Europe as Strategy: How Washington Is Reframing Power, Values and Enforcement
Brussels: For much of the post–Cold War period, Europe featured in U.S. security thinking as a stabilised space—an alliance anchor rather than an arena of strategic contestation. The recently articulated U.S. National Security Strategy, however, marks a shift. Europe is no longer treated as a settled partner operating on inherited assumptions, but as a central test case for whether democratic governance, sovereignty, and enforcement credibility can hold under twenty-first century pressures.
That recalibration was visible in a State Department briefing at the European Regional Media Centre in Brussels, where Samuel Samson, Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour, outlined Washington’s evolving engagement across Central Europe. Speaking at the conclusion of visits to Prague, Bratislava, Vienna and Budapest, Samson framed the trip not as routine diplomacy but as part of a deliberate effort to operationalise the National Security Strategy’s core diagnosis: that the resilience of democratic systems within allied states has become a matter of national security.
The Strategy itself places unusual emphasis on Europe’s internal political health. It treats democratic self-government, freedom of expression, and national sovereignty not as abstract values but as strategic capabilities. In this view, erosion in these areas—whether through regulatory centralisation, weakened electoral trust, or constraints on political speech—does not remain a domestic concern. It shapes alliance cohesion, economic competitiveness, and the credibility of the rule-based order beyond the Atlantic.
Samson’s remarks in Brussels echoed this logic. He described widespread agreement among Central European interlocutors that democratic governance is under strain across parts of the West. Discussions, he said, repeatedly returned to the balance between regulation and legitimacy, particularly where decision-making authority appears remote from voters. Policies such as the European Union’s Digital Services Act were cited in meetings as examples of how governance choices can raise questions about extraterritorial reach, free expression and national competence—issues the Strategy flags as consequential for long-term stability.
Importantly, the National Security Strategy rejects the notion that this recalibration signals U.S. disengagement from Europe. On the contrary, it explicitly frames the United States as committed to a strong, peaceful and prosperous Europe, arguing that such an outcome is inseparable from American security. Samson underscored this point, calling the current approach among the most explicitly “pro-Europe” articulated by any U.S. administration, while acknowledging that it departs from earlier habits of deference to institutional consensus.
Civil society engagement emerged as a key instrument in this strategy. Consistent with the NSS emphasis on accountability and pluralism, Samson said the State Department is broadening its consultations beyond established advocacy networks. Meetings during the trip included organisations focused on family policy, religious liberty, antisemitism, free speech and electoral integrity—groups he said had often been peripheral to international human rights engagement. The intent, he explained, is not to privilege particular viewpoints but to improve the quality and breadth of information feeding into U.S. assessments of democratic conditions.
Hungary occupied a prominent place in the Brussels discussion, reflecting its growing strategic visibility in Washington’s Europe policy. Samson pointed to recent high-level contacts, including Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s November visit to the White House, as indicative of closer coordination. He also referenced a newly signed LNG-related agreement as evidence of the Strategy’s emphasis on energy diversification and reduced strategic dependence—an issue the NSS identifies as critical for both economic resilience and geopolitical autonomy.
Beyond bilateral ties, Hungary’s role in debates over conflict resolution in Ukraine was also highlighted. The Strategy places a premium on restoring peace in Europe as a prerequisite for broader stability, and U.S. officials view divergent European positions on diplomacy as a strategic challenge rather than a purely political disagreement.
The Brussels briefing also addressed a sensitive question embedded in the National Security Strategy: how the United States engages with political actors across allied democracies. Samson rejected claims that Washington is selectively backing particular parties. Instead, he said, the Strategy commits the United States to work with governments, opposition parties and civil society actors alike, provided they engage constructively with what the NSS defines as systemic risks—unchecked regulatory expansion, censorship affecting democratic processes, unmanaged migration with human rights implications, and prolonged conflict that weakens state capacity.
Crucially, the Strategy situates Europe’s trajectory within a wider global contest. China is identified as a systemic competitor whose governance model, technological ambitions and economic practices challenge existing norms. The NSS argues that Europe’s regulatory choices, enforcement consistency and alliance coordination will shape global responses to these challenges, particularly in areas such as supply chains, digital governance and technology standards.
India, by contrast, occupies a distinct place in the NSS as a key strategic partner rather than an ally in the treaty sense. The strategy describes India as a pivotal actor in the Indo-Pacific and a contributor to a multipolar balance that supports regional stability. Importantly, the NSS does not frame India as a proxy or subordinate partner but as an autonomous power with shared interests in maritime security, economic resilience and technological cooperation. This positioning differs fundamentally from China’s portrayal and reinforces the administration’s broader approach of working with sovereign partners rather than blocs defined by ideological uniformity. The way Europe manages its internal cohesion and external partnerships, U.S. officials suggest, will influence how countries like India calibrate their own global alignments.
What emerges from the Brussels briefing is a picture of U.S. strategy that seeks to stabilise the transatlantic relationship by returning to what it sees as first principles: democratic self-government, accountable institutions and national sovereignty exercised within cooperative frameworks. The NSS does not advocate disengagement from Europe’s institutions, nor does it propose ideological alignment as a prerequisite for partnership. Instead, it argues that the strength of U.S. alliances depends on their internal democratic health and their capacity to respond collectively to external pressures.
For the rest of the world, the implications are structural. The National Security Strategy signals a move toward greater transparency and public accountability as instruments of statecraft. Whether in sanctions enforcement, trade norms or information governance, the credibility of rules increasingly depends on visible compliance and enforcement among advanced democracies themselves. Europe’s performance in this regard, the Strategy implies, will shape perceptions far beyond the transatlantic space, particularly among middle powers assessing the reliability of Western-led systems.
Taken together, the Brussels briefing and the National Security Strategy point to a quiet but consequential shift. Europe is no longer treated as the stable backdrop to U.S. global strategy. It has become one of its proving grounds—where questions of sovereignty, democratic legitimacy and enforcement are no longer theoretical, but determinative of how power is exercised and perceived in a more contested international order.
– global bihari bureau
