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Outside the Box

Financing for defense spending could bring Europe more integrated capital markets

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Whether intended as provocation, leverage or strategic signaling, the U.S. threat to “take over” Greenland captured something unsettling about the current phase of American power: an increasingly transactional approach to security, territory and alliances. It also crystallized a reality that has been building for years: The U.S. is no longer prepared to guarantee security unconditionally — and free.

For Europe and for the world’s middle powers, it means the post-Cold War international order with its security bargain “no longer exists,‘’ to use the words of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the Munich Security Conference last week.