The Strategy Europe Has Yet to Write – and Why Ukraine Should Write It

We have grown accustomed to speaking about the war in the language of the frontline: how many square kilometres have been lost, where the line of contact stands today and how it differs from where it stood yesterday. But the frontline is, above all, a symptom rather than the disease itself. A moving line reflects the absence of full control over one’s own territory, and this is precisely the nature of a war that has already lasted longer than both world wars of the last century combined. The question we should be asking now is not “when will the war end?”, but “what kind of Europe will this war leave behind, and who will become its architect?”

My argument is simple: Ukraine’s agency and Europe’s agency are not two parallel processes, but one and the same process. Europe will not acquire a new security architecture while bypassing Ukraine. And Ukraine will not achieve a full victory if it waits for someone else to build that architecture.

The military dimension: the only country that knows how to defend itself

Today, Ukraine is the only country in Europe that knows, in practice rather than in doctrine, how to fight and win individual battles of modern warfare: drone warfare, hybrid warfare, high-tech warfare and wars of attrition. This is a competence no NATO army possesses, including the largest ones. It cannot be bought for any amount of money or reproduced through military exercises – it emerges only from real combat.

This is why the end of the war cannot simply mean a frozen conflict designed to preserve the status quo. A realistic framework for ending the war is Russia’s capitulation and the payment of reparations to Ukraine. But there is an uncomfortable truth here: Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s potential collapse are, in essence, desired only by Ukraine itself. Europe and the United States fear such an outcome – not because they sympathise with Russia, but because they have no plan for the “day after” in the event of the collapse of a nuclear state. This explains the caution, the delays and the search for compromise formulas. Ukraine should understand this not as a betrayal by its partners, but as a strategic gap that Ukraine itself can and should fill with proposals of its own.

Alongside the fighting on the frontline, another war is under way – a hybrid war for which Europe has yet to accept responsibility. More than five thousand drone incidents over European sites are no longer isolated provocations, but an element of conventional warfare that Europe still refuses to call by its real name.

Demography: the bill that will have to be paid after victory

A strategy without demography is merely a strategy on paper. Eleven million people have left the country, while eight and a half million remain in occupied territories. Thirteen million pensioners already require support. Entire regions and villages have been left without men of working age.

This is not a question for the future – it is a question that will determine whether Ukraine is capable of maintaining economic independence after victory. Any strategy that does not answer the question of who will return, when they will return and under what conditions remains little more than a declaration.

Demography will determine whether Ukraine can sustain its military, economy and political agency ten to fifteen years from now. Without a strategy to restore human capital, even a military victory could ultimately turn into a strategic defeat.

The economy: between poverty and massive investment

Ukraine’s post-war economic trajectory is a crossroads rather than a straight line. At one end lies poverty and chronic dependence on external aid. At the other lies large-scale investment, reconstruction and a new economic status. The direction Ukraine takes will depend less on macroeconomic indicators than on two factors: the outcome of the war and the position Ukraine takes in negotiations over its own future.

There are two scenarios: poverty and gradual exhaustion, or major investment – but only on the condition of victory and a clear Ukrainian position. Investors do not enter a country whose frontline is still moving and whose political horizon remains uncertain. Ukraine’s economic independence begins not with grants, but with control over its territory, security and predictable rules of the game.

At present, the state budget remains heavily dependent on support from international partners. The question of fiscal independence – whether Ukraine can sustain its pension system and social obligations using its own resources – is not simply an accounting issue, but a question of sovereignty. A state that cannot sustain itself will always remain the object of other people’s decisions rather than the subject of its own.

Politics: fractures in Europe and divisions within Ukraine

This is where the picture becomes most alarming. Le Pen in France, the AfD in Germany, pro-Russian elements in the governments of Bulgaria and Slovakia, and growing anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in Poland all contribute to a realistic scenario in which a pro-Russian bloc gains greater influence in the European Parliament. NATO, as a structure, has not demonstrated a readiness to fight, while the United States continues to reduce its military presence in Europe. The security umbrella Europe has long relied upon is visibly becoming thinner.

Yet another division is emerging inside Ukraine itself – between those who fought and those who did not, particularly at the regional level. Veterans returning from the war often encounter resistance from local elites that have strengthened their positions in the rear during the years of war. This is a fracture that may not be visible from Brussels or Washington, but it could prove more dangerous than any external threat if it is not recognised and addressed now.

The axis of hostile powers and the question that will shape the architecture of peace

Will the threat posed by Russia, Iran and North Korea disappear once – and if – the active phase of the war in Ukraine comes to an end? Will China remain the United States’ principal strategic rival despite what is happening in Europe? The answers to these questions will determine not only Europe’s future, but also the global security architecture for decades to come.

Nuclear blackmail is increasingly becoming an instrument of state power – used by Russia and, potentially, North Korea. NATO has yet to provide a clear answer to a fundamental question: is the Alliance prepared to recognise this challenge as systemic rather than treating each act of intimidation as an isolated incident? And what new alliances – not necessarily operating under NATO’s umbrella – could emerge in response to this lack of readiness?

The transformation of institutions: NATO, the EU and the reality they do not want to acknowledge

NATO has demonstrated serious limitations in modern warfare: drones fly over military bases, missiles enter allied airspace, and there is no symmetrical response.

NATO, in its current form, has demonstrated its ineffectiveness in modern warfare – not because it lacks resources, but because it lacks both experience and political will. Ukraine is still not admitted, even though its ability to fight is already shaping the new security reality of the region. Europe de facto possesses a country with combat experience that no member of the Alliance can match – yet that country remains outside the decision-making perimeter.

The European Union is also moving slowly towards membership because it understands the scale of the challenges Ukraine's accession would bring, from economic integration to agricultural policy. This is not hypocrisy, but a rational, though painful, calculation.

The logical conclusion is that a new military alliance outside the formal structures of NATO is not merely a hypothesis, but an increasingly plausible scenario. Not as a replacement for NATO, but as a response to challenges that the existing architecture either does not see or does not want to confront.

Resilience rather than democracy: the new currency of European security

We are entering a period in which the primary currency of development is no longer the democratic nature of institutions and procedures, but the resilience of states. Military, demographic, hybrid and energy challenges are becoming the main drivers of transformation, rather than the abstract values declared in founding treaties.

In this new configuration, Ukraine cannot afford to remain in a position of waiting. One of the few genuine instruments of influence available to Ukraine is to begin formulating its own strategy not only for itself, but for Europe as a whole – a strategy that defines the potential participants of a new security coalition, outlines the contours of new military alliances and identifies the place within them for countries willing to pay the price of resilience rather than merely speak about it.

Agency is not granted – it is taken by setting the agenda before others do. And if Ukraine does not propose this strategy first, someone else will, possibly without taking Ukrainian interests into account.

Resilience is the central currency of Europe’s modern development. Challenges are the main drivers of change. Ukraine cannot remain the object of other people’s strategies within this new configuration. It must take an active position.

It should not wait for Brussels, Berlin or Washington to give permission. Instead, Ukraine should begin shaping the circle of future participants in a new coalition: countries that already understand the Russian threat; countries that need Ukrainian technologies; and countries for which preserving the status quo means a slow form of capitulation.