Thierry Balzacq: History teaches us something a bit different though. Recall how deadly the 1990s were. There were at least three traumatic events: the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, the genocide in Rwanda, and the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is still raging today and has claimed more than 6 million lives thus far, according to the Global Conflict Tracker. And what about the first quarter of this century? It started with a spectacular terrorist attack against the United States, followed by spiralling violence and sometimes abuse: a global war on terror that has profoundly transformed the international system. Since the Russian attack on Georgia in 2008, clouds have continued to gather over Europe. It is not so much the proximity of war or the intensity of its violence that is shaking Europe, but rather the fading political vision that had previously granted the continent some level of psychological comfort and spared it from the need to pursue independent strategic thinking. Indeed, since the end of World War II, Western Europe and then the European Union gradually embraced the idea that liberalism was the most effective bulwark against war, all the more so because it was backed by the United States. Over time, necessity became conviction. However, a radical change has occurred. The United States is now unravelling the triple protective bulwark of international liberalism: 1) promotion of the rule of law; 2) support for international institutions; and 3) economic interdependence, which is supposed to reinforce peaceful coexistence between states. This is where the violence that Europeans perceive lies. 

Giuliano Da Empoli: I think this brutality is actually a return to normal in international relations. The exception was the period that is now drawing to a close. Historians who study military technology posit an interesting thesis: there are periods when offensive technologies develop more than defensive technologies, and others when defensive technologies manage to counteract the rise of offensive technologies. The former periods are obviously more belligerent, and we have entered a period that is all the more belligerent now that it is possible to attack at low cost. Today, shooting down a two-hundred-dollar drone requires a three-million-dollar Patriot missile. A whole range of offensive technologies enable attacks, such as cyberattacks, at almost zero cost for both state and non-state actors.

G. D. E.: I think that the current brutality operates at two levels. At one level, we are seeing the return of what I call predators: Trump, Putin and many other current leaders. Just reread the classics such as Tacitus, Suetonius and Machiavelli to identify them and understand their modus operandi. But it is also important to understand that, at a lower level, these actors are supported by a technological infrastructure of brutality. In all countries, and at both the international and national levels, the debate is moving into the lawless ecosystem of the digital world. It is leaving the regulated spheres of political confrontation to enter a space that could be described as a digital Somalia, akin to a failed state run by warlords.

T. B.: Technology is inadequately addressed when it is isolated from other state capabilities. In international relations, the first challenge is to determine the extent to which a technology reconfigures the attributes of power, in order to differentiate between technological breakthroughs and incremental developments. Satellite surveillance of battlefields is certainly an unprecedented breakthrough. In wars such as the one in Ukraine, the theatre of operations has become transparent. When one side can anticipate the troop movements of the other by the minute, the chances of checkmating an opponent diminish, short of deploying a weapon of mass destruction that the opponent does not have. A second and no less important challenge is to assess the effect of technology on the control of the precise coordinates of confrontation hotspots. In many cases, technological innovations do not only provide new tools, but also give rise to a new area of action with its own rules of engagement. But whatever the technology, the rationale for action – or strategic rationality – remains the same, and this is what makes all the difference on the battlefield. Finally, in wars that drag on, the new technologies offer decision-makers – especially the less scrupulous among them – a tool to control the underpinning narrative that is far more compelling than leaflets. And troop morale and popular support remain critical to mobilising the resources needed to continue a war.

T. B.: According to Raymond Aron, deterrence is a test of wills. It rests on two pillars: the reality of the means and the credibility of the threat. It is based on the assumption of rational actors, hence the axiom: nuclear weapons are made not to be used. I think this is a simplistic and even inaccurate view. If they are made never to be used, how can they deter anyone? What's more, in the wildest scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons, it's often an accident, a misinterpretation, or a misread signal that precipitates a catastrophe. The corollary is that there is probably no really adequate point of balance in terror. At most, there are ways of reassuring oneself about the other side’s intentions by taking oneself as the unit of measurement. But when the players operate in different semiotic environments, as we are seeing today, the whole vocabulary of deterrence needs to be revisited.

