The painful end of the American era in Europe

On December 4 and 5, 2025, news broke from two different fronts. One was the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS 2025) document released by the White House. The other was the report from Reuters that shook European capitals: the 2027 ultimatum delivered by the Pentagon to European delegations behind closed doors. The first declared that the U.S., likening itself to the mythological Atlas, no longer wishes to carry the world on its shoulders. The second revealed the concrete pressure tool of this new doctrine, which is essentially a mafia-like threat turned toward Europe. According to this report, Europe must shoulder the majority of NATO's conventional defense burden by 2027, or the U.S. would withdraw from NATO defense coordination mechanisms. Following these developments, the idea of using the approximately 2.3 trillion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds held by the EU and the UK as a weapon—should the Trump administration impose a peace plan in Ukraine that sidelines Europe—began to be discussed loudly in Brussels and some capitals. On the other hand, to the EU's potential bond-card move against the NSS 2025 document and the 2027 defense ultimatum, one could add Brussels' intention to seize the 210 billion euros in frozen Russian assets. The area where these processes intersect is Ukraine. The Trump administration wants to end this war and re-establish relations with Russia. The EU, meanwhile, is not leaning toward a Ukraine-Russia peace, even though its own people do not want war with Russia. On the other hand, the 2025 National Security Strategy is a text that has set aside flowery "rules-based order" rhetoric and returned to concrete power politics. Its core message is that no country will be allowed to become dominant enough to threaten U.S. interests. The NSS 25 document is built on three main lines. First is China. Second is the Americas. Third is Europe. 

China in NSS 25

In the document, China is officially declared a "near-peer" competitor. It is openly admitted that the old engagement policy has failed, and it is stated that China has not assumed the role the U.S. expected. While the First Island Chain is viewed as a military wall surrounding China, it is observed that a long-term containment strategy has been adopted that avoids a total economic decoupling from China, but limits cooperation to narrow areas that do not undermine American power. 

Russia in NSS 25

One of the most striking parts of the document is the language it uses regarding Russia. Russia is not defined as a primary threat to U.S. interests; the main goal is set as re-establishing strategic stability with Russia. The Ukraine war is seen as a distraction and a drain on resources that "must be ended as soon as possible"; European leaders are portrayed as actors who do not reflect their people's desire for peace and who derive political benefit from the prolongation of the war. This framework opens a significant diplomatic maneuvering space for Moscow. As soon as the strategy was published, the Kremlin announced it was "ready for flexibility in negotiations," emphasized that it found U.S.-mediated peace proposals "constructive," and declared European positions "maximalist and unrealistic." In the increasingly clear picture, Washington is not seeking victory in Ukraine, but a "frozen conflict" where the cost is shifted to Europe as much as possible. The goal is to freeze the lines near the current front, effectively shelve NATO membership, keep security guarantees ambiguous, and allow Russia to market its "strategic gain" narrative to its domestic audience and neighbors. In this scenario, Europe, which is already clearly unable to fulfill the 2027 ultimatum, will be left alone with both the bill for Ukraine's collapsed security architecture and the necessity of deterring Russia on its own. As the U.S. says, "Atlas no longer carries this burden," it is preparing to leave the responsibility for Ukraine in Europe's lap.

The Americas in NSS 25

The re-introduction of a Trump version of the famous 1823 Monroe Doctrine constitutes the second major theme of the document. The Western Hemisphere is again declared an exclusive U.S. sphere of influence; China's port, infrastructure, mining, and energy investments in Latin America and the Caribbean are openly challenged. This picture is completed by increased naval activity, more pressure on governments, and a hemispheric hegemony that is hardening on issues of borders and migration. The announcement of a ground operation in Venezuela shortly after the document's publication, the closure of airspace, and the extraction of opposition leader Machado from the country with CIA assistance to bring her to the Nobel ceremony in Oslo—even if she didn't make it—are all parts of this process. 

