffs and threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark. Proponents of this approach, most notably France, recurrently call upon EU leaders to utilize the bloc’s leverage to deter American pressure, such as activating the bloc’s anti-coercion instrument to regulate American tech services or agricultural imports. France also backs “Buy European” procurement rules to create a demand floor for sensitive European industries, such as defense production, AI, renewables, cars, and batteries. This would exclude American defense firms from European procurement in an attempt to reverse Europe’s off-the-shelf shopping of American systems, which comprised 51% of Europe’s scrambled procurements from 2022 to 2024.
In some ways, the EU has already begun moving in the direction of strategic autonomy. European defense spending surged 41% between 2021 and 2025. The European Commission has overcome its defense taboo, issuing Eurobonds to back a €90 billion loan to Ukraine and €150 billion in defense loans to member states through the SAFE program, which is slated to begin next month and exclude American systems from the defense investment drive. The Europeans are slated to increase organizational leadership within the alliance. Last week, NATO announced that, over the next few years, the UK will take over Joint Force Command (JFC) Norfolk, Italy will take over JFC Naples, and Germany and Poland will rotate leadership of JFC Brunssum, while the US will keep SACEUR.
However, strategic autonomy still faces several obstacles. Politically, most EU member states distrust trans-European industrial consolidation, partially because the gains would concentrate in states like France. In terms of defense, Europe lacks the “strategic enablers” to coordinate continental-wide operations, such as space-based satellites for ISR, independent joint command and control systems, air and maritime logistics networks, and a capability planning process outside of NATO. At a macroeconomic level, Europe lacks the pools of capital and joint demand signals to surge defense industrial capacity. There is also a question over long-term European foreign policy alignment without the US acting as the regional hegemon. That responsibility would fall upon Germany, currently rearming to the tune of $750 billion over four years. However, Germany shirked leadership during the euro crisis, and a militarily dominant Germany could stir historical distrust, especially if AfD—the top polling party—ascends to power.
The Risks
Transatlantic distrust will drive movement toward Europe’s strategic autonomy and revive the “Buy European” debate. This could create short-term downside risks of stranded markets for high-end US systems, like the F-35, or introduce complications for joint ventures with European firms, which comprised over half of US Foreign Military Sales to NATO Europe in 2024. Under this scenario, the US may lose influence over NATO Europe’s capability planning, introducing the risk of duplication.
The medium- to long-term outlook depends on whether the alliance is experiencing a transition or a rupture. For one thing, Europe must manage transition risks, such as whether parochial commercial interests undermine trans-European ventures, joint procurement, or coordinated capability planning. If successful, the US and Europe could strike a new balance with Europe leading the NATO alliance, enabling the US to focus on other problems. However, an unmanaged transition could undermine European readiness, increasing vulnerability. Worse, an antagonistic transition could revive the use of tariffs, tech regulation, or bond sell-offs, blowing-up strategic initiatives (such as on critical minerals). The US could cease support to Ukraine and unilaterally pursue a Russia reset. Then there is a scenario of a rupture, where the US elevates sovereigntist parties to undermine EU regulation. This could risk elevating these parties to power and revitalizing parochial national interests that could fragment NATO and the EU. Europe would confront the law of the jungle, where old historical animosities and flexible alliances could once again drive conflict.
