Legacies and Ruptures: Europe's Future in a New (?) Era of Geopolitical Uncertainty

Europe finds itself adrift in a world of rising geopolitical uncertainty. Russia has brought interstate war back to Europe. American democracy and hegemony and the ‘liberal international order’ appear to be in steep decline. The world as Europeans and Americans have known it for 80 years may be gone forever. But what will replace it, and what Europe's role in it will be, remains unclear. This article seeks to analyse and bring clarity to what we mean by 'rising geopolitical uncertainty’. It argues that this concept conflates three distinct challenges: one from Russia, one from China and one from the United States. Each of these three ‘great powers’ is now directly challenging core pillars of the post‐war order, and each raises serious questions for the European Union (EU) and its member states. These challenges, in turn, pose three distinct crises for Europe: an economic crisis, a security crisis and a governance crisis. Europe can and must respond to these, but this will require significantly more European integration and require the EU to act in global governance with a unified voice that it has been unable (or unwilling) to find for decades. If the world really is facing the end of American hegemony and the post‐war liberal international order, then the only serious option is for Europe to step up and do what it can to fill that void itself.