The US announced the withdrawal of thousands of troops from Germany, prompting Guardian editorial calls for a pan-European defence strategy.

The claim is that European security is a self-standing entity, a permanent architecture that exists independently of the specific political wills and military assets that currently sustain it. The conditions on which it depends are the continued presence of American troops, the alignment of German domestic politics with transatlantic commitments, and the shared perception of a common threat. When these conditions are listed, the permanence reveals itself not as a property of the continent, but as a description of the present arrangement. The Guardian’s call for a pan-European defence strategy arises from the anxiety that the arrangement is shifting, yet the call itself treats “Europe” as a singular actor capable of independent action, ignoring that this actor is itself a dependent origination of treaties, economies, and historical traumas.

To examine this situation is to trace the conditions of the withdrawal. The United States does not withdraw troops from Germany because it has ceased to exist, nor because Germany has ceased to exist. It withdraws because the conditions that justified the presence - specifically, the post-Cold War security architecture and the domestic political calculus of the American electorate - have changed. The troops were never an eternal fixture; they were a contingent response to a specific historical moment. To view their removal as a rupture in the fabric of reality is to mistake the furniture for the house. The house remains, but the furniture is being rearranged because the occupants have changed their minds about how they wish to live.

The debate surrounding this shift often falls into a binary trap: either Europe is secure under American protection, or it is vulnerable without it. This is a false dichotomy that obscures the dependent nature of both states. If Europe is secure only because of the United States, then Europe has no security of its own; it has only borrowed security. If Europe is vulnerable only because the United States has left, then Europe’s vulnerability is not inherent to its geography or politics, but to its reliance on an external condition. The tetralemma invites us to look closer. Is European security independent? No. Is it entirely dependent? In a practical sense, yes, but this dependence is not a moral failing; it is a structural fact. Is it both? Only if we define “security” in contradictory ways. Is it neither? Only if we abandon the concept of security as a fixed state and view it as a continuous process of negotiation.

The reification of “European Defence” is the central illusion here. The European Union is not a nation-state. It is a complex web of agreements, some of which are binding and others which are merely aspirational. To speak of a “pan-European strategy” as if it were a single mind making a single decision is to ignore the internal contradictions that define the union. Germany, for instance, is not a monolith. Its security posture is the product of its historical guilt, its economic dependence on trade, and its political desire for stability. Friedrich Merz’s position is not an eternal truth about German interests; it is a response to the current political climate. Donald Trump’s position is not an eternal truth about American interests; it is a response to the current political climate. Both are contingent. Both are empty of self-existence.

When the troops leave, the vacuum that appears is not a metaphysical void. It is a space where the dependent origins of security become visible. The anxiety expressed in editorial pages is the anxiety of a child realizing that the parent is not omnipresent. This is a painful but necessary realization. It does not mean the child is doomed; it means the child must now learn to walk, or at least to understand that walking is a skill that depends on balance, strength, and the absence of obstacles.

The Middle Way here is not to assert that Europe should or should not build its own defence. It is to see that the concept of “defence” is itself dependent on the definition of “threat.” If the threat is external invasion, then military hardware is relevant. If the threat is internal fragmentation, then military hardware is irrelevant. The current discourse conflates these, treating the withdrawal of troops as an existential crisis for the European project. But the European project is not a military alliance; it is an economic and political one. Its survival depends on trade, on the free movement of goods and people, and on the rule of law. These conditions are not being withdrawn by the United States. They are being maintained by the member states themselves.

To see this clearly is to dissolve the panic. The panic arises from the belief that security is a thing that can be possessed. It is not. It is a relationship. When the relationship changes, the feeling of insecurity is natural. But the feeling is not the reality. The reality is that the conditions have shifted, and the response must be adapted to the new conditions. This is not nihilism. It is clarity. The troops are gone. The alliance remains, but it is different. The strategy must change, but it is not a new strategy; it is the old strategy, stripped of the illusion that it was ever independent of the conditions that produced it.

In the end, the question is not whether Europe can defend itself. The question is whether Europe can see itself clearly. If it sees itself as a fixed entity, it will fail. If it sees itself as a dependent origination, it can adapt. The emptiness of the European defence identity is not a weakness. It is the space in which actual, effective cooperation can take place. Without the illusion of permanence, there is only the reality of the present moment, and the choices that must be made within it. This is not a tragedy. It is an opportunity to see what was always already the case.