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The traditional trust between the US and Europe, built during the great century of ideologies, seems to have been shattered. American strategic privileges are being challenged and concerns are being raised about the replacement of American hegemony. At the heart of the debate is the concept of Pax Americana, i.e. the period after World War II during which the US ensured European security. As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently pointed out, “the era of ‘Pax Americana’… is essentially over.” This statement accurately reflects the feeling that the US’s long-standing security guarantees for Europe are being weakened and that Europe must prepare for a “fundamental reshaping” of relations (shifting transatlantic ties). Specifically, Merz warned that US policy priorities have changed over the years and that Europe should not take for granted a return to a “stable” framework after the Trump era.

This rhetoric is fueled by changes in US domestic and foreign policy, as well as structural pressures from competition with other major powers (Russia, China). Hence, Merz calls on European countries to strengthen their own defense capabilities and their so-called strategic autonomy. This dimension of “strategic autonomy” points to the emergence of an ideologically charged effort within the EU to establish strategic autonomy as a new “paradigm” of managing external relations, with the European Commission acting as an ideational entrepreneur which, often through political and economic influence, promotes a more “open” version of strategic autonomy, especially at the economic level. This ideological framework reproduces the necessary maintenance of Western dominance and “selected threats,” which reinforce an ideological narrative that Europe must free itself from American hegemony.

At the same time, concern is growing in Europe that even allies such as the US are tending to transform from “guarantors” into potential “adversaries.” For the first time in 2025, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) officially stated in its annual reports that the US could pose a threat to its national security. Specifically, in its latest report, it warns that Washington is using its economic weight—threats of high tariffs, for example—as a means of “imposing its will” even on allies. This reflects a broader, widespread suspicion that the US may opt for unilateral moves or a redistribution of forces, overlooking the needs of its European allies. The same report also emphasizes that the growing US obsession with Greenland — indeed, Trump’s statements about detaching the island from Denmark — has led to increased surveillance and “cyber espionage” measures against the US by Denmark.

However, despite these concerns, even the commander of DDIS states that the US remains “the guarantor of European security” through its participation in the NATO alliance and the nuclear umbrella. This rhetoric, both from the American side and from European headquarters, reshapes the framework of transatlantic relations with the US presented as a power that claims primacy, including “cultural hegemony,” and Europe is called upon to respond either by strengthening its own strategic autonomy or by attempting to negotiate a new type of border and alliance commitments.

Central to this power play is the Trump administration’s new US National Security Strategy (2025), which has caused widespread turmoil across Europe. As reported by foreign media, this official document describes a shift towards a hostile strategy towards the EU and reveals particular support for European far-right parties. It explicitly argues that Europe faces a threat of “cultural extinction” due to immigration and European integration, and calls on Washington to cultivate resistance to the “current path” that Europe is following. The text even applauds the rise of “patriotic” or nationalist parties in Europe, saying that “the growth of influence of patriotic European parties […] gives cause for great enthusiasm.” It suggests the need to “help Europe correct its current course,” encouraging political “allies” in Europe to promote this “revival of the spirit” of national identities. At the same time, political and strategic objectives are set that involve direct intervention: among other things, the strategy calls on the EU to “take full responsibility for its defense” and proposes “combating mercantilist overcapacity and technology theft” by hostile forces. These formulations confirm in an indisputable way the transformation of the American agenda, where the new NSS becomes an openly ideological manifesto aimed at “state interventions” in Europe in terms such as “culture,” “national identity,” and “power” being incorporated into an ideological framework that constructs immigrants, the EU, and “Western values” as internal enemies and emerging threats.

The reaction to this agenda was immediate and sharp, with European Council President António Costa and many European leaders condemning the recommended interference in their internal affairs. According to Costa, “allies do not threaten to interfere in the internal political choices of other allies.” He even pointed out that while there are disagreements (e.g., on climate), the NSS document goes beyond any acceptable limit of “interference” in Europe’s democratic decisions. Analysts such as Nicolai von Ondarza confirm that the strategy essentially signals a “shift to the right” in American diplomacy: it now openly talks about regime change in Europe for the benefit of pro-American nationalist forces. Max Bergmann of the CSIS went even further, saying that this policy—that is, open support for the far right—is now “a central part of America’s national strategy.”

The contrast between these developments and the traditional cultivation of “friendship between peoples” strongly highlights ideological rationales. For example, the American discourse in the NSS on “national identities” and “pan-European threats” draws on a right-wing political ideology known as the “great replacement” theory. The document directly adopts the narrative that white Europeans are under threat, a danger that will lead to “cultural extinction.” This is deliberate extreme rhetoric, a classic example of “cultural warfare,” where the systematic promotion of fear about “national identities” hides ethnocentric prejudices, charging public discourse to such an extent that it “imbibes” the context of the discussion with intense propaganda in favor of specific political goals.

In conclusion, the new US national strategy clearly indicates a policy of identification with nationalist forces in Europe and, at the same time, an aversion to the democratic processes of the Union. The insistence on the “Great Replacement” and “ethno-racial” dilemmas is now recognized as a key tool for distinguishing “us from them.” As such, it constitutes the ultimate degree of rhetorical conflict, an element of cultural warfare that awakens national traumas and social divisions. Instead of dealing realistically with geopolitical threats, the NSS invests in ideological polarization, regurgitates far-right prejudices, distorts reality (e.g. claiming that immigration policy threatens “survival as a state”), and attempts to manipulate both European and American communities.

This strategy is more of a political manifesto for domestic consumption and ideological composition than a sincere demonstration of defensive will. The critical dimension here is that, if addressed institutionally, the position on the “nationalist policies” of allies is biased and aggressive; while as an ideological process, the reproduction of the “Great Replacement” narrative shows that American foreign policy has sunk deep into cultural warfare. This conflict is not just about strategic interests, but reflects an ideological divide, on the one hand between the same values that the US once claimed to defend (democracy, tolerance, cooperation) and, on the other, ideas that were first presented and are reiterated in the report, in the speech at the Munich Security Conference, US Vice President JD Vance violently attacked European democracy, clearly showing that today the former principles are being undermined by nationalist obsessions and political rhetoric, forcing Europeans to re-examine their dependence on the US and to strengthen their own voice on the world stage, defending a multicultural and democratic conception of the European Union and the world.

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