Unsentimental European.
I think Europe is capable of far more than it settles for.
The postwar settlement is over. I write about what comes next - the real balance of forces, what European interests actually require, and whether the continent can think clearly enough about both to matter.
The EU AI Act was the right instinct and the wrong strategy. Europe regulated before it built, did it alone, and is now surprised to find the rules aren't working.
For decades Europe delegated its defense to Washington and, quietly, its judgment too. Ukraine is the cost of the first failure. Our confusion about China is the cost of the second.
The case for deeper European integration has nothing to do with ideology. It is a structural response to a world that has stopped waiting for Europeans to make up their minds.
The EU is building 19 AI factories across 16 member states. The instinct is correct. The architecture is a disaster.
Friedrich Merz speaks about power differently than his predecessors. Rhetoric is the precondition, not the achievement. Six months in, the preconditions exist. The test comes next.