The EU humiliated in NSS 25

Perhaps the most striking element of the document is the extraordinarily harsh language used against Europe. The Europe section of the document abandons the classic language of "shared values" and "transatlantic solidarity," portraying Europe as a failed project and a civilization heading toward collapse. In the document, Europe is depicted as a continent facing the "erasure of civilization" that could become "unrecognizable" within 20 years. The Brussels-based regulatory culture, migration policies, low fertility, identity crisis, and political fragmentation are all targeted. Nationalist European parties are pointed out by name (movements along the lines of Orbán, Le Pen, Lega, FPÖ, PVV) as official sources of hope. This approach does two things at once. First, it frames current centrist governments as illegitimate, unreliable, and failed actors. Second, it attempts to align the right-wing populist, nationalist wave within Europe with American strategy, turning it into a tool for regime change from within. This is an approach that directly targets the internal politics of allies and carries the character of ideological engineering. No strategy document in NATO history has defined the existence of allied governments as an ideological threat so openly. 

NSS 25, Africa and West Asia

The same text removes West Asia from being a primary theater of war and reduces it to a field of investment and limited security cooperation; for Africa, it abandons humanitarian rhetoric and focuses on the struggle for minerals, energy, and influence; and on the climate issue, it effectively retreats, reluctantly leaving the leadership role to China. 

The 2027 Ultimatum

Ultimately, the following picture emerges: China is the central rival, Latin America is once again the American backyard, Europe is the continent that is drifting and must be brought into line, West Asia is an area to be "monetized," Africa is the stage for a resource war, and climate responsibility is a postponed file. While all this is happening, the fact that the U.S. defense budget has exceeded 1.01 trillion dollars and increased by 13 percent in one year shows that this is not a retreat, but a strategy of a new hegemony that shifts the burden and risk to allies on the front lines. It is at this exact point that the 2027 ultimatum reported by Reuters comes into play. Pentagon officials have delivered the following message to European diplomats in Washington: Europe must shoulder the majority of NATO's conventional defense burden by 2027, or the U.S. will withdraw from NATO's defense coordination mechanisms. This date is not in the National Security Strategy published a day earlier. The 2027 deadline is not mentioned in any official document. This is where the first critical point lies. The 2027 date appears more like a bureaucratic, coercive deadline put on the table by the hawkish wing within the Pentagon, and specifically the line of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, rather than a consolidated state policy. The goal is not to create a legally binding calendar, but to create a fait accompli on the ground. Panic, accelerated arms purchases, the internal dissolution of coalitions, and the realignment of public opinions through threat perception are emerging in Europe. The second critical point is that the 2027 calendar is physically impossible. The calculations of the Bruegel and Kiel institutes are clear. To replace the U.S.'s conventional deterrence in Europe, Europe needs approximately 300,000 additional soldiers. At least 1,400 main battle tanks, 2,000 armored combat vehicles, and 700 artillery systems are required. Current production capacity is limited to a few hundred armored vehicles per year. Germany's Rheinmetall plans to reach a capacity of 650 tracked vehicles by 2027. Even this can only meet a fraction of the total need. It is estimated that the annual additional cost will reach approximately 250 billion euros, meaning defense spending would double. While the training time for qualified personnel is 3–5 years, the time to build a serious defense ecosystem is calculated at 5–10 years. The time given by the Pentagon is 24 months. This picture actually points to a designed architecture of failure. This failure serves three basic functions: 1. To force European governments to immediately increase defense spending and make current administrations pay the internal political price for it. 2. To pour hundreds of billions of dollars in orders into the U.S. defense industry to quickly close the capacity gap while Europe re-arms. 3. To sharpen the fault lines within Europe, binding Eastern Europe more tightly to the Washington line while cornering Western Europe through both the calendar and ideological rhetoric. In other words, the National Security Strategy document represents the conceptual framework, while the 2027 ultimatum represents the whip of this framework on the ground.

