Geopolitical Europe Pulse: European security, Trump, and Ukraine in 2025

17 January 2025

Geopolitical Europe Brief is back in 2025 — with a refresh! From now on, the format will be published every two weeks with more detailed and more diverse reading recommendations. As one of the objectives of Geopolitical Europe consists in bringing the gap between policy and academia, and linking ideas from scholars to current policy debates, it will more systematically give space to these longer pieces. The overall concept remains the same: the Geopolitical Europe Pulse is a compilation of articles and resources relevant to a current or structural challenge for European security and defence.

Europe’s 2025 challenge: Europe is facing massive internal and external challenges, and both are directly intertwined. The election of Donald Trump as US President adds a new element of uncertainty with regard to almost all dimensions of the EU’s global action, ranging from support for Ukraine to building the European security order and questions of international trade. However, seeing Trump as Europe’s biggest problem would deny the structural challenges the bloc is facing: “It’s Not Trump—It’s the EU’s Weak Defense Policy and Stagnant Single Market”, is the argument of the article “The Biggest Threat to Europe”, published in Foreign Affairs.

Tackling the transatlantic challenge: Europe will have to focus on these structural challenges stemming from a lack of political will and investment, but also prepare for a significant transformation of the transatlantic relationship in the next years. Especially France and Germany as the biggest EU member states with considerably different bilateral relationships with the United States can play a key role in reshaping the ties between Europe and the United States. In the policy brief “Untangling the transatlantic knot”, we argue that three elements are necessary in this regard: a willingness to fundamentally rethink historical paradigms that have shaped transatlantic relations in the past, a Europeanisation of NATO, and avoiding bilateralisation through strengthening the role of the EU in the transatlantic relationship.

Ukraine’s future — a 2030 perspective: The declarations of Donald Trump to end Russia’s war against Ukraine immediately after inauguration and the budgetary and political challenges Europeans are facing to uphold or increase their support to Ukraine imply an uncertain trajectory for the future of Ukraine. The piece “The Russia-Ukraine war in 2030” offers a scenario different from the publicly discussed outcomes — Ukrainian victory of defeat — and thereby prompts reflections over the medium-term. “As much as U.S. President Donald Trump or other third parties tried to force a final settlement and lasting peace, they only succeeded in getting the two sides to agree to a series of measures to manage their war.” Check out the article for everything that might (or not) follow.

Rethinking mutual defence: Europeans have for years relied on the US security guarantee in NATO, and, although the EU treaties contain a mutual assistance clause (article 42.7 TEU), shown little interest to actively reflect on the implications of this article. There is no equivalent to the US nuclear umbrella, so that most debates on collective defence were generally pushed into NATO. The US elections and Trump’s remarks questioning his willingness to defend European allies and, most recently, regarding the status of Greenland have now changed the debate and forced Europeans to reflect more concretely on the dimensions of article 42.7. This policy brief provides a deep dive into the misconceptions of NATO’s article 5, analyses the implications of article 42.7 TEU, and discusses the way ahead.

The Taiwan question: Russia’s war against Ukraine has also increased the awareness and attention for the risk of a potential Taiwan contingency in European defence circles. The military options for Europe in different scenarios are barely discussed, but this article in War on the Rocks accepts the challenge: it presents the state of the debate, explores conditions under which Europe would fight, and outlines potential European conclusions.

Long read: Coming of age of the EU security and defence policy? As introduction to a special issue of European Security, the article ““Zeitenwende” as coming of age? EU foreign & security policy through war & peace” unpacks the processes of change in the EU’s approach towards the war in Ukraine since February 2022. It offers a conceptualisation of the processes of change in EU foreign and security policy as a “coming of age”, and argues that the concept is well suited because it “implies to find the necessary balance between staying adaptable and agile in the twenty-first century but also being sure of its own identity and having the willingness to influence its environment according to its own worldviews”.

Looking ahead: What are the top challenges for Europe to address in 2025 when it comes to foreign and security policy? Look no further: here’s a list with ten key issues to watch in European security, defence and foreign policy.