G. D. E.: I have a theory about this that is not very reassuring: I think that decisions remain very rational up to a certain point, beyond which they become completely irrational. To expand on the human factor, we also need to consider a generational effect. The generation that experienced the trauma of the first use of nuclear weapons is disappearing from the public arena, resulting in a loss of collective memory. The political and strategic cultures that formed around nuclear weaponry, and that helped freeze the situation for several decades, have dissolved with the generational turnover. It is unclear whether the absolute taboo around using nuclear weapons still exists. Moreover, the end of taboos is not confined to nuclear powers. We are witnessing the return of political language that would have been unconscionable just a few years ago. Such transgressions include the use of Nazi symbols, for example.
 

T. B.: It is important to distinguish between the scale of the phenomenon and its significance. Tech is both the incubator and the vehicle of algorithmic power, which is more significant in the United States because the country is currently home to most of the major tech groups. That said, the advent of technology in US politics cannot be separated from the pursuit of a revolutionary political project within some Silicon Valley circles. This project is not always coherent, but several ideas run through the different layers of American tech politics. These include dismantling the cardinal principles of liberal democracy and emancipating society from an American life considered too ordinary. The goal is to create a techno-utopian world of sorts. In addition to a very narrow conception of the national interest, anti-liberal nationalism and techno-utopianism share a longstanding American idea that the historian Frederick Jackson Turner advanced in his day: the frontier thesis. The frontier embodies three interrelated notions: expansion, extraction and soteriology. First, the frontier thesis is fuelled by a permanent desire to conquer new territories. Status quo means death. Second, it encourages the exploitation of resources deemed essential to American power (gold and oil in the past, and rare earths today). Third, the constant pushback of the frontier is core to the American identity. This is why the end of the frontier, decreed in 1890, was experienced by some Americans as a loss of meaning. Today's talk of Greenland, Canada and the planet Mars is of a piece with the reinvention of the foundational myth that American identity can only be regenerated through conquest. It is no less than a soteriological project, since it is the soul of America – or rather its salvation – that is at stake.

G. D. E. : The emergence of this tech elite, which is increasingly explicit about its societal and political project, reminds me of the conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortés and the conquistadores in the seventeenth century. The Aztec emperor Moctezuma II and his political entourage saw two hundred poorly dressed, strange-looking foreigners arrive. The Aztecs had the power to exterminate these strangers, but the latter had sticks from which thunder and lightning emanated, were riding on some kind of tamed deer and wore glittery clothes that resisted arrows. The emperor hesitated: were they humans or gods? Given his doubt, he refused to allow them near his capital, but brought them offerings. At the end of the twentieth century, the American and European political classes practised the same kind of cultural submission to tech. They were told that there was no need to regulate, that this prodigious toy followed its own rules, that it couldn't be touched or it would break, and that they didn't understand anything about it anyway. At that time, tech was small, it was nice, it was the work of sympathetic young people. Against this backdrop, in 1996 the United States passed the seminal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which released websites from any responsibility for the content they hosted. Over the years, these tools have become an extraordinarily powerful machine. They have an increasingly great impact on structuring political and public life, and even the lives of each and every one of us. They are becoming the global interface for our interactions with the world, and we are allowing it. Of course, like any technological innovation, they reflect progress, but we have not figured out their governance and compatibility with the political institutions of democracies. In 2012, Eric Schmitt, then head of Google, played a decisive role in the re-election of Barack Obama. His support was perhaps even more critical than that provided by Elon Musk for the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024. The difference is that Schmitt was very discreet and wasn’t seeking to impose a point of view or ideology. The idea was more to serve a political project. Today, the societal and governance project that some of the tech environment is explicitly advancing has come to full light. Whatever the political sensibilities of those involved, the goal is to oppose the institutions of liberal democracy. Market leaders used to more or less put up with the kindly liberals and social democrats of the old political class, whereas tech leaders have left them in the dust. Driven by a form of technological and epistemological insurgence, tech leaders have embraced more extreme political leaders who share their spirit of conquest and chaos. This very radical situation is frightening.