Realities of Life and NSS 2025

The answer to the question of what is really behind the U.S.'s rapid burden-shifting policy, especially toward Europe, stems from the realities in the Western Pacific theater of operations. The Western Pacific has characteristics that would accelerate the U.S.'s collapse against China in a Taiwan scenario. The U.S. Pacific Marine Corps Strategy, announced six months ago, contains serious estimated casualty rates for a potential conflict with China along the First Island Chain. While a 30–50 percent loss of personnel is expected in the first wave of Chinese attacks, casualties are estimated to rise to 70 percent in operations lasting longer than three days. A loss of 60–80 percent of small warships and unmanned systems, and the limitation of the lifespan of drone ground control stations on the island to 2–5 hours, are accepted as normal. Thus, roughly 30–50 thousand U.S. military casualties are mentioned in a short-term conflict, and 80–120 thousand if it lasts longer, and the report ends with this sentence: "We must accept disproportionate losses to open control areas for the Navy in the first island chain." One must ask the realistic question: Can the U.S. public handle such casualties, can the U.S. military continue to fight with over 50 percent losses? The answer is clear: no. That is why Washington, while theoretically considering Asia the primary priority in the National Security Strategy, is in practice taking two steps back in its strategy. On one hand, it is trying to push allies to the forefront as much as possible to reduce the risk of high casualties in the Pacific, and on the other, it is trying to shift the main priority to its own hemisphere, i.e., Monroe Doctrine 2.0. The bill for this is being sent to Europe. The U.S. knows it cannot simultaneously engage in a high-intensity naval-air war with China and a long-term, land-heavy proxy war with Russia. The solution is to re-establish strategic stability with Russia, freeze the European front, dump the burden on the Europeans, and maximize financial and political pressure by making the security umbrella questionable.

Europe's 2.3 Trillion Dollar Threat

Today, the Ukraine-Russia war is being fought in the bond markets stretching between New York, Brussels, and London, at least as much as on the Kiev and Donbas lines. The EU and the UK hold a total of approximately 2.3 trillion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds. This figure is more than the stock held by China. In the first week of December, the following scenario was discussed loudly for the first time in Brussels and some European capitals: "If the Trump administration imposes a peace plan in the Ukraine war that sidelines Europe, the EU and the UK could collectively sell off the approximately 2.3 trillion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds they hold in total." The threat was very clear. The aggressive dumping of 2.3 trillion dollars in treasury bonds onto the market would mean a major jump in U.S. 10-year interest rates, the freezing of the American housing market, and federal interest payments exceeding 1.5 trillion dollars. This is a kind of financial version of nuclear doctrine, i.e., mutually assured destruction. Because the European banking system structurally uses treasury bonds as collateral to access dollar liquidity. The European Central Bank cannot print dollars, and the system would plunge into a severe liquidity crisis within 72 hours. Especially in a conjuncture where the total global debt stock has reached 310% of the total national incomes and is nearing 346 trillion dollars, and given the situation of EU countries that are heavily indebted, such a bluff is empty. In short, actually using this weapon would mean cutting one's own financial veins. For this reason, it turns out that Europe's real trump card is not the bond stock, but the 210 billion euros in frozen Russian assets it holds. While Washington wants these funds to be kept on the table for the reconstruction phase of a possible peace agreement, Europe sees this money as both leverage in negotiations and a tool to lighten its own war and reconstruction bill. If data from the U.S. Treasury showing international capital movements in the first quarter of 2026 shows a shift in foreign bond ownership exceeding 5 percent in a single quarter, the signal flare will have been lit that the threat has turned from a bluff into action. Still, it is clear that this can only be a controlled, gradual, and partial rebalancing. A sudden and mass sale would put both the U.S. and Europe in a difficult position at the same time. 

Conclusion

The transatlantic order established after 1945 rested on two main pillars. The first was the American military umbrella for European security; the second was Europe investing its dollar surplus in American Treasury bonds for American financial hegemony. Today, both pillars are cracking at the same time. The National Security Strategy says, "Atlas will no longer carry this burden." Reuters' report marks the calendar for this on the ground as 2027. Europe's bond bomb shows what kind of risk this crack creates on the financial front. The old world is closing. For Continental Europe, the question is now: "In an era where the U.S. has ideologically and strategically declared it a 'problem,' will it be able to both take over the defense burden and protect its social state and political stability?" Will it be able to remain dependent on the dollar system and enter into an open financial conflict with Washington? For the U.S., the question is simpler: How long can an empire that has declared China "near-peer" maintain its global supremacy with a system built on strategic stability with Russia, hemispheric hegemony in Latin America, the possibility of a naval-air war with high casualties in the Pacific, and fragmented armies in Europe that look at each other with suspicion? The truth is that Atlas has shrugged. The issue now is in which continent, in which currency, and under which post-war map this moment of shrugging will go down in history. 

