This is Europe's Moment

Once dismissed as an outdated has-been, Europe is rising to the challenge

Fellow Europeans, this is our moment. The United States, which has long been the cornerstone of the global security framework, is imploding before our eyes. As a Norwegian, I know how deeply our security thinking has been shaped by the belief that we only need to hold off a Russian invasion long enough for the American cavalry to roll in and save the day.

And I bet many other smaller European nations have had similar thinking. But that mindset needs to be thrown in the dumpster. It’s over. There are no American Marines coming to kick ass and take names if the world goes awry. We are it now. We are the last stand of democracy.

Once, "Arsenal of Democracy" was a label used to describe the United States when its factories churned out weapons to aid European democracies fighting fascism. Now, Europe is becoming the new Arsenal of Democracy.

As reported by the BBC, as of 2025, America has begun siding with totalitarian states like Russia, Belarus, and North Korea in UN voting:

First, the US opposed a European-drafted resolution condemning Moscow's actions and supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity—voting the same way as Russia and countries including North Korea and Belarus at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

Not only is the US dismantling its own democracy, but it is also actively opposing democracies on the world stage, aligning itself with authoritarian regimes.

It’s easy to despair, but Europeans must find the courage to recognize our own strength. We have spent years overestimating Russian military power. Look at how their army has suffered immense losses in Ukraine. Ukraine—a flat country with a long border with Russia, a struggling economy, and outdated weaponry—has still managed to hold its ground and fight back. If Ukraine can do that, then much wealthier Western nations with modern weapons and well-trained soldiers can certainly do the same.

Let’s remember the Winter War. The Soviet Union, with a population of 170 million, sent 900,000 soldiers to invade Finland—a country of just 3.7 million. And yet, the Finns fought back fiercely, inflicting heavy losses on the Red Army. If tiny Finland could resist, then other European nations can as well. Russia has once again demonstrated in Ukraine that its military is as ineffective relative to European forces as it was in World War II. Their population is now much smaller, and they face a united Europe.

European defense budgets are increasing significantly, and we now have the ability to purchase top-of-the-line weapons from all over the world—whether from other European nations, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, or Japan. Unlike Russia, we have allies. We also have Ukraine, which can help us determine the weapons we need to develop and produce to counter Russian aggression. They have first-hand experience with how Russia wages war and how to best counter them.

Losing the US as an ally sucks, but we can manage without them. In fact, there are advantages to not relying on the US for defense anymore:

• No need to participate in American invasions and military adventures just to prove our loyalty as allies. We can focus on home defense instead.

• We avoid being tainted by American military misadventures around the world.

• Money currently spent on American weapons can be redirected to European weapons, boosting our factories and economies.

• No more tolerating manipulative and abusive behavior from the US just to maintain a good relationship with the "big guy."

A New European World Order

Europe has long been dismissed as a has-been continent, a place where we prefer leisure over hard work and innovation. It is frequently pointed out how all the latest tech companies, such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and others, stem from the US.

The idea Americans try to portray is that Europeans are too busy enjoying long vacations and lunches with baguettes instead of working. This is, of course, an absurdity Americans love to throw around to feel better about themselves—working three jobs and still struggling. Okay, I engage in hyperbole, but so have Americans about Europe for a long time.

In this story, I want to kill the idea that it is somehow over for Europe and instead advance the idea that this may, in fact, be the beginning of a European golden age. I will use a lot of objective facts and statistics to make this case because too many of you have bought into the American propaganda that Europe is behind everyone.

The American Anomaly

The first realization must be to understand that Europe only looks bad because the US is an anomaly on the world stage. America has four unique advantages that have nothing to do with policy choices or some kind of wonderful traits of Americans or American society:

• Abundance of natural resources — The US has more fertile land, coal, oil, gas, iron, hydropower, and areas suitable for wind and solar than anybody else.

• Economies of scale — An enormous unified and homogeneous market. 340 million people speaking the same language and sharing the same culture with significant purchasing power.

