15 December, 2025
Ukraine, Fortress America, and Frankfurt 2.0
The international order is being reshaped by two interlinked transformations. The first is the shift in American grand strategy towards what I call the unbound superpower. The second is the exposure of Europe’s unresolved sovereignty problem. These processes intersect in Ukraine, which has become the hinge on which the future of European security, American strategy, and the continental political order depends.
This analysis is not moral commentary. It is a structural assessment of how states, systems, and actors behave under constraint. I describe incentives, capabilities, and imperatives, not what any actor ought to do. My goal is diagnosis, not judgement. This approach allows the analysis to remain anchored in real forces rather than normative expectations.
I. The American Transformation
The 2025 National Security Strategy confirms a major reorientation of American strategy. The United States still expects the benefits of global primacy. It continues to assume access to markets, dominance in technology and finance, control of maritime infrastructure, and the ability to shape global institutions. What has changed is its willingness to bear the costs of maintaining a world order capable of delivering these advantages.
After the Second World War, the United States willingly carried a disproportionate share of the burden of global security. It did so not out of altruism but from a sober assessment of its interests. It understood that European recovery, Japanese reconstruction, and NATO’s collective defence were essential to American prosperity and long-term safety. It understood what happened when it allowed the world to drift into disorder.
Over time, however, this burden-bearing posture shifted into burden resentment. Many Americans came to believe that allies were exploiting American generosity. NATO partners were seen as under-spending on defence. Asian allies were accused of running trade surpluses at American expense. The perception grew that the United States was paying for a system that primarily benefitted others.
This resentment is one of the main forces behind the Trump Administration’s worldview. Its central belief is that the United States has been taken advantage of. Rather than renegotiating alliances and clarifying the division of responsibilities, it has chosen to threaten, withdraw, and renege. It behaves as if the geopolitical burdens of the past can simply be abandoned without consequence. The danger is not that American strategy seeks costlessness. The danger is that it assumes the consequences of withdrawal will fall on others, while the United States remains safe behind its oceans, wealth, and military power.
This creates a posture of risk externalization. It treats alliances as optional, institutions as obstacles, and commitments as temporary. It assumes that if global stability deteriorates, others will pay the price. This is the core of the unbound superpower mindset: maximum freedom of action, minimal tolerance for obligation, and a belief that the United States can shed burdens while preserving benefits.
II. The Unmade Continent
Europe’s strategic weakness is not a recent development. It is the product of a structural condition that has never been resolved. Europe is an administrative and economic space with extraordinary wealth and institutional sophistication, but without political unity or strategic coherence. It is a market power, not a strategic actor.
For almost eight decades, Europe enjoyed the protection of the United States. American leadership after 1945 was not coercive. It was a stabilizing and enabling force. The United States provided the security umbrella under which Western Europe rebuilt, democratized, and integrated. American protection made possible the ECSC, EEC, EC, and the modern EU.
This arrangement also created dependencies. Because the United States carried the defence burden, Europe did not need to reconcile its internal divisions or craft a unified foreign policy. Because NATO guaranteed stability, Europe invested heavily in welfare systems and regulatory frameworks while neglecting hard power. Over time, the EU became a vast regulatory and welfare bureaucracy while failing to develop the coercive capacity needed to defend the continent.
Many European elites became comfortable as moral instructors, criticizing American strategy and market practices while relying on the United States to deter Russia, secure global trade routes, and stabilize crises. This dynamic resembles individuals who offer confident advice on child-rearing without having children of their own. It is easy to moralize when someone else pays the real cost.
With the American shift toward burden withdrawal and strategic risk-taking, Europe’s structural incoherence has become critical. The continent is prosperous but militarily weak, administratively dense but strategically hollow. It possesses institutions but lacks the political authority and coercive capacity to act as a unified actor.
III. Ukraine as the Hinge of Structural Change
Ukraine is the point where the American transformation and Europe’s fragmentation collide. For the United States, the war has become a regional issue that must be resolved so that American attention can shift to domestic priorities, North American consolidation, and the Indo Pacific. The new strategy signals an openness to a negotiated settlement that preserves some Russian gains in exchange for an end to fighting.
