Europe’s five stages of grief for the transatlantic alliance

From the 1940s until 2024 the security challenge Europe faced was how to defend itself alongside America, its closest ally. By 2025, with Donald Trump back in the White House, the issue was whether Europe could defend itself without America—a scary prospect, given Russia’s designs on the continent. Now, in 2026, a once heretical question is preoccupying Europeans: what might they one day have to do to defend themselves against America?

To misquote Mark Twain, reports of the demise of the transatlantic pact have in the past been greatly exaggerated. But an “alliance” which involves threats and bullying is unworthy of the name; at this point it looks to be either dead or dying. The flashpoint is Greenland, coveted by Mr Trump and impossible for Europe to surrender while retaining its dignity. Mr Trump on January 21st ruled out the use of force—for now—to acquire the Danish autonomous territory, then hailed a still-opaque “deal” with NATO. But although the immediate crisis may have been defused, the deeper problem remains: a new American creed that treats power as a virtue and allies as expendable. The narcissistic hubris that emanates from Washington makes any enduring alliance impossible, even one as storied as NATO. Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, spoke for his European hosts in Davos when he said: “the old order is not coming back...we should not mourn it.”

Yet Europeans are grieving all the same. The transatlantic alliance endures on paper, but the promise at the heart of NATO—that America would defend Europe should it come under attack and vice versa—is no longer an article of faith. Would such a guarantee depend on Denmark “handing over” Greenland, for example, if such a thing were even possible? For Europeans the sense of loss is acute. How else to react to the fraying of the security compact that underpinned the longest (mostly) peaceful stretch in centuries, on this relentlessly quarrelsome continent?

The North Atlantic partnership was not always happy, but it proved resilient. The shock of its passing has left the survivors stunned. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss-born psychiatrist, posited that humans facing the loss of a loved one go through five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Europe, it turns out, has been working through the list.

It started with denial—a steadfast belief in European circles that Mr Trump would never come back to power. That Americans voted for him once in 2016 was incomprehensible enough in European eyes. But could they really plump for him again after having seen what he was capable of, insurrection and all? Vague attempts were made to “Trump-proof” Europe ahead of the election in 2024, though with no firm idea as to what that actually meant.

Soon came anger. Within weeks of Mr Trump’s second inauguration, a year ago this week, Europeans were goaded by America-Firsters into spluttering rage. In February J.D. Vance, the vice-president, travelled to Munich to explain to Europeans that the real threat they faced came not from Russia, but from “the enemy within”. The only solution to the continent’s inexorable decline was to elect xenophobes, and perhaps scrap the European Union. Later that month Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, was humiliated in the Oval Office, and his soldiers temporarily deprived of vital American intelligence. By April the tariff-mad Mr Trump was blowing up the free-trading system that America and Europe had built together over decades. Aaarrgh!

Europe then tried bargaining; Mr Trump is known to like a deal, after all. In a bid to keep American support for Ukraine forthcoming, Europeans agreed to do America’s bidding. Some demands were reasonable, like spending more on defence (a target of 3.5% of GDP was agreed in June). But an implicit part of the deal was kowtowing to America, as when NATO’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, sycophantically called Mr Trump the “daddy” of the alliance. The EU in July signed a lopsided trade deal with America, agreeing to pay tariffs but not imposing its own. To many Europeans this felt not so much like bargaining as capitulation.

Alas, the prostration proved fruitless. Hence the depression when Europe realised it had sold out, yet got nothing in return. Notably, in recent months Mr Trump has continued to put more pressure on Ukraine than on its Russian invader. He has threatened fresh tariffs on EU countries in response to the situation in Greenland—then withdrawn them. Perhaps most dispiriting for many Europeans was realising the French had been right all along. Ever since Charles de Gaulle, their presidents have railed against dependence on America. Emmanuel Macron declared NATO’s “brain-death” in 2019. More Europeans sniggered than took heed.

What might the final phase of grief—acceptance—look like? Across Europe there is the sense of a line having been crossed, of limits having been exceeded. Even leaders of once firmly Atlanticist countries sound like Gaullists these days. “Being a happy vassal [of America] is one thing, being a miserable slave is another,” said Bart De Wever, the Belgian prime minister.

But accepting times have changed is not the same as agreeing on how to adapt. Building up “strategic autonomy” from America, as Mr Macron puts it, will require years, if not decades, of investment, notably to plug gaps in military capabilities. A trade war with America still seems likely sooner or later. At a summit on January 22nd, as The Economist was going to press, EU leaders were to discuss the bloc’s “anti-coercion instrument”, a measure allowing it to respond assertively to threats of tariffs (though its immediate triggering seems improbable following Mr Trump’s climbdown). The EU had designed the “trade bazooka” to intimidate bullying foes, with China in mind. Instead, the first target may end up being a country Europeans once thought of as a friend. ■