T. B.: Europe's problem has well-documented historical origins. When you are protected at little cost and don't have to pay out of pocket, you can end up with a certain intellectual nonchalance and free riding. Economists have thoroughly documented this classic deviance in collective action, wherein certain groups take advantage of benefits without paying the costs. This results in what is known in international relations theory as buck-passing. The strategy consists of making someone else carry the burden. When you live off someone else, you have no control over your own destiny. I think the most damaging effect of this situation on Europeans has been the loss of strategic competence. One constant in the history of European integration is the importance of crisis situations. Unfortunately, announced intentions or decisions taken under duress do not always lead to lasting change, because once the crisis is over, states are drawn back into their behavioural routines. During Trump's first term, Europe held its breath. The election of Joe Biden in 2020 led to the belief that Trump's presidency had been a bad, but brief, interlude. Although France continued to insist on the need for European strategic autonomy, most other states opted for a wait-and-see attitude. In anticipation of Trump's return, which came as no surprise, the European Union prepared for a trade war, but probably not for an earthquake across all sectors, including ideological ones. It remains to be seen whether the current crisis will be of sufficient magnitude to bring about a profound change of culture within the European Union. Promising signs are emerging across a host of projects and achievements. However, we must not confuse a sectoral issue – consolidating the European defence industry – with a grand strategy. Financial initiatives and discussions on industrial investment and on expanding the French nuclear umbrella are underway, pointing to a new strategic era for the European Union. But no one is in a position to say if and how this will crystallise. Promises are not enough to make things happen.  

G. D. E.: Absolutely. The humiliation that Europe is currently experiencing was, in a way, inevitable because of its lack of sovereignty. It remains to be seen whether this will continue and make the twenty-first century one of European humiliation, or whether we have a chance of getting out of it through a complete cultural change. The whole European project and the whole history of the Community was built on the implicit idea of American protection. The removal of this buffer is a serious trauma. However, perhaps it is encouraging to consider that the predators' relentless attack on European institutions is probably the only point of consensus between Trump and Putin, as well as between Zuckerberg, Musk and the other tech bosses. They all see European institutions and regulation as a target to be destroyed, because they see them as obstacles to the realisation of their project. It's important to understand this threat, which is formulated very clearly and explicitly. For the moment, I have the impression that we are only grasping one or two dimensions, but perhaps not the whole picture.

T. B.: In the field of international relations, since the early 2000s we have seen two developments with an unfortunate impact on the training of elites. First, since we were at peace, what was the point of teaching strategy? The subject was exclusively delegated to military academies. Yet from the 1960s to the end of the 1990s, strategic studies featured prominently in most international relations programmes. The American political scientist Stephen Walt highlights that one of the shortcomings of both old and new international relations programmes is that they no longer teach strategy as a way of thinking and acting. There is no need to master traditional strategic studies to understand that one state is always the strategic object of another. Diplomatic studies have likewise disappeared from the teaching of international relations. My co-authors and I noted this when we edited our Global Diplomacy. These subjects come up in the Masters year, but not in the preceding years, which are crucial to building students’ intellectual architecture. How can people tasked with dealing with diversity be expected to build shared solutions if they have not acquired the basic skills that come with learning diplomacy? Universities are beginning to fill this gap, but it will take time.

G. D. E.: The 1980s and 2000s were a bad time for political socialisation and they were a poor preparation for today's world. They were characterised by the illusion of victory, of the end of history, of the liberal consensus, and they produced a reductive vision of politics that boiled down to a competition between two PowerPoint slides. May the best slide win! Politics is much more complex and much more brutal. It has irrational roots and therefore cannot be read in a purely technocratic way. If politics is reduced to a technical management activity, the political curriculum itself is devalued. Politicians lack the hands-on experience within a party, particularly at local level, that is so rich in lessons. As a result, the political class taking office is largely unaware of the serious strategic challenges that lie ahead.

