Asymmetric Order or Federal Union? Europe’s Responsibility in the 21st Century
The international order established after 1945 is undergoing a phase of structural transformation. The multilateral institutions created in the aftermath of World War II, from the United Nations to the Bretton Woods system, have not formally collapsed, but they have progressively lost part of their capacity to shape the dynamics of power in a stable way. Competition among major powers has returned to the center of the international system, and multilateral cooperation increasingly appears subordinated to the strategic interests of great powers.
The unipolar illusion of the 1990s, based on the idea of a definitive stabilization under U.S. leadership, has come to an end. The return of war to Europe, systemic competition between the United States and China, Russia’s revisionist posture, and the growing fragmentation of technological and financial systems all indicate that we have entered a phase of redefinition of the architecture of the international order.
In this context, the twenty-first century faces a choice of models. Not between West and East, nor between democracy and authoritarianism, but between two ways of organizing the international order:
- A system founded primarily on military superiority and hierarchical alliances;
Or a system based on more advanced forms of political integration and shared sovereignty.
The key question is which model is morally preferable, and which one is structurally sustainable over the long term. It is precisely on this terrain that Europe’s role becomes decisive.
The American Trajectory: Toward a Functional Commonwealth
The United States remains the only power with integrated global capabilities. No other actor combines military superiority, technological leadership, and coalition-building capacity on a comparable scale.
The military dimension constitutes the foundation of this position. U.S. naval superiority ensures the security and the capacity to intervene along the world’s major maritime routes, enabling extended deterrence and global power projection across multiple theaters. This predominance does not translate into territorial domination but into the ability to influence the architecture of global security.
Alongside the military dimension operates a second pillar: the economic one. The ability to impose extraterritorial sanctions, largely enabled by the centrality of the dollar-based financial system, to shape capital flows, and to influence global value chains provides the United States with a powerful instrument of influence that does not require the direct use of military force.
Within this context, one can hypothesize an evolutionary trajectory that could be described as an “American Commonwealth.” This does not represent a formally declared project, nor a form of classical colonialism. Rather, it reflects a systemic configuration characterized by asymmetric yet cooperative interdependencies.
Within such a configuration, leadership remains in the hands of the United States, allies maintain internal autonomy but align on key strategic issues, economic integration takes place within a system centered on the U.S. economy, and American military leadership remains the ultimate guarantor of the security architecture.
This model does not eliminate multilateralism; instead, it structures it hierarchically. International cooperation does not disappear but operates within a framework in which asymmetries of power remain decisive.
For many states, such an arrangement represents a source of stability. Yet for actors with significant economic weight and political ambition such as the European Union, it raises a structural question: is a condition of limited autonomy in matters of security and strategy sustainable over the long term?
The Systemic Limits of Force
Military superiority is a necessary condition for sustaining an international order. It is not, however, a sufficient condition for guaranteeing its durability.
Force enables the enforcement and protection of rules; it does not automatically generate consent. In the short term, deterrence and strategic superiority can produce stability. In the long term, however, a system based predominantly on asymmetry tends to generate cumulative tensions.
The first factor is the rising cost of managing the order. Maintaining a global network of security commitments, bases, alliances, and deterrence structures requires increasing economic and political resources. The hegemonic power must constantly invest in order to preserve credibility and prevent challenges.
The second factor concerns the dynamics of relative autonomy. Over time, allies develop their own capabilities and strategic ambitions. Asymmetric interdependence can gradually transform into demands for greater autonomy.
The third factor is legitimacy. An international order is stable when it is perceived as equitable and broadly shared. When it is perceived as unbalanced, cooperation progressively turns into conditional alignment.
An American Commonwealth could therefore represent a functional solution during a phase of systemic transition. Yet its long-term stability would depend not only on U.S. military projection capabilities but also on its ability to generate genuine consent among its principal allies.
It is precisely at this point that the European question becomes central. A politically incomplete Europe tends to reinforce a hierarchical order. A Europe capable of federal integration would instead modify the structural balance of the entire Western system.
Europe: Economic Power Without Political Subjectivity
The European Union represents one of the largest integrated economic spaces in the world. It is a regulatory power capable of shaping global standards in trade, digital governance, and environmental policy. Its economic, technological, and industrial mass is comparable to that of the major global powers.
Yet this mass does not automatically translate into geopolitical agency.
Europe possesses a single market but not a fully federal fiscal sovereignty. It has coordination mechanisms in the field of defense but lacks an integrated chain of command. It has a common foreign policy framework but not a single political will, capable of acting with strategic speed.
This configuration produces a condition of structural incompleteness: the Union is too integrated to be a simple collection of states, yet not sufficiently unified to function as a fully coherent political actor.
Within the context of systemic global competition, this incompleteness has precise consequences. Europe tends to exercise influence through regulatory instruments, economic leverage, and standard-setting power, but it struggles to translate that influence into autonomous strategic power.
