For all the talk of a “rules-based international order” Europe seems to have forgotten the first rule of civilisational survival: defend yourself, or be prepared to lose everything.

Europe, a continent, which once projected power across oceans, now flinches at the idea of defending its own borders. It has, for decades, quietly dismantled its armed forces, outsourced its industrial base, and opened its doors to ideological adversaries, all while shielding itself behind the American security umbrella. Now, as the world turns darker and more dangerous, our collective delusions are beginning to catch up with us.

Let us speak plainly: Europe is no longer militarily prepared to defend itself against a serious threat. Its post-Cold War slumber has lasted far too long, and the snoring has become embarrassing. The United Kingdom, once the pre-eminent naval power on Earth, now boasts a navy that can barely patrol the English Channel (even if its government wanted it to), let alone project power beyond it. The British Army, hollowed out by successive rounds of budget cuts and bureaucratic indulgence, can field fewer combat-ready troops than at any point since the Napoleonic era.

It is no exaggeration to say that our armed forces are in a state of quiet collapse. On paper, the UK possesses six Type-45 destroyers—our only effective anti-air and anti-missile shield. In reality, mechanical issues and overstretch mean that seldom more than one or two are operational at any given time. Our Royal Air Force has a dwindling number of fighter jets, pilots are short of flying hours, and maintenance backlogs have become routine. The Army’s fighting strength is now below 75,000 and still shrinking.

But Britain is not alone in its negligence. On the Continent, the picture is equally bleak. Germany—Europe’s supposed economic powerhouse—has long treated defence as a political embarrassment. Its once-formidable tank force has been reduced to a museum piece. France, while still capable of limited expeditionary action, cannot sustain high-intensity operations for more than a few days without American logistics. Italy and Spain struggle to maintain even a token force.

We have become strategic freeloaders, hiding behind the Pentagon while lecturing others on ethics and multilateralism. NATO may still exist on paper, but the substance of European defence is now almost entirely American. This is not merely an embarrassment—it is a profound vulnerability.

Worse still, we are compounding that vulnerability with a naïve obsession with ideology over capability. Diversity targets have become the totemic measure of success within the armed forces, often at the expense of operational effectiveness. Let us be clear: the idea that a fighting force should reflect the demographic makeup of society, rather than be built solely for the brutal business of winning wars, is a luxury we can no longer afford. Combat is not a social experiment. Bullets are not interested in one’s pronouns. Wars are not won by HR departments.

This is not to disparage the many brave individuals—regardless of background—who serve honourably. But recruitment driven by political fashion, rather than aptitude and commitment, is a recipe for failure. It tells the world we are not serious players. And make no mistake: our enemies are watching. They see a continent more concerned with rewriting its history than defending its future.

To understand how we arrived here, we must examine the broader cultural malaise afflicting the West. For the past three decades, our ruling classes have been gripped by an economic and philosophical fantasy: that war was obsolete, that history had ended, that prosperity could be secured through trade alone, and that the spread of Western values was inevitable. In this view, geopolitics was merely a tiresome legacy of a more primitive age. Human nature, it was believed, had evolved beyond aggression and tribalism.

These were dangerous illusions. We outsourced not only our factories, but our judgement. We ceded entire industrial sectors to China, in the name of cheap goods and quarterly profits. We allowed strategic assets from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals to fall under foreign control. In our arrogance, we believed that by enriching our rivals, we would make them more like us. Instead, we made ourselves dependent on regimes that regard us with contempt.

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea: these are not misunderstandings. They are adversarial powers with incompatible visions of the world. They do not want to join our system, they want to replace it. They see our internal weakness as an opportunity. And they are absolutley right to do so.

What is striking, however, is the near-total absence of urgency among Europe’s political class. Even as war returns to the continent in Ukraine, even as missiles rain down and cities fall, most European NATO members continue to drag their feet on defence spending. Some have indeed pledged to reach the 2 percent target. Few have actually done so. The numbers remain anaemic, the procurement slow, and the priorities confused.

The situation is further aggravated by demographic pressures that our leaders are too timid to address. Over the past two decades, Europe has experienced the largest wave of migration in its modern history—much of it from the Muslim world. Integration has, in many cases, failed. Entire districts of major cities have become culturally and legally distinct from the societies around them. Sharia courts operate informally. Madrassas proliferate, teaching a worldview at odds with liberal democracy. In the UK, at least five cities – including London – and boroughs now have Muslim mayors. Not a problem in itself, were it not for the parallel structures of governance, the sectarianism, and the lack of transparency that often accompany them.

We are not talking here about the many ordinary Muslims who live peacefully and contribute positively to society. But the West must stop pretending that there is no ideological challenge within its own borders. Radical Islamism is not a fringe issue, it is a growing force, fuelled by alienation, imported grievance, and the cowardice of our political elites. The grooming gang scandals, the attacks on free speech, the intimidation of teachers and journalists. These are not isolated incidents, they are symptoms of a society losing confidence in its own values.

The liberal response to all this has been the intellectual equivalent of sticking fingers in ears and humming Beethoven. Any attempt to discuss cultural cohesion or integration is met with accusations of bigotry. The result is paralysis. We cannot defend ourselves abroad, and we dare not defend ourselves at home.

Meanwhile, a younger generation more connected to TikTok than reality drifts into an intellectual fog. To them, war is a video game, gender is a social construct, and the world can be “manifested” into peace with enough hashtags. This detachment from reality is not their fault entirely; it is the fruit of an education system that teaches grievance instead of gratitude, and feelings instead of facts. They have been raised to believe that civilisation is self-sustaining. It is not. It must be protected, nurtured, and, if necessary, and it will become so, fought for.

The bill for our long holiday from history is now arriving. If we do not begin to pay it, others will collect it for us.

So what is to be done?

First, Europe must rearm seriously, quickly, and without apology. Every NATO member should meet or exceed the 2 percent target immediately, not as an aspirational goal but as a minimum standard. The UK should increase defence spending to 3 percent, and restore industrial-scale munitions production onshore. Germany must break free from its post-war guilt complex and build a modern, battle-ready army. France must reinvest in its nuclear deterrent and support a pan-European missile shield. Our defence industries must be re-nationalised where necessary and given clear direction.

Second, we must decouple from strategic dependencies. The great outsourcing experiment is over. We need European supply chains for energy, technology, and military hardware. Huawei should never again be allowed anywhere near our critical infrastructure. Our universities should stop handing advanced research to foreign nationals from adversarial states. The naïve belief in the universality of Western values must give way to a more realistic assessment of global competition.

Third, we must reclaim the moral authority of the state. That means enforcing the law in every part of the country. No-go zones are an affront to civilisation. Parallel legal systems are incompatible with equality before the law. Religious extremism must be tackled head-on, not tiptoed around. And immigration must be selective, controlled, and integrated. Multiculturalism must not become a pretext for balkanisation.

Above all, we must recover the belief that Europe is worth defending—not just its borders, but its ideals. That means reviving a sense of civic responsibility, of shared heritage, of duty. It means remembering that liberty is not the default setting of human history. It is the exception. It is fragile. And it will vanish if we do not fight for it.

Europe is not yet lost. But the hour is late, and the enemies, within and without, are growing bolder with every concession we hand them. This is not a time for platitudes, it is a time for resolve. The lull is over, the storm is coming.

Let us prepare for it—before it is too late.