Europe
13 briefs
Trump Pulls 5,000 Troops from Germany. NATO's Eastern Flank Is Now Improvising.
Germany's 'Sparta 2.0' plan admits Europe cannot run a war without US software approval. Poland is competing for the troops like a trophy. The Baltics are watching both of them.
Europe Is Taking Over NATO. Washington Hasn't Noticed It's Losing the Alliance.
The Iran war forced Trump to fight alone, and in doing so he handed European capitals the leverage they needed to rewrite the alliance's power structure from the inside.
Trump Rips Up the EU Car Deal and Announces 25% Auto Tariffs. Europe Has No Good Response.
The US-EU trade agreement was supposed to hold at a 10% baseline tariff. Trump has now raised the rate on cars and lorries to 25%, accusing the EU of non-compliance. The EU has no leverage it is willing to use.
Europe Just Had Its Biggest Military Spending Surge Since 1953. It Is Not Enough and Everyone Knows It.
European NATO members grew defense spending 14% in 2025, the steepest climb since the Korean War era. The NATO target just moved to 5% of GDP. The gap between current spending and what the war calculus demands is still enormous.
Russia Sent Nuclear Bombers Over the Baltic Five Times in Eight Days. The West Was Watching Iran.
Six NATO nations scrambled jets to intercept Russian Tu-22M3 bombers carrying live missiles on April 20. It was the fifth intercept in eight days. Russia is probing NATO's eastern flank while the alliance's attention is in the Middle East.
France Is Offering Poland a Nuclear Umbrella the US Won't Confirm It Still Holds
At a Gdansk summit, Macron and Tusk agreed to joint nuclear exercises and information-sharing. Europe is building a deterrence architecture outside NATO for the first time since 1949.
The EU's AI Hiring Rules Go Live in 105 Days. Most Companies Have Never Audited Their AI. That's About to Become Very Expensive.
August 2 is the deadline for mandatory AI hiring bias audits under the EU AI Act. The auditors don't exist yet and the companies aren't ready.
Europe's Nuclear Experts Are Watching Witkoff and Kushner Negotiate Iran. They Are Not Calm.
European diplomats who spent 12 years building the 2015 nuclear accord have been sidelined from the current talks. They think a bad deal is more likely than no deal, and that a bad deal is worse.
Hungary After Orban Is Harder Than Hungary Without Orban
Peter Magyar won the election. Now he has to dismantle a state that was built to be impossible to dismantle from within.
Europe Is Building a NATO Without the US. Germany Just Agreed to Help.
European allies have moved from theorizing about American withdrawal to actively designing command structures that exclude Washington. The 80-year alliance is splitting in plain sight.
Alliance Without a War
Trump threatened to pull the US from NATO after European allies refused to back his Iran war. The alliance survived its first real test of whether it still means anything when Washington acts unilaterally.
France Spends $53 Billion to Replace the American Guarantee
Paris just added $53 billion to its defense budget and expanded its nuclear arsenal. This is not NATO burden-sharing. This is Europe preparing for the scenario where America is not coming.
NATO Survived the Cold War. Whether It Survives Trump Depends on Who Blinks First.
Trump called NATO a 'paper tiger' and threatened withdrawal after European allies refused to join Operation Epic Fury. The alliance is now more fractured than at any point since 1966.