The incursion was contained – jets scrambled, drones downed, consultations under NATO’s Article 4 requested. But the episode was a reminder that the continent is increasingly on the front line of a geopolitical storm, and that its response is still tentative.
It is also awkwardly timed. On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump is still casting doubt on America’s security guarantees. His studied indifference to the Polish incursion, brushing it off as “perhaps a mistake,” only deepens Europe’s sense of vulnerability.
A view from a transport military plane shows Russian airborne combat vehicles descending beneath parachutes during the previous ‘Zapad-2021’ military exercises staged by the armed forces of Russia and Belarus in Kaliningrad Region, Russia, in September 2021 (Photo: Vitaly Nevar/Reuters)Europeans have long fretted that American protection could not be assumed forever; now they face the reality of its unreliability under Trump’s transactional administration. For Russia, the ambiguity is useful. For Europe, it is dangerous.
square WORLD Putin’s wargames on Europe’s doorstep that have put Nato on edge
Read More
Meanwhile, Europe’s house is not in order. Its economy has been stuttering for the past two decades and is still unable to complete the single market promised in the 1980s in areas like banking, energy and defence. National budgets remain constrained, industrial policy fragmented, procurement splintered. “Strategic autonomy” remains more slogan than structure.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meets with US President Donald Trump at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 27, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
She is echoed by politicians, who urge the EU and NATO to move quickly in the face of a fast-changing world. “We face an existential threat,” says Valerie Hayer, an MEP and key ally of French President Emmanuel Macron. “The world is reorganising before our eyes, and global powers want to marginalise us. Russia is at the EU’s borders. This new world is hostile to us.”
But it is still slow, and many bemoan the deference still paid to the US. “Europe’s role on the world stage clearly can no longer just be that of most loyal ally of the US,” says Sven Biscop, a director at Egmont, a Brussels think tank. “The EU needs to decide what its role is, build up strength and thus autonomy, and then use the leverage that it does have to act.”
In her speech this week, von der Leyen seemed aware that Europe’s drift is no longer tolerable. If the continent is serious about its security, it must complete the single market, spend collectively and coherently on defence, and harden itself against both Russia’s aggression and China’s leverage.
If Europe fails this moment, the consequences will be measured in far more than drone wreckage.
Hence then, the article about on brink of conflict can europe rise to face the drone moment was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( On brink of conflict, can Europe rise to face the drone moment? )
Also on site :