Germany, together with France, because of their economic weight and political centrality within the European architecture, constitute key actors in this dynamic. In recent years Germany has progressively strengthened its security posture. Nevertheless, Berlin still operates within an institutional framework that remains fundamentally intergovernmental in the core domains of sovereignty.
The issue therefore does not concern the will of a single member state but the overall institutional structure of the Union. Without a qualitative leap toward federal integration, Europe’s economic mass will continue to be exercised primarily through regulatory instruments while remaining ultimately dependent on external security architectures.
It is within this tension between economic power and political incompleteness that Europe’s strategic choice emerges.
The Atlantic Moment: An Implicit Renegotiation
The transatlantic relationship remains the central node of the Western order. The issue at stake is not merely the durability of NATO but the political nature of the alliance itself.
The Atlanticism of the post-war era was founded on a clear premise: the United States guaranteed Europe’s security in exchange for strategic alignment. In the bipolar context of the Cold War, this arrangement proved coherent and effective.
In the twenty-first century, however, the context has changed. Systemic competition has expanded beyond Europe, the Indo-Pacific theater has acquired central strategic importance, and the demand for a greater European role has become structural.
The renegotiation has not been formalized in a new treaty, but it is already underway in practice: in burden-sharing debates, in technological alignment policies, and in the reconfiguration of critical supply chains.
From this implicit renegotiation, three possible trajectories may emerge.
Three Scenarios for Europe
The implicit renegotiation of the Atlantic framework opens three possible evolutionary trajectories for Europe, each carrying profoundly different implications for the international order of the twenty-first century.
In the first scenario, Europe strengthens its military capabilities and contributes more significantly to collective security while remaining structurally embedded within a hierarchical security framework led by the United States. Strategic dependence is not eliminated but rationalized. European autonomy operates within boundaries defined by the U.S. deterrence architecture, which continues to represent the ultimate foundation of Western security. This model provides functional stability in the short term and reduces uncertainty during a period of increasing global competition. In the long term, however, it preserves a structural asymmetry that limits Europe’s ability to shape systemic global decisions.
The second scenario envisions greater strategic autonomy without a federal leap. Member states seek closer coordination in defense, technology, and energy while maintaining national control over fiscal policy, foreign policy, and military sovereignty. Europe becomes more assertive but remains politically fragmented. Strategic decisions continue to depend on intergovernmental compromises, often slow and vulnerable to internal divergence. The result is a competitive multipolar environment characterized by selective cooperation, unstable equilibrium, and decision-making difficulties during crises.
The third scenario implies a qualitative transformation: converting economic integration into a federal political subject. In this perspective, Europe would establish a legitimate federal government, an integrated defense structure, a significant common budget, and a unified foreign policy. Such a European Federation would not represent a hostile alternative to the United States but a structurally equal partner. Atlanticism would evolve from a hierarchical alliance into a partnership between comparable political entities, founded on shared responsibilities and strategic reciprocity.
This scenario is the most complex to realize because it requires a profound institutional transformation and a redefinition of sovereignty. Yet it is also the only one capable of modifying the structural architecture of the international order by shifting the balance from hierarchy toward parity.
Relations with regions outside the traditional Atlantic framework could then develop through flexible arrangements and variable-geometry agreements rather than through discretionary management by the United States alone.
The Question of Ultimate Sovereignty: Deterrence and Federal Architecture
Every federal construction inevitably confronts a central question: who holds ultimate sovereignty in matters of defense?
In Europe there already exists an autonomous nuclear capability: that of France. The French force de frappe constitutes a deterrent capability distinct from, though politically coordinated with, the NATO architecture.
Within a hypothetical federal framework, the challenge would not be the creation of a new nuclear capability but its political integration into a European structure.
This could take the form of coordinated European nuclear doctrine, progressive sharing of decision-making responsibilities, and supranational mechanisms of democratic legitimacy.
Without a shared ultimate sovereignty, a federation would remain incomplete.
With an integrated deterrence structure, it would become a fully-fledged strategic actor.
Germany, because of its economic weight and industrial centrality, would be a decisive actor in this process. Yet the center of gravity could not remain national. Legitimacy would need to be federal, grounded in the values that originally inspired European integration.
Conclusion: Europe’s Responsibility
The twenty-first century does not pose a choice between America and Europe; it poses a choice about the architecture of power.
An order founded primarily on military superiority may ensure stability in the short term but tends to generate structural tensions over time.
An order based on federal entities capable of sharing sovereignty and strategic responsibility could offer greater durability. The decisive variable is not the will of Washington but Europe’s capacity to transform its economic integration into a coherent political subject.
A European Federation is not an idealistic project.
It represents a possible systemic response to the transformation of the international order, bringing to that order Europe’s original contribution: the values upon which its own unification has been built.