Trump vs Churchill and De Gaulle
In order to confront Trump, Europe needs to follow the teachings of Churchill and De Gaulle.
The speeches made at the recent Davos meeting represented the formal burial of eight decades of the Liberal International Order. A period when America’s hegemony became pivotal in the creation and preservation of a wide web of international institutions, systems of alliances, and a rules-based international order.
Rupture
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney referred to the “rupture” that had taken place within that system, while Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President, asserted that “the shift in the international order is not only seismic – but it is permanent” (Stevis-Grindeff and Austen, 2026; World Economic Forum, 2026). On his part, President Trump, according to The New York Times, “pronounced last rites on American leadership of the liberal democratic order”, arguing “that the United States was done offering its markets and its military protection to European allies he derided as freeloaders” (Goodman, 2026).
Trump, indeed, has joined the revisionist camp, and jointly with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin openly disdains the International Liberal Order.
Faced with the dramatic shake up of the last eight decades’ certainties, what can Europe do? So far, its record in dealing with Trump has been nothing short of abysmal. Years of dependence on its partnership with the U.S., internal divisions, and its preference for spending money on social needs over defense, have left it spineless.
Confronted with Trump’s tariffs, derision and bullying, European leaders have answered by flattering his ego, lavishly honoring him, accepting totally unbalanced trade deals, and pledging to acquire American energy and agricultural products, and to massively invest in the United States. In doing so, they have not only empowered the bully but sent a message to Putin about their weak-willed nature.
What Europe needs is to follow the lessons of two of the twentieth century’s greatest statesmen: Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. From the former it can learn how to build a backbone. From the latter, it can learn how to build a “European” Europe. Their teachings are immensely relevant today.
Churchill
Churchill rebelled against his country’s appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s. Faced with the German Führer’s defiance and predation, the British government assumed that concessions would stabilize the international system, satisfy his ambitions, and ultimately avoid war.
In his famous October 5, 1938 speech at the House of Commons, forcefully condemning appeasement, Winston Churchill stated: “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war” (Britannica).
A few years later, after his country had stood gallantly against the Nazi aggression, the Soviet peril confronted Europe. Once again, Churchill insisted on the need to stop aggression and disruption on the spot because, otherwise, they would only keep advancing. As he remarked in his famous “Iron Curtain” speech of 1946: “There is nothing they [the Soviets] admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness” (Fordham University).
For Churchill, credibility mattered, deterrence had to be early and visible, and totalitarian revisionism could never be confronted with lack of determination. Put in today’s context, credibility in Europe’s backbone matters, dissuasion against bulling and threats must be early and visible, and lack of resolve only strengthens revisionists’ ambitions.
A few months ago, Xi Jinping stood up to Trump’s egregious tariff bullying and stopped it on the spot. China, of course, had a big deterrent: rare earths, a fundamental critical mineral, of which it accounts for around 70 percent of its mining and 90 percent of its refining (McNeal, 2025).
Europe also has important deterrents. In addition to its powerful retaliatory Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), Europe holds US$2 trillion of U.S. Treasury debt, and is a market for US$1 trillion-worth of American goods and services. That, on top of supplying the U.S. with essential technologies for chipmaking, telecom equipment, lenses or aircraft, among others (The Economist, 2026; Nelson, 2026).
De Gaulle
Lessons from Charles de Gaulle also matter greatly. If Churchill warned against appeasement of transgressors, de Gaulle warned against dependence on protectors. If for the former standing firm against aggression was the foundation of dignity, for the latter strategic autonomy was the base of it. That is why de Gaulle insisted on a “European” Europe.
S.J.G. Reyn refers to; ‘The conceptual rivalry between de Gaulle’s ‘European’ Europe and Churchill’s preference for an ‘Atlantic’ Europe – which implied close association with the United States’ (Reyn, 2007, p. 61). De Gaulle was, in fact, the first postwar European leader to seek less rather than more American involvement in European affairs.
The development of an independent nuclear force was central to de Gaulle’s foreign policy. For him, this represented the only way to deter a Soviet aggression without being wholly dependent on the goodwill of the United States. A country that, as he stated in his War Memoirs, ‘brings to great affairs elementary feelings and a complicated foreign policy’ (Reyn, 2007, p. 77). That implied an unreliable foreign policy, wholly contingent to public mood swings and differing opinions between government powers frequently at odds.
De Gaulle, however, supported the alliance with the United Sates ‘on the condition, of course, that ‘alliance’ did not mean ‘submission’ or ‘deference’ to American leadership (Reyn, 2007, p. 49).
Strategic autonomy
Today, European strategic autonomy looks like an unavoidable option. The U.S. seems on the brink of abandoning NATO, or, even without doing so, of disregarding the alliance’s Article 5, the cornerstone of collective security. Fear of the Russian threat, though, has led its European member countries into what de Gaulle always tried to avoid – a situation of vassalage. One in which the U.S. believes itself entitled to receiving tributes (like that of the head of NATO calling Trump “Daddy”), which translates to Europe trying to safeguard the integrity of the alliance at the expense of its dignity.
