천하天下

Europe is shaking. The epicenter of this tremor is not a single country. France's finances, Britain's cost of living, and Germany's factories and gas reserves are all simultaneously screaming in the same season. In the autumn of 2026, Europe is facing its second energy shock since the war in Ukraine, and this shock, compounded by a political rupture with Russia and reduced support from the United States, is escalating from a 'temporary crisis' to a reordering of its international standing. This reordering is not an accidental misfortune. It is the moment when a civilization that for centuries built its industry and welfare by cheaply acquiring others' land and energy can no longer sustain that formula.

Let's start with France. According to projections released by the Ministry of Finance, the national debt will reach 119.3% of GDP this year and 121.7% next year, the highest since statistics began in 1995. This is double the EU's fiscal rule of 60%. In Paris, ahead of the presidential election, 10-year government bond yields have soared to their highest since 2008, and the spread with German bonds has exceeded 1 percentage point for the first time in 14 years. The Le Cornu cabinet has proposed an austerity plan of 54 billion euros, but parliamentary approval is uncertain. Macron is discussing convening the G7 due to soaring energy prices and considering releasing strategic oil reserves. Although its reliance on gas is lower than Germany and Italy due to a high proportion of nuclear power, drought and heatwaves have threatened even nuclear power plant cooling water, and diesel and aviation fuel prices directly impact the daily lives of ordinary citizens and farmers. The 'dignity of the nation,' built on surpluses extracted from Africa, Indochina, and the Caribbean in the past, is now being tested in front of bond markets and gas stations.

The UK is experiencing the same season in a different way. Household energy bills are projected to rise by 25% in January. The OECD assessed that the UK had the largest decline in growth among major economies since the Iran war, and inflationary pressures are leading to fears of stagflation. After Brexit, the UK championed 'Global Britain,' but in reality, it became more exposed to the decline of North Sea gas and the LNG spot market. A country whose imperial navy once protected coal and oil routes now entrusts its winter to Qatar, the US, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The financial assets of the City, accumulated from taxes and opium collected in India, and from African mines and the slave trade, remain, but these assets do not make heating affordable for its citizens.

Germany is at the forefront of the theory of Europe's decline. January electricity futures have exceeded 180 euros per megawatt-hour, an increase of over 60% compared to a year ago. The overall EU gas storage rate is around 68%, while Germany's is 56%, the lowest for this time of year since records began in 2011. In 2021, over half of Germany's gas imports came from Russia. After Nord Stream was cut off, US LNG filled the void. Approximately two-thirds of European LNG and a significant portion of German LNG come from the US. The price is several times that of previous long-term contracts. Energy-intensive industries have already left, and reports indicate that over 140,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in 2025 alone. Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz has shifted towards allowing large-scale debt for defense and infrastructure, but voter dissatisfaction is flowing elsewhere. The AfD is making strides in state elections, and there are reports that they are preparing to discuss the resumption of gas supplies and the reactivation of Nord Stream next year with Putin's economic envoy. The cost of cutting off cheap Russian gas and choosing 'values-based diplomacy' has come back as a bill for factory operating rates and winter heating all at once.

The crises in these three countries are not isolated. In late February 2026, the US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran and the de facto blockade of Hormuz shook the LNG alternative structure that Europe had painstakingly built since 2022. The achievement of reducing Russian pipeline gas is clear. Russian gas, which accounted for 45% of EU gas imports in 2021, fell to around 12% by 2025. However, the void was filled not by 'energy sovereignty' but by US spot markets and Middle Eastern shipping routes. Brent crude oil fluctuated above $100 per barrel, and European gas prices soared compared to the beginning of the year. The Eurozone's growth rate fell to around 0.9% in 2026, and the forecasts of the Commission and the IMF are tied to how long the Middle East war disrupts energy supplies. Europe declared that it had broken its dependence on Russia, a single supplier, but in reality, it shifted to a structure dependent on more expensive alternative suppliers and more dangerous straits.

The relationship with Russia is not just an energy issue. The war in Ukraine has become a test of whether Europe can remain a 'normative power.' The war has not ended, and Russia is expanding its contact with far-right and anti-war forces within Europe. The German AfD's discussion of resuming gas imports is symbolic of this. At the same time, the Ukrainian front is draining Europe's ammunition and air defense stockpiles, and warnings are repeatedly issued that Russian drone, sabotage, and cyber attacks have extended to the Baltics, Poland, and even within Germany. While Europe antagonizes Russia, it has not yet built the industrial, financial, and military foundations to bear the cost of that antagonism itself. The German model, which maintained export competitiveness with cheap energy; the French model, which maintained its status as a middle power with nuclear power and influence in Africa; and the British model, which survived the post-empire era with finance and maritime networks, have all simultaneously hit their limits.