T. B.: Although there is a great deal of overlap between international and domestic affairs, elections are not won on foreign policy or international relations issues. It's as if we still haven't understood that the link between internal and external affairs has become so powerful that it is now essential to elect leaders with a real understanding of world politics . Fortunately, when it comes to international relations, it's easy to recognise the amateurs: they pit strategy against pragmatism; they favour instinct over reflection; they swear by immediate gains; they prefer self-promotion over the discretion required by the day-to-day work of those who ensure the continuity of the state. Diplomatic history teaches us that the results are short-lived at best, and most often are catastrophic.

T. B.  When it comes to security, the decisive question is: what is the reference object and what is under threat? In the case of climate change, the answer is overwhelming. The threat does not concern an individual or a nation, but humanity as a whole. As a result, the referent is so all-encompassing that it redefines the rest of our concerns. The problem of war between nations or between groups and blocs is almost relativised in the face of what appears, in every respect, to be a meta-threat. I believe the European Union would be making a major miscalculation if it were to curb its own efforts on the grounds that the rest of the world, and in particular the United States under President Trump, is retreating on climate. The fight against climate change also represents a certain idea of humanity. Researchers working on risk perception have clearly analysed the cognitive bias of indifference to issues that do not affect people personally and directly. This is all the more true for the most catastrophic consequences of global warming on a timeline that our minds are incapable of grasping.

G. D. E. I'd like to make the link between global warming and the warming of the social climate, which is inseparable from our move into tech, by citing the example of Alexander Nix, the former head of Cambridge Analytica. Here's what he said ten years ago: ‘If you want to sell Coke and you go to a traditional advertising company, they'll offer you advertising, sponsorship, and a few more machines in cinemas. I tell you that the only way to sell Coke is to raise the temperature in the cinema. People get hot, they get thirsty and they buy Coke. It's much more effective.’ In a way, this model has become that of tech in general. The idea is to raise the social temperature on social platforms via algorithms, to overexcite, radicalise, polarise and so on. Once the temperature has risen to a certain level, our ability as a society to deal with any issue is reduced. This is all the more true in the face of a challenge as great as climate change. Bringing down or regulating the social temperature, if only a little, so that we are once again in a position to discuss and confront the issues at stake in a more or less rational way, should be the objective.

T. B.: Barely two years ago, when it came to foreign influence in France, the main focus was still on Russia and China. At the time, the United States shared the Europeans' perspective. I believe James David Vance's speech in Munich in February 2025 changed everything. The US Vice-President's speech created a crack in the intellectual boundary that existed between Westerners as a group including the United States, and the rest of the world. In the current climate of international political saturation, the most urgent thing to do is to face up to American power, its injunctions, aggressive measures, and disregard for allies. There seems to be no end to the escalation. Europeans are no longer being asked to devote 2 to 3 per cent of their GDP to defence, but 5 per cent – well above the American level. 
The media may be talking a little less about China, but that does not mean that leaders are no longer concerned. The mistake of the current US administration is to believe that it can win the strategic competition against China, undoubtedly one of the most decisive in its history, by alienating most of its strategic partners. To paraphrase Thucydides, when rivalry between powers intensifies, the first lesson of strategy is a simple one: ‘Take care of your relationships.’ The current American frenzy may be no more than a last stand, as the country is well aware that its position in the hierarchy of nations is precarious. Most trade statistics show an increasingly favourable shift towards China. Moreover, by no longer defending the rule of law or other international liberal values, the United States is abandoning the differentiator it had cultivated since independence. These values gave the US moral credit in relation all the other authoritarian states, notably China and Russia. American leadership was ideational before it was material. A last stand, then, but what next? The answer will depend in part on Europe's decisions. In any case, I think it is essential to distinguish between proposals that are subordinate to a transitional situation – responding to Trump – and those that are part of a grand strategy.

G. D. E.: As Ghassan Salamé  put it, the new American-Chinese Cold War is not just a reality. It is the project of certain elites, including certain American elites who want to make it the basis of a new structuring of the world. But most countries reject this project, and Europe has every interest in rejecting it too. On the other hand, we must not make the mistake of considering as chaotic any order that is less aligned with our interests. What appears chaotic to us is, from another perspective, an order which is being rebuilt with different balances and which we too can shape.