For Europe, especially for the countries on the eastern flank, Ukraine is existential. Russia is treated not as a normal state but as a revisionist actor driven by imperial identity, historical resentment, legitimacy concerns, and geopolitical ambition. A Russian victory or partial victory would undermine European security for decades and validate Moscow’s belief that European borders can be reshaped by force.
Ukraine reveals a contradiction at the heart of the European project. Europe cannot defend Ukraine without American assistance, but it also cannot accept an outcome shaped by American and Russian preferences. The war exposes Europe as strategically dependent yet unwilling to concede that dependency. It is neither autonomous nor adequately protected.
Ukraine is therefore the hinge. It forces both the United States and Europe to confront the realities of their positions. It is the test of whether Europe will remain a protected region or attempt to become an independent strategic actor.
IV. Weimar Plus and Its Implications
In response to the war and the limits of existing institutions, a new coalition has begun to emerge. This formation is often referred to as Weimar Plus. It builds on the old Weimar Triangle of France, Germany, and Poland, which was created in 1991 to support Poland’s entry into the Western political order.
The expanded version includes Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, the Czech Republic, and other militarily serious states. Weimar Plus coordinates on defence procurement, technology, industrial policy, and support for Ukraine. It represents an attempt to create a faster and more flexible mechanism outside the slow consensus procedures of the European Union.
Weimar Plus matters because it acknowledges the inadequacies of Europe’s current structures. It demonstrates that key states recognize the need for more serious defence integration and a coherent response to Russian aggression.
However, it is still only a coalition. It cannot raise taxes, command armies, unify nuclear policy, or impose decisions on its members. It resembles the Concert of Europe or the pre unification German Confederation in the 19th century. It may improve coordination, but it does not produce sovereignty or strategic agency.
V. Frankfurt 2.0 and the Meaning of European Agency
The alternative is full political integration. This is what I call Frankfurt 2.0. The name refers to the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848, which attempted to create a democratic German federation based on shared representation and political authority. The project ultimately failed, but it articulated a vision of a political community capable of acting on its own behalf.
Frankfurt 2.0 signifies the moment Europe now faces. It represents the possibility of creating a European federation with real sovereign capacity. This would require a unified executive, a federal parliament with fiscal powers, integrated armed forces, and a single foreign and security policy. It would require Europe to act as a political agent rather than an administrative space.
Frankfurt 2.0 is the only model that would allow Europe to secure Ukraine, deter Russia, and operate independently of American decisions. It would require Europe to accept internal constraint in exchange for external autonomy. It is the structural trade-off that defines all successful federations.
Conclusion: Europe’s Continental Decision
The United States has chosen a new strategic path. It seeks to reduce its burdens, reshape its alliances, and reclaim freedom of action. Europe must now confront the consequences of its long reliance on American protection.
Europe faces three choices. It can accept dependency and adapt to the reduced American role. It can rely on flexible coalitions like Weimar Plus, which offer improvements but not sovereignty. Or it can attempt Frankfurt 2.0 and build a democratic federation capable of strategic agency.
Ukraine is the hinge on which this choice turns. If Europe wants to be more than a prosperous administrative region, it must develop the capacity to act. The United States has made its decision. Europe must now make its own.
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About the Author
Richard Martin is the founder and president of Alcera Consulting Inc., and the creator of The Strategic Code—a doctrine for leaders navigating volatility, constraint, and conflict.
His mission is simple: equip leaders to exploit change and achieve strategic coherence. Through his advisory work, writing, and tools, he helps senior decision-makers see clearly, understand deeply, and act decisively in high-stakes environments.
Richard is the author of Brilliant Manoeuvres: How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles, and the developer of Strategic Epistemology and Worldview Warfare—frameworks that decode the beliefs, values, and power structures shaping strategic action in a contested world.
www.exploitingchange.com
© 2025 Richard Martin