This is compounded by a reduction in US support. The second Trump administration is considering withdrawing 25,000 to 40,000 of the 80,000 US troops stationed in Europe, with a final decision expected in November. This would be the largest withdrawal since the end of the Cold War. Germany, which hosts the largest number of troops, would be at the center of this impact, with Italy and Spain also being mentioned. The Department of Defense has repeatedly sent the message that Europe bears the 'primary responsibility' for its own defense. The nature of aid to Ukraine has also changed. The method of freely providing US stockpiles, as was done during the Biden era, has decreased, and a structure where Europe pays for and buys US weapons (such as PURL) has come to the forefront. Trump even mentioned 'repayment' for past aid. NATO remains intact on paper, but if the US military power, intelligence, and ammunition pipelines, which are central to its deterrence, thin out, the weight of the alliance will change. For nearly 70 years, Europe has operated its welfare states and export manufacturing on a dual subsidy of the US nuclear umbrella and dollar, and (in Germany's case) cheap Russian energy. Those two pillars are now shaking simultaneously.

At this point, past colonial history becomes not a moral embellishment but an explanatory variable of structure. Britain converted the finances and cotton of the Indian subcontinent, the opium trade with China, and the minerals and labor of Africa into imperial capital accumulation. France built the material foundations of a 'great nation' through settler colonialism, the franc zone, and exclusive resource contracts in Algeria, West Africa, and Indochina. Germany's overseas colonialism was relatively short, but the Herero and Nama genocide in Namibia was a prelude to 20th-century mass killings, and Germany's subsequent prosperity was reconfigured to rely on two world wars, the post-war American order, and Soviet/Russian energy. All three countries claimed to export 'civilization, law, and free trade,' but what actually operated was the violence of cheaply internalizing the sovereignty and resources of others. The surplus created by that violence was the material for the Industrial Revolution, the welfare state, and cultural confidence.

Karma is not a myth of cause and effect. It has a colder meaning. Colonial empires were systems that secured energy sources, raw materials, and markets through military force. Even after that system collapsed, Europe, for a time, extended the same formula as a junior partner to the successor empire of the United States, and then for another period, as a pipeline to the 'semi-periphery' of Russia. While shaking up the politics of Africa and the Middle East, treating Russia as an energy subcontractor, and outsourcing security to the US military, its own foundations for mining, refining, electricity, and defense industries became hollowed out. Now, the old colonies and semi-periphery no longer obey cheaply. Saudi Arabia and Qatar set prices, the US sells LNG and weapons, and Russia tries to turn gas back into a political weapon. The 'politics of dependence' that Europe once applied to others is now, in a reversal, being applied to Europe itself.

Europe's international standing is likely to decline on three fronts. First, there will be a shift from norm-setter to norm-taker. The power to write global rules through carbon borders, digital regulations, and human rights clauses transforms into bargaining power the moment it borrows energy and security from others. Energy purchase agreements with the US, tariffs, and defense cost-sharing already demonstrate this transition. Second, there will be a reduction from a global actor to a coalition of regional powers. Even if nuclear-armed France, the UK with its financial networks, and manufacturing powerhouse Germany each hold their own, if these three countries cannot act as a single strategic entity, their influence in the Indo-Pacific and Middle East will be overshadowed by China, the US, and the Gulf states. The ECB President's warning that Europe holds only a single-digit share in AI computing capacity is a signal that it could fall behind in the next mode of production as well. Third, internal divisions. Eastern Europe feels the Russian threat as an existential one, while parts of Germany and Hungary and Slovakia are re-evaluating cost and peace. French presidential elections and German state politics could institutionalize these divisions. Instead of a single 'Europe,' there could simultaneously exist a Europe clinging to the Atlantic and a Europe seeking to deal with Moscow and Beijing.

Of course, decline is not annihilation. Nuclear power, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, machinery, luxury goods, regulatory authority, and cultural capital remain. Germany's easing of the debt brake and defense investments, France's nuclear power, and the UK's finance and offshore wind could be the ingredients for recovery. However, the conditions for recovery are different from the past. Europe can no longer rely on colonial territories, ultra-cheap Russian gas, and near-unlimited US military deterrence. If it cannot produce its own energy, replenish its ammunition, and lower industrial electricity prices to be competitive, Europe will become a 'museum of expensive energy' rather than a 'continent of values.'

The tension in Europe ahead of the winter of 2026 is therefore not a matter of weather. Empty gas storage facilities, proposals for US troop reductions on the table, and fluctuating French government bonds are all signs of an era's accounting coming to a close. Nations that built their centuries on wealth accumulated from foreign lands now entrust their winters to foreign ships, foreign pipelines, and foreign aircraft carriers. This inverted dependence is the most accurate receipt left by the long shadow of colonialism and plunder in the 21st century. What goes around comes around is not a curse but a structure. Unless this structure is changed, Europe's international standing will decline at the same rate as it reminisces about the past.