• English — The native language of the US is the same as the one everyone receiving higher education in the world is taught. Thus, all top talent everywhere in the world naturally picks the US.

• Dollar — The US controls the world’s reserve currency, which is used for all trade. That means Americans can borrow money at a lower interest rate than other nations, helping fuel the economy.

Americans rarely, if ever, speak of these unique advantages because it undermines the heroic tales they want to tell about themselves. Instead of admitting that English is the primary reason high-skilled labor wants to move to the US, they invent reasons like how America is so much better at integrating new people, so much more open, tolerant, etc.

(Please note that when I write "Americans", I am typically referring to the chest pumping over-patriotic Americans. There are millions of Americans with a far more nuanced and realistic view of their country and its history.)

Reality is that even if Finnish people were the most outgoing, friendly, and open-minded to all people of the world, a Chinese AI engineer who spent years struggling to learn English isn't suddenly going to move to Finland and spend years grasping Finnish. Okay, maybe Finland could work because, like in Norway, most people speak very good English. But it is a small country. Try a bigger European country such as France, and you will not get very far speaking only English. You will have to learn French if you want to be serious about living in France.

How much does this matter? This article gets into the details about how much of American businesses are started by immigrants and how much of the cutting-edge science in the US is done by immigrants.

American Advantages in Economies of Scale

Europe cannot replicate that advantage because switching the national language to English is out of the question. You don't sell your whole identity for some economic gain.

So rather than just measuring Europe against the US, we need to look at Europe compared to the rest of the world.

Europe and the Rest of the World

If you look at Europe as a whole relative to other advanced economies, it is not doing bad. In fact the EU countries are doing totally fine relative to the US. Europe is not that far behind. Considering that the EU lacks the unified American market and vast amount of resources that is not surprising.

If Europe truly was the continent of the past, then why is Europe as a whole totally outperforming Canada, Mexico and Japan? The chart below shows relative change in GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power since 1990.

And it matters a lot when you compare. There have been a lot of arguments that Europe the last 20 years has been doing so poorly compared to the US. Somehow every year they talk about the last 20 years. Why don't we make a fair comparison then? Let us compare performance over 20 years before COIVD19 breakout. Why before COVID19? Because several things happened then:

• COVID19 seriously affected all economies and pandemics hurt densely populated areas more easily. Hence Europe would struggle more than the US.

• The Russian invasion of Ukraine starts in 2022 and Europe gets cut off from Russian gas causing server economic problems. US makes money on that problem given that it exports gas.

So let us do the 20 years from 1999 to 2019. Hmmm, look at that "laggard" Europe is actually outperforming everyone.

Perhaps the economics papers should be talking about Japanese, Mexicans, Canadians, and Australians enjoying too much vacation, café visits and living on welfare. But of course, they won't because in these countries people tend to have very little vacation and long workdays.

That gets us to the heart of the matter. There is an underlying deep envy and resentment against Europe for actually giving its people a good life. There is a right-wing capitalist underlying belief that life should be suffering, stress and hard work. They resent that Europeans managed to create good thriving economies while also enjoying themselves.

European Strengths

Let us dig deeper into the many advantages Europe actually enjoys relative to many other countries. I will cover these key areas:

1. Divided into multiple countries

2. Statecraft, government, and voting systems

3. Fertility rate

4. Green transition

Some of these claims of advantage may sound counterintuitive, but bear with me, and I will make it clear why.

Advantage of Being Divided

That Europe is divided into multiple states rather than being united like China or the US may seem like a disadvantage. In many aspects, it is. For instance, Europe has challenges in meeting the Russian threat because Europe has no single army but multiple armies that are not organized in a unified way.

Greater unity helped the US manage the 2008 recession better than Europe, where it was challenging to help Greece. However, in the long-term grand scheme of things, I believe the division of Europe is a great advantage. I will make that case with three stories:

1. French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire

2. The Chinese treasure fleet of the 1400s

3. Persecution of Huguenots and Jews in Europe