The Geopolitical Deficit of Hegemony and European Strategic Autonomy

The erosion of American global credibility is not a psychological phenomenon but a structural result of the widening gap between security commitments and the material capacity to enforce them. As the journal Politique étrangère marks its 90th anniversary, the international order faces a fundamental shift where the "unipolar moment" has transitioned into a fragmented system of competing spheres of influence. The primary friction point lies in the Atlantic alliance: the United States is recalibrating its resource allocation toward the Indo-Pacific, leaving Europe in a state of "security debt." This debt is the difference between the defensive capabilities Europe currently possesses and the minimum viable force required to deter a peer competitor without American intervention.

The Trilemma of American Credibility

American credibility operates on a trilemma. The U.S. can theoretically maintain dominance in three spheres—European stability, Middle Eastern containment, and Indo-Pacific deterrence—but it cannot do so simultaneously with its current fiscal and industrial output. The failure to resolve this trilemma creates "credibility leakage."

1. The Industrial Constraint: The U.S. defense industrial base is optimized for high-end, low-volume production. In a prolonged conventional conflict, the rate of attrition for precision munitions exceeds the rate of replacement. This creates a hard ceiling on American reliability as a long-term security guarantor.
2. The Domestic Disconnect: Foreign policy credibility requires a predictable domestic consensus. The polarization of the U.S. electorate transforms international treaties into temporary administrative agreements, subject to reversal every four years.
3. The Escalation Paradox: To maintain credibility in Asia, the U.S. must avoid overextension in Europe. However, by signaling a pivot, it invites regional actors to test the limits of its existing red lines, effectively forcing the involvement it sought to avoid.

The result is a system where the "deterrence signal" is weakened by internal noise. When the cost of honoring a commitment (e.g., defending a non-core territory) outweighs the perceived benefit of maintaining the alliance's integrity, the commitment becomes an empty asset.

Measuring the European Dependency Ratio

European sovereignty is currently an aspiration rather than a functional reality because of a high dependency ratio on the U.S. military-industrial complex. This dependency is quantified through three critical vectors:

• Intelligence and Reconnaissance (ISR): Europe lacks the independent satellite constellations and high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) drones necessary to maintain a real-time global common operating picture.
• Strategic Lift: The capacity to move significant armored forces or humanitarian aid over intercontinental distances remains largely reliant on American heavy-lift assets.
• Nuclear Umbrella Logic: As long as the ultimate deterrent remains a U.S. presidential decision, European states will prioritize Washington’s preferences over Brussels’ directives.

The "Strategic Autonomy" project seeks to reduce this ratio, but it faces the "Efficiency vs. Sovereignty" trade-off. Standardizing on American F-35s provides immediate interoperability and lower unit costs due to economies of scale, but it deepens long-term technological and political dependency. Conversely, developing a purely European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) maintains sovereignty but requires capital expenditures that most European budgets, constrained by social spending and aging demographics, struggle to sustain.

The Architecture of Multipolarity and Middle Power Agency

The 90-year history of Politique étrangère tracks the transition from the League of Nations to the Cold War, and finally to the current era of "poly-crisis." In this new architecture, power is no longer concentrated in a binary or unitary pole. Instead, "middle powers"—Turkey, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia—have gained significant leverage by practicing strategic non-alignment.

These actors utilize "transactional diplomacy." They do not seek to join a bloc but rather to auction their support to the highest bidder on a case-by-case basis. This behavior increases the entropy of the international system. For Europe, this presents a risk and an opportunity. The risk is becoming a theater of competition for these powers; the opportunity lies in Europe positioning itself as the "stabilizing pole" that offers a rules-based alternative to the raw power politics of the U.S. and China.

The Technological Frontier of Sovereignty

Traditional geopolitics focused on geography and resources; modern geopolitics is defined by the control of the "compute stack." Sovereignty is now a function of three technological layers:

The Hardware Layer

Control over semiconductor lithography and fabrication. The concentration of advanced chip manufacturing in Taiwan creates a single point of failure for the global economy. Europe’s "Chips Act" is a reactive measure to subsidize domestic fabrication, but it faces a multi-year lag in technical expertise and supply chain depth.

The Algorithmic Layer

The development of Large Language Models (LLMs) and specialized AI for defense and administration. If Europe relies on American or Chinese models, it inherits the cultural biases and data-harvesting protocols of those nations. Strategic autonomy in the 21st century requires "Sovereign AI."

The Protocol Layer

The standards that govern the internet, 5G/6G networks, and financial transactions (SWIFT vs. alternatives). The weaponization of the dollar-based financial system has accelerated the development of parallel infrastructures by the BRICS+ nations, further eroding the efficacy of Western sanctions as a tool of statecraft.

The Crisis of Institutional Legitimacy

The 90th anniversary of a premier foreign policy journal occurs when the institutions of the post-1945 order (UN, WTO, IMF) are in a state of paralysis. The veto power in the UN Security Council ensures that the body cannot act on the world’s most pressing conflicts, while the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism has been effectively sidelined.

This institutional vacuum is being filled by ad-hoc groupings like the G7, the Quad, and the BRICS. These smaller, more ideologically aligned groups are more efficient but lack the universal legitimacy required to manage global externalities like climate change or pandemic response. This creates a "Legitimacy Deficit." When power is exercised outside of universal frameworks, it is perceived as coercion rather than leadership, which in turn necessitates higher costs to maintain order.

Strategic Reorientation for the European Union

To transition from a "consumer of security" to a "provider of stability," the European Union must execute a three-stage reorientation:

1. The Procurement Shift: Transition from 27 fragmented national defense budgets to a unified European Defense Fund. This is not just a financial move but a logistical necessity to eliminate the redundancy of maintaining 17 different types of main battle tanks across the continent.
2. The Energy-Security Nexus: Decouple economic growth from volatile energy imports. The transition to renewables and nuclear power is not merely an environmental goal; it is a prerequisite for a foreign policy that is not beholden to petrostates.
3. The Diplomatic Pivot: Shift from "Normative Power Europe" (exporting values) to "Realist Power Europe" (securing interests). This involves recognizing that the rest of the world does not necessarily share European liberal values and that engagement must be based on mutual economic and security benefits.

The credibility of the West is not a static resource to be guarded, but a dynamic variable that must be reinvested through industrial output and coherent strategy. If the U.S. continues its internal fragmentation and Europe remains a fragmented security actor, the 90th anniversary of Politique étrangère will be remembered as the midpoint of a long decline into regional irrelevance.

The immediate requirement for European planners is the creation of a "Shadow NATO" capability—a command-and-control structure capable of operating independently of U.S. assets. This involves the rapid deployment of an independent European satellite navigation system specifically for military use, the mass production of low-cost loitering munitions, and the establishment of a centralized European cyber-defense agency. Without these material foundations, discussions of "credibility" remain purely rhetorical. The goal is not to replace the Atlantic alliance, but to provide a "redundant system" that ensures stability even if the primary guarantor (the U.S.) enters a period of prolonged isolationism or internal crisis.

Strategically, Europe must prepare for a "Fortress Economy" model. This does not mean autarky, but rather the diversification of supply chains such that no more than 20% of any critical component or raw material originates from a single non-allied nation. This "20% Rule" should be the benchmark for the next decade of trade policy. By hardening the economic base, Europe increases its "geopolitical friction"—the cost that an adversary must pay to exert influence or coercion—thereby restoring a form of deterrence that does not rely solely on the threat of military retaliation.