The coming fracturing of Europe

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In a multi-polar future world where neutrality and disengagement were not options, how would European countries line up with the three great powers and why?

Imagine Europe in a hard season over the next five to ten years: sanctions and counter-sanctions biting, energy and shipping routes contested, finance tightening, cyber and sabotage normalised, and deterrence no longer an abstract doctrine but a daily challenge. In that climate, “neutrality/independence” is not a proud civilisational statement but an unaffordable luxury. Countries would align, not with the banner they wave at conferences, but with the patron that can keep the lights on, the shelves stocked, and the border quiet; keep them as safe as possible.

Under that sort of pressure, Europe would not split by ideology so much as by four brute variables: (1) immediate security threat perception, (2) dependence on trade and industrial supply chains, (3) exposure to energy leverage, and (4) the temperament of domestic politics - especially the tolerance for coercion dressed up as “pragmatism”.

The US camp: the security-first Atlanticists

This bloc would be built around NATO reliance and a vivid sense of Russian proximity. Expect the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Poland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and a scattering of others to land here. The UK would be firmly in this camp too, non-EU membership notwithstanding. 

The logic is simple: when you believe you may be next and you can't realistically defend yourself, you buy the strongest insurance policy available. In Europe that still means American power - airlift, ISR, nuclear guarantees, logistics, and the ability to make threats credible - if America chooses to supply them.

These states would accept economic friction with China if necessary, because the alternative is worse: being “left alone” on a continent where proximity is destiny and deterrence is a collective sport.

The China camp: the trade-first industrial pragmatists

If the eastern rim is governed by fear of invasion, the industrial core is governed by fear of stagnation and economic warfare. In a no-neutrality world, countries whose prosperity is welded to export markets, manufacturing scale, and capital flows would be tempted to lean Beijing-ward: Germany above all, with France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Greece, and perhaps others depending on who is in office.

China’s offer is not sentimental. It is transactional: markets, financing, supply-chain access, and an ideology-light vocabulary of “non-interference”. In a crisis, that can look like oxygen. The cost is that dependency is never a free lunch; “investment” segues effortlessly into leverage.

The Russia camp: the coercion-and-leverage periphery

This would likely be the smallest camp, but the most disruptive. Russia’s comparative advantage in a fractured Europe is not charm - it is proximity, energy leverage (where it still exists), intelligence reach, and the ability to reward or punish neighbours quickly. Belarus is the obvious anchor. Beyond that, Russia’s likely pickups are hinge or vulnerable states where domestic politics, energy exposure, or territorial pressure make alignment a form of damage limitation: Slovakia and Hungary are plausible candidates, with Serbia a perennial swing state. Moldova could be forced into this orbit under sustained duress.

This is not a “pro-Russia” romance so much as a grim accommodation: a decision made by governments that conclude they cannot afford permanent hostility with the bear next door - or that find the bear’s political/cultural style congenial.

The hinge states: where the crack runs through the cabinet table

Some countries would not so much “choose” as oscillate. Italy is the canonical example: Atlantic security instincts pulling one way, the seduction of Chinese capital and markets pulling the other. France, too, would try to perform “strategic autonomy” - but in a forced-choice world it could easily end up economically entangled with China while attempting to retain American security links (good luck with that). Hungary and Serbia remain the most obvious pivot points between camps.

The underlying rule

In peacetime, Europeans like to talk as though alignment is a moral essay. In crisis, it becomes a procurement exercise. The eastern and northern rim aligns with the US because it wants credible deterrence now, not philosophical debates. The industrial core leans towards China because it wants markets, supply chains, and financing when growth is life support. Russia picks off exposed edges where geography and leverage do what speeches cannot. Notice how how energy leverage dominates the Russia camp, trade dependence the China camp, and threat perception the US camp

None of this is inevitable, and each country contains factions tugging in different directions. But if neutrality is truly off the table, Europe does what it has always done when history stops being polite: it falls into camps according to fear, fuel, finance, and the psychology of power.

Next: The failure to create a 'United States of Europe'.

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