Recommendations for Turkey

In this period when Europe is turning inward, the U.S. is retreating, and the global order is hardening, the greatest risk for Turkey is accepting to be a supporting actor in scenarios written by others. Its greatest advantage is that it is one of the rare countries that can talk to Europe, Asia, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa at the same time. Turkey must turn the geopolitical vacuums created by this dissolution into strategic leverage in its own favor.

The U.S.'s 2027 EU ultimatum, while effectively turning European armies into Washington's forward outposts, also aims to drag Turkey into the same cost and risk trap. In an environment where the transatlantic architecture is simultaneously dissolving militarily, financially, and ideologically, it is not possible for Turkey to either shoulder the EU's burden or bow to Washington's demands. This rupture should be read as a repositioning process that will expand Turkey's areas of sovereignty. It is clear that it is technically impossible for European armies to fill the U.S.'s place by 2027. Attempts to close this gap through Turkey will inevitably come to the agenda. Turkey's response must be clear: The price of Europe's strategic disarray cannot be the expansion of the Turkish Armed Forces' engagement areas. Defense industry collaborations can be maintained on a commercial and technological basis; however, no collective defense construct that increases military commitments and raises cross-border risks should be entered into. In this framework, Turkey should reject in advance any additional military and financial responsibilities that will be directed at it with the rhetoric of "burden sharing" within NATO; it should limit its contributions to its own geographical priorities, especially on the Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, and Middle East axis.

The Montreux regime in the Black Sea is Turkey's strongest strategic trump card in this period and should definitely not be made a subject of negotiation. The possibility of freezing the Ukraine file between the U.S. and Russia further strengthens the central role of Montreux. On the other hand, Turkey should clearly state its concrete geopolitical demands in the bargaining to fill the serious security vacuum created for Europe: the withdrawal of the Seville map impositions in the Eastern Mediterranean, the recognition of the Turkish continental shelf, the approval of a two-state solution in the TRNC, and a clear stance against the establishment of a puppet Kurdish state with an outlet to the sea in our south. Every concession given to Europe before these goals are achieved will bring new concessions and losses. The language of NSS 2025, which openly supports nationalist-populist movements in Europe, will accelerate the dissolution of the Brussels-based order. In this process, Turkey should not be part of any ideological camp within Europe; it should keep its relations on a ground based on inter-state interests. Since Europe's internal tensions could produce new pressure mechanisms against Turkey, Ankara's diplomatic reflex should be cool-headed, distant, and multi-channel.

In an environment where Washington is turning toward ideologically liquidating Europe and Brussels is eroding its legitimacy with extra-legal steps such as seizing Russian assets, Turkey is one of the few actors that can combine the rhetoric of "law, negotiation, and balance" with realistic power politics. Turkey, which is one of the rare mediators that both sides can accept in the Ukraine-Russia war, should not leave this role at a symbolic level; it should turn it into a proposal for a permanent security architecture. Otherwise, every crisis escalating in the Black Sea will continue to directly target Turkey's continental shelf and trade routes. Naval power, energy transit lines, defense industry, and mediation capacity are Turkey's real levers. In this period when the U.S. is withdrawing from the Atlas role it claimed to carry the world on its shoulders, Europe has lost its direction, and Russia is gaining ground with strategic patience, Turkey's real power is its ability to talk to every bloc without taking risks on behalf of any bloc. This power cannot be protected by military engagement; it can be protected by geopolitical distance, economic reason, and strategic consistency. As an "Atlas-less" world is being built, Turkey's priority should not be to carry others' burdens, but to put its own weight on the table as a balancing element. Otherwise, falling into the position of a peripheral country tossed between 2027 ultimatums, 2030 sanctions, and 2035 crises is inevitable. Turkey's path does not pass through the U.S.'s narrowing vision or the collapsing EU order. Turkey's path is an independent strategic mind that centers its own geopolitics, exports balance, and makes stability, not war, a subject of negotiation. This mind was hidden in the mind of Mustafa Kemal between 1923-1938. It is time to return to Atatürk and hold the course on the compass of Kemalism.