Conclusion

This paper has endeavoured to outline and understand the present European geopolitical order and how it will likely evolve in the coming years. The analysis has revolved around the question of how the postSecond World War order is changing. In the immediate aftermath of the war, US military and economic power rescued many European states from collapse and the temptation to turn to communism. Not only did Washington’s presence in Europe assist European states economically, but politically the US was able to help socialise Germany within the West, and ensure that the then-Soviet Union was kept at bay. To institutionalise the gains that the US had made in European security, it forged a military alliance and encouraged the Europeans to move ahead with greater economic integration and interdependence. Both NATO and the EU in no small way stand as monuments to Washington’s commitment to European security, but there is a danger that these monuments may eventually transmogrify into relics. If the European order post-1945 was secured by US political support, military power and money, then US retrenchment, Russia’s resurgence across Eastern Europe, and Germany’s newfound centrality in European politics raise many important, if uncomfortable, questions. A central tenet of this analysis has been that Europe’s evolving order is defined by a seemingly inexorable tension between power and weakness. Even if the US remains the strongest ‘European’ power, a hands-off approach calls into question its ability to undergird regional order. Germany is becoming stronger, but it seems neither powerful enough to underwrite a new order, nor interested in doing so. Russia lacks the legitimacy to lead and is besieged by structural economic and demographic woes, as well as important geostrategic liabilities. Bedevilled by chronic economic crisis and politico-military conflagrations along its borders, Europe’s post-Second World War order is being tested. Geopolitical cohesion is arguably Europe’s greatest asset, but the range of crises it faces invariably calls this cohesion into question; all at a time when Russia is seeking to exploit and profit from fissures in the European order. It is true that NATO has reconfigured itself to the