Europe | NatSec.ca

Europe is again considering setting up the equivalent of a UN Security Council

EU officials and leaders are getting behind the idea, while lawmakers are drafting legal options.

“We lack a proper united leadership platform to discuss the most important European defense issues,” EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said last week. “It’s now an urgent task to turn this idea into reality.”

Sergey Lagodinsky, a German European Parliament lawmaker and vice president of the Greens group, is proposing a council gathering the leaders of Europe’s big six — Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the U.K. — alongside two rotating seats for smaller countries and the European Parliament president.

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An attack on Greenland “would make America weaker, not safer”

Greenland is not a marginal issue for Europeans. Threats against it cut to the heart of the idea of Europe, of sovereignty, international law and trust. Key European leaders recently stressed they are united in their position that it is up to Denmark and Greenland to decide their own fate — and no one else. The potential for a crisis is real, and what is most confounding is that this would be a crisis that is entirely unnecessary and easily avoidable.
Threatening to annex territory belonging to a NATO ally strikes at the very foundation of the alliance. NATO is not merely a military grouping; it is a community of liberal democracies that has endured precisely because its members trust — and do not threaten — one another. They consult, negotiate and resolve disputes peacefully. This shared political culture is not a luxury — it is NATO’s greatest strategic asset. It sets us apart from those that depend on threats and tricks to keep their “friends” together.
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Europe is entering a new state of alert in the face of US hostility

Europe has entered a new state of alert in the face of US open hostility in areas that go beyond simple economic and technological competition and touch the deepest core of strategic and security issues.

A day after US military and civilian forces staged an illegal incursion into Venezuela, during which President Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped and captured and transported to New York City, Trump asserted that his country needs Greenland — an autonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a member of NATO.

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Russia’s sabotage operations quadrupled in 2025

According to data compiled by the IISS, Russian shadow warfare attacks targeting Europe’s critical infrastructure have accelerated steadily since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and intensified further in 2024 and 2025, with incidents spanning the Baltics and Nordics, Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean in patterns that reflect strategic intent.
These operations include sabotage of transport and logistics hubs, attacks on energy and communications infrastructure, disruptions to undersea cables, and acts of espionage, arson, vandalism, GPS jamming, and proxy-enabled activity carried out by third-country nationals, all designed to impose cumulative pressure while remaining just below NATO’s Article 5 threshold.
Russia is exploiting the gaps between peace and war, law enforcement and military response, and public and private responsibility, confident that NATO’s legal thresholds, political caution, and consensus-driven paralysis will continue to prevent a unified response to an attack that is already underway.

January 4, 2025
Olga Lautman and Luchkov Andrii, Malign Influence Operations: Russia’s Sabotage Operations Quadrupled in 2025: Europe’s Rude Awakening

Without Europe, the US ceases to be a leader

Geo-politically, marginalizing Europe will also come at a cost. The small peninsula is well sited for American needs. Forward-based radar makes it easier to counteract missiles lobbed by Russia or Iran. Military bases allow the world’s mightiest armed forces to operate in the Middle East and Africa. Having Europe onside helps project power in other ways. Sanctions work best when both sides of the Atlantic join in. By accepting the global supremacy of the dollar, Europeans leave themselves little choice but to enforce America’s boycotts, even when they disagree. Push too hard and they may try to free themselves from that, too.
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