The U.S. Pivot to Asia and Europe's Strategic Sunset

The United States’ strategic pivot toward Asia in 2011 signalled a fundamental realignment in global geopolitics, driven by China’s ascent as America’s principal peer competitor. This shift necessitated a reassessment of Europe’s role in U.S. grand strategy that was historically defined by Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union. With Russia no longer posing an existential ideological threat, Europe’s strategic relevance to Washington diminished, leaving the continent to navigate an increasingly tense geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China.

China’s rapid economic ascent was accelerated by Western corporations relocating production to exploit its educated workforce and weaken domestic labor movements. This outsourcing transformed China into an industrial superpower, capable of challenging U.S. hegemony. Simultaneously, it also hollowed out Western manufacturing bases, eroding the economic foundations of American power and shifting the global balance of influence eastward.

Economic strength remains the primary determinant of geopolitical influence. With China having supplanted the U.S. as the world’s dominant industrial power, global supply chains grew dependent on its economy. This integration amplified Beijing’s geopolitical clout while diminishing Washington’s, leading to divergent U.S. and EU policies toward China—shaped by differing strategic priorities, domestic pressures, and economic vulnerabilities.

Perceiving its hegemony under threat, the U.S. adopted an aggressive, unilateral stance toward China, prioritizing national security, industrial revitalization, and technological supremacy. This approach, often framed as a "new Cold War," treats technological dominance as the decisive factor in future power struggles.

In contrast, the EU’s policy reflects its structural dependencies. Viewing China as simultaneously a partner, competitor, and systemic rival, Europe’s stance is constrained by its reliance on Chinese manufacturing and technology. Trade and investment dynamics expose the EU's deep economic interdependence with China. In 2023, China was the EU's second-largest trading partner for goods, with bilateral trade reaching €739 billion. Europe's trade deficit with China is predominantly in manufactured goods, particularly machinery and vehicles, indicating a structural dependence on imports from China.

Europe’s deepening economic integration with Eurasia presents a strategic quandary for the U.S. As cheap Russian energy and Chinese manufacturing pulled Europe eastward, economic ties risked translating into political realignment that would position the continent as a Chinese-aligned counterweight.

Yet the U.S., having allowed its own industrial base to atrophy, lacks the capacity to offer a viable alternative to Chinese production. Unable to compete economically, Washington’s remaining leverage lies in disruption: a "scorched earth" strategy aimed at fracturing Eurasian integration to delay the consolidation of a rival bloc.

Fracturing Eurasia to Preserve Hegemony

Much of U.S. geopolitical strategy can be traced to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, which identifies a unified Eurasia as the greatest threat to American dominance. The core imperative, then, is to prevent an alliance between Russia and China that would shift the global balance of power irreversibly towards the East. During the Cold War, the U.S. cultivated China as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. But after the USSR’s collapse, China’s rise — first in industrial might, then in technological prowess — redefined Washington’s strategic calculus. From Obama’s "Pivot to Asia" to Biden’s explicit focus on China, successive administrations have treated Beijing as the primary long-term adversary.

Yet the U.S. could not afford to simply abandon Europe; doing so would compel Europeans to pivot toward China. A fully integrated Eurasia would render America economically obsolete. The solution: sabotage continental unity before the eastward turn could solidify.

This logic underpinned the strategy to provoke Russia into a protracted war in Ukraine that was laid out in RAND’s Extending Russia report and echoed in policy articles such as one found in The National Interest. The ideal outcome was a defeated and destabilized Moscow. But even a stalemate delivered key secondary benefits of sundering Europe’s economic ties with Russia and triggering an energy crisis that crippled German industry.

The sabotage of Nord Stream 2 severed Russia’s cheap gas supplies overnight. By late 2022, European wholesale gas prices had surged tenfold, peaking at €316/MWh. German manufacturers, once buoyed by Russian gas at $0.02 per kWh, faced energy costs five times higher than their U.S. competitors. The continent scrambled to fill the energy gap with expensive LNG imports, but the damage was done.

The energy shock plunged the German economy into recession, with real GDP contracting by 0.3% in 2023 and 0.2% in 2024. Industrial production declined significantly, with energy-intensive sectors seeing the biggest drops (e.g., overall industrial production down 1.5% in 2023, and the chemical industry's production falling by nearly 8% ). The crisis also fueled high inflation, peaking at 10.4% in October 2022. Consequently, many German companies are considering or actively relocating production abroad due to persistently high energy costs, with a 2024 survey indicating 37% of industrial companies are contemplating such moves.

Russia proved more resilient than expected, but the broader U.S. objective held: Europe and Russia are now locked in a militarized stalemate, with economic integration becoming impossible. While a strong European ally would have been preferable, a divided Eurasia, with Europe drained by defense spending and Russia bogged down in war, still serves as an acceptable alternative to a unified rival bloc.

The U.S. withdrawal has already begun, signaling Europe to shoulder its own defense. NATO’s push for members to spend a staggering 5% of GDP on the military will force austerity, gutting social programs and deepening political fractures. Meanwhile, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Trump-era tariffs are accelerating Europe’s deindustrialization, luring manufacturers across the Atlantic.

The Europeans are left with soaring energy costs, industrial flight, and a security vacuum as U.S. troops redeploy. Economic strain and fear of a resurgent Russia are fuelling domestic unrest and intra-European recriminations. The EU itself faces an existential test that Washington seems content to watch unfold.

As J.D. Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference made clear, the U.S. views the EU as an unwieldy bureaucracy. A fragmented Europe of nation-states, each negotiating from a position of weakness, would be far easier to manage than a cohesive bloc.

Ultimately, the U.S. succeeded in derailing Europe's pivot to Asia, freeing Washington to redirect its full attention there. The entrenched hostility between Europe and Russia has, consequently, rendered comprehensive Eurasian integration politically toxic. While trade with China continues, a deep-seated distrust persists, with Beijing being seen as Moscow’s shadow partner, ensuring relations remain frozen in 'strategic ambivalence.' For American foreign policy, this represents an acceptable stalemate: a continent connected enough to avoid collapse, yet too divided to challenge U.S. primacy.

Abandoned by its security guarantor and economically weakened, Europe is now truly adrift, facing an existential reckoning as it navigates the treacherous waters of a rapidly emerging multipolar world, its former role shattered.