For decades, Europe has presented itself as a pillar of the rules-based international order—a civilizational project born from the ashes of two world wars, designed to replace power politics with law, institutions, and cooperation. Today, that self-image is facing its most serious test, not from Russia or China, but from within the Western alliance itself. The growing tensions surrounding Greenland, NATO defense spending, and U.S. pressure tactics reveal a deeper truth: the liberal international order Europe claims to defend has become increasingly hollow, subordinated to coercion, transactionalism, and hegemonic leverage.

At the center of this shift stands Donald Trump—not merely as an individual, but as a symbol of a broader transformation in American strategy. Trump’s approach to alliances, diplomacy, and security is best understood through the lens of The Art of the Deal. What many dismissed as reckless rhetoric or undisciplined diplomacy was, in fact, a deliberate method: maximalist demands, calculated ambiguity, and the strategic use of fear to force compliance. The result has been a profound reordering of NATO, Europe’s strategic autonomy, and the credibility of the so-called rules-based order.

In The Art of the Deal, Trump outlines principles that guided his business career: think big, create leverage, walk away from bad deals, and never reveal your bottom line. When transferred to geopolitics, these principles become blunt but effective instruments of power. Trump did not seek consensus; he sought advantage. He did not reassure allies; he unsettled them. And by doing so, he extracted concessions that decades of polite diplomacy had failed to secure.

NATO was the primary testing ground. Trump’s repeated insistence that allies “Pay Up or Else” was not an abandonment of the alliance but a coercive renegotiation of its terms. By openly questioning whether the United States would honor Article 5, Trump introduced strategic uncertainty into Europe’s security environment. For countries living in Russia’s shadow, that uncertainty was intolerable. The response was predictable: rapid increases in defense spending, accelerated arms procurement, and deeper reliance on U.S. military technology.

This was not alliance leadership—it was transactional enforcement. NATO members did not increase spending out of renewed solidarity or shared values, but out of fear that the American........

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