Europe, the continent that once assumed peace was permanent, prosperity automatic, and American protection eternal now finds itself exposed—strategically, economically, psychologically. Russian tanks sit uncomfortably close to NATO borders. China is no longer just a market but a competitor, creditor, and coercive power. And the United States, once the unembarrassed guarantor of European security, has grown transactional, impatient, occasionally hostile. In this harsher climate, Europe’s problem is not simply a shortage of weapons or energy supplies. It is a shortage of habits. For those, it would do well to look East.

For most of the modern era, Europeans set the rules. From Iberian galleons crossing the Atlantic to British steam engines powering the Industrial Revolution, from the Berlin Conference’s division of Africa to the carving up of Asia into imperial spheres, Europe’s central problem was how to manage abundance and dominance. Even after two world wars exhausted the continent, American power stepped in to preserve European prosperity and security. Freed from existential threats, European elites could afford a politics of abstraction—values over interests, process over power, declarations over deterrence.

This indulgence bred complacency. Defense budgets shrank. Strategic industries were offshored. Dependence on Russian gas was treated as enlightened interdependence rather than leverage waiting to be pulled. China was welcomed as a partner long after it demonstrated it was also a predator. Europe assumed that rules would restrain power because, for decades, power had restrained itself.

East and Southeast Asia never had that luxury.

Japan and South Korea rebuilt themselves under the American security umbrella, but with enemies........

© Blitz