However, the only thing that Europe should really fear in relation to Russia, in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s terms, should be fear itself. If anything, the invasion of Ukraine has shown that Russia’s conventional military power is a highly ineffectual one. It is utterly unprepared to simultaneously confront the 30 European member countries of NATO, with armies potentially deployed along a shared land frontier of around 2,950 kilometres.
Moreover, Europe enjoys important advantages:
‘In 2024, the European Union and the U.K. had approximately 1.47 million combined active military personnel compared to Russia’s 1.32 million…In 2024, European nations budgeted some $457 billion for military readiness compared with Russia’s $146 billion…European military outmatches Russian in key areas, with 1.47 million personnel, 367,760 armored vehicles and over 2,000 warships, including six aircraft carriers. France, Germany and Britain are increasing defense spending, while Russia struggles with losses, outdated stockpiles, and sanctions-limited weapons production’ (Martynyuk, 2025).
To the above, the probable addition of Ukraine should be considered in any military confrontation between Europe and Russia.
There exists, of course, an asymmetry of nuclear forces between Russia and the two NATO European members with nuclear arsenals: France and the United Kingdom. While Russia is estimated to have 4,309 nuclear warheads, the British and the French are estimated to possess a combined force of about 515 warheads (Fleck, 2025).
However, that is the essence of a minimum deterrent nuclear strategy. Precisely the kind that China held in relation to the United States until recently. One that aims at making the costs of a rival’s first use of strategic nuclear weapons prohibitive. This is, of course, on condition of maintaining a retaliatory strike capability.
Britain maintains that retaliatory strike capability through its Vanguard class Trident nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). The U.K. possesses an arsenal of about 150 operational nuclear warheads available for use in four Trident SSBNs (SIPRI, 2026). On its side, France’s second-strike capability is emphasized through its minimum credible deterrence strategy, essentially reliant on ballistic missile submarines (SLBMs). These, like the British SSBNs, are continuously on patrol and are hard to destroy. Roughly 240-280 nuclear warheads are associated with Frech submarine-launched ballistic missiles (Medium, 2025).
Through this kind of retaliatory second-strike capability, the United Kingdom and France can turn Russia’s overkill nuclear approach utterly superfluous. Under which circumstances would Russia be willing to risk the assured destruction of most of its urban population through a first use of its nuclear arsenal?
Confronting revisionism
Europe’s strategic autonomy capability doesn’t seem to be the problem. The problem is the credibility that sustains it. That is why de Gaulle’s teachings must be combined with those of Churchill. Backbone becomes a fundamental deterrent.
It has been argued that striking similarities exist between the emergence, interlinked relations and solidarity of the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s, and today’s revisionist block (Brands, 2024). Sadly, and oddly enough, this time round the United States is part of the predators’ block.
Aiming at territorial expansion and the grabbing of natural resources, Washington has become a threat to medium and small-size nations. As Mark Carney graphically put it, “if you are not at the table, you are in the menu”. That is why, on their behalf, as much on its own, Europe must stand firm in defense of a rules based international order, where international law and multilateral institutions matter.
Alfredo Toro Hardy, PhD, is a retired Venezuelan career diplomat, scholar and author. Former Ambassador to the U.S., U.K., Spain, Brazil, Ireland, Chile and Singapore. Author or co-author of thirty-six books on international affairs (his latest individual book was published in 2022 by Springer). Former Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Princeton and Brasilia universities. He is currently an Honorary Fellow of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and a member of the Review Panel of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center.
Photo by Stephen Olusegun
References:
Brands, Hal (2024). “The Next Global War”, Foreign Affairs, January 26.
Brittanica. “Munich Agreement”.
Fleck, Anna (2025). “The Countries Holding the World’s Nuclear Arsenal”, Statista, August 5.
Fordham University, Internet History Sourcebook, Winston Churchill, “Iron Curtain Speech”, March 5, 1946.
Goodman, Peter S. (2026). “China Wins as Trump Cedes Leadership of the Global Economy”, January 22.
Martynyuk, Leonid (2025). “Russia’s Kiselyov misleads on European military capacities”, VOA, March 5.
McNeal, Dewardric, L. (2025). “U.S. is losing rare earth metal war to China, and running out of time to win it back”, The Bottom Line, CNBC.
Medium (2025). “Part II: France’s Nuclear Doctrine and Posture”, November 4.
Nelson, Eshe (2026). “The Leverage That Europe Has Over the U.S. Economy”, The New York Times, January 22.
Reyn, S.J.G. (2007). Atlantis lost: the American experience with De Gaulle, 1958-1969. Leiden: Universiteit Leiden.
SIPRI, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2026). “The United Kingdom”.
Stevis-Gridneff, Matina and Austen, Ian (2026). “Canada Flexes on Global Stage With and Eye to Its Own Survival”, The New York Times, January 20.
The Economist (2026). “America’s endangered alliances”, January 24.
World Economic Forum (2026). “Davos 2026: Special address by Ursula von del Leyen, President of the European Commission”, January 21.
