We need a Europe built by Europeans – not a copy of the US – Lithuanian MP Matas Maldeikis

It is now fashionable to speak of the Thucydides Trap, in which a rising China is said to be destined to collide with a declining United States. But what we are witnessing is something closer to the Gracchi Trap.

The Gracchi Trap emerges when a state’s institutions stagnate, when real economic problems accumulate, when reforms become necessary for the survival of the system itself - yet the system has come to function in such a way that any serious attempt to repair it appears as a threat to the existing order. The Roman Republic began to collapse long before the barbarians arrived now when its political system lost the capacity to reform itself and adapt to new realities.

A similar process is now unfolding within the world order. The post-war system was built on a verry specific bargain. America opened its market, guaranteed maritime trade and the physical security of its allies, created a financial architecture, and in return received dominance and global trust. The dollar’s status as the reserve currency became the expression of that trust in America.

Before our eyes, the assumption is collapsing that America will always have an interest in sustaining the very world order it created, defending its allies, and upholding rules.

Now the United States itself is dismantling this order. Mostly because it has begun to treat its allies as a competitor. The European Union and Japan are being placed in the same category as China and Russia. International relations are therefore becoming transactional. Nothing personal, just business. It is not China or Russia that are destroying the old order – they learned how to extract maximum advantage from it, and that order served them exceptionally well. What they are destroying is the power of Western civilisation. That is not the same thing as the order created after the Second World War.

What remains of the old order is the dollar’s status as the reserve currency. Because, for the United States, it still works. It rests on confidence in the American economy and on the power of the petrodollar system. Yet the era of dollar power is ending, even though no real alternative yet exists. Because this is no longer merely a question of trust; it is becoming a question of other states’ geopolitical security.

Around the Strait of Hormuz, oil trade, sanctions evasion, BRICS initiatives, and China’s payment infrastructure, what is taking shape is not a replacement for the dollar, but a network of detours around it. China is acting most strategically here, and very much in the Chinese manner. Without unnecessary noise, it is building institutions, payment systems, trade dependencies, debt networks, and raw-material supply chains, waiting for the system to begin retreating of its own accord.

And America is retreating. It increasingly performs dominance rather than projecting real power. More social-media noise, fewer tangible results. Iran has not broken. The trade wars have not been won. China has not been forced to its knees. Allies increasingly ask not what America will do but calculate what they must do when America does nothing.

That is why the strengthening of European defence, Ukraine’s military-technological integration, Japan’s rearmament, and Canada’s trade diversification are not temporary adjustments. They are long-term adaptations to a changed order.

This does not mean that we should turn away from the United States. On the contrary. Europe need the deepest possible relationship with America – military, technological, energy-related, and investment-based. But this will not be enough for the new world.

Europe’s strategic answer must be Europe. Not Europe in its current form. We need a Europe that does not fall into the Gracchi Trap and can reform itself. That is why we need a two-speed Europe for the willing ones. We need a defence union. We need digital sovereignty. We need a European military industry. We need energy independence that means independence – not merely replacing one supplier with another.

We need a Europe built by Europeans. Not a copy of the United States, nor of anyone else. We must create our own path – and have the courage to walk it.

Matas Maldeikis is a Member of the Seimas (Parliament) of the Republic of Lithuania, representing the center-right Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD)