For the policymaking and expert communities, it can sometimes feel like Groundhog Day. But over the past twelve months, there have also been some noteworthy evolutions.

On Europe’s Eastern flank, there was both good and bad news. At the time of writing, Ukraine has succeeded in showing the Trump administration it was enough of a winner—on the frontlines and in the boardrooms—to deserve a marked improvement in relations between Kyiv and Washington. Europeans provided decisive assistance to enable that. They bought diplomatic space with the Trump administration for both Ukraine and themselves through a mix of sycophancy and by throwing reams of money at the problem—even to the detriment of their own defense industries.

Those wins haven’t deterred Russia enough, though. Over the past twelve months, Moscow has repeatedly tested Europe’s and NATO’s boundaries by violating airspace and escalating its other hybrid threats.

On the industrial and economic fronts, EU member states can’t seem to provide enough clarity and full-throated support for the commission to pursue a more robust positioning commensurate to the bloc’s actual power. The failure of France and Germany to turn their next-generation fighter jet project into a success has also been a bitter reminder of all that is still holding Europeans back from firing on all cylinders. Yet, some qualitative changes have been set in motion, especially at the level of individual member states, some of which are quiet quitting their U.S. dependencies in tech and space, as well as in some aspects of defense.

What emerges overall is that Europeans keep playing second fiddle to the United States, though the EU has arguably grown more attractive amid the global instability. In normal times, that wouldn’t be such a problem: It has been beneficial to them for the better part of the last seven decades. But with global epochal shifts underway, Europe’s excellence in that role is not serving its citizens to the fullest. Without acting forcefully to change the calculus of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with an impact both in the war theater and in diplomatic channels, the Europeans remain second-rate geopolitical actors. Their eclipse from the main stage of discussions in the Middle East—whether on Palestine, Lebanon, or Iran—is further failing to shield citizens and their economies from nefarious consequences.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuing brutal and unpredictable ambitions have largely eaten away at Europe’s sometimes overloaded geopolitical bandwidth. But it is two fundamental strategic divergences that set apart the current phase of transatlantic relations.

Washington clearly does not share Brussels’s strategic assessment of the Russian threat. So, while one part of the NATO alliance bases most of its security strategies on countering Moscow, the other isn’t just minimizing the menace, it is considering a more transactional relationship with the source of the threat.

And the United States has turned NATO from the ultimate tool of deterrence to a tool of coercion and whiplash. Europeans are still grasping at straws to come up with an appropriate method to handle it.

Looking ahead to when Strategic Europe returns, the ambition will be to lean into probing uncomfortable ideas. Our job as think tankers is to ask the questions no one else wants to ask but that end up hitting everyone like a eighteen-wheeler. It is also to infuse the policy debate with new thinking, even if the ideas may sometimes seem far-fetched. Blindly repeating the familiar mantras at the core of transatlantic policy debates and returning to policy’s most beaten paths deprives the alliance of its ability to anticipate, adjust, and ultimately survive. And it shouldn’t seem so dramatic to say that NATO’s survival as we’ve known it is no longer a foregone conclusion.

Many of the debates are admittedly the same: The perpetual agonizing and division over the correct positioning toward the United States. The perennial admonition of Europeans by Washington, urging them to do more for their own security. The equally perennial American allergy to the implication that this would translate into fewer weapons sales to Europe, and all the related questions pertaining to burden sharing and shifting, the definition and assessment of strategic threats, and the EU’s purview, role, and inner workings.

But with Trump and his administration leaning into hemispheric defense, securitizing supply chains and raw materials, and pushing transactionalism to the extreme, it is hard to see how we continue to avoid paring it all down to a question for which the answer should be self-evident: What still binds the allies to fight—and possibly die—shoulder to shoulder? And what do the allies do if the answer to that is no longer self-evident?

After consequential elections in Hungary and Czechia amid informational and AI warfare, the year ahead will also be marked by the end of French President Emmanuel Macron’s decade-long presidency. The country’s April 2027 presidential election could potentially be a watershed for the EU and the transatlantic relationship, given the high probability of a run-off between the far-right and far-left candidates. The November 2026 U.S. midterm elections could also impact sanctions against Russia and—very directly—the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran that has had a profound impact on the EU.

We will be introducing new formats as the season takes shape, including interviews and field dispatches to continue probing a number of themes: the disruptions AI and climate change are producing, the inner workings of the EU, and relations with China, the UK, and Turkey, as well as middle power geopolitics and relations between key member states like France and Germany. I look forward to continuing to receive your honest feedback, both the positive and the more contentious, and your suggestions for issues and interview subjects as well as sectors to tackle.

Until then, the Strategic Europe team wishes you fresh air, rest, and time to think while we take our yearly hiatus before returning on August 25, 2026.