This"small, slow, and old" Europe is of no use to the United States which is competing with Beijing for world supremacy, and in the past few hours Donald Trump has done nothing but make this clear. This is what the Minister of Defense, Guido Crosetto , claims in a long post on X in which he comments on the US National Security Strategy published yesterday by the White House, adding that"every decision, every future action will be faced with a single objective: strengthening the United States in the competition with China." "The trajectory of American policy was clear even before Trump's arrival, which has only accelerated an irreversible path," wrote the Fratelli d'Italia representative."The US is engaged in an increasingly difficult, complex, and tough competition with China, and every action, decision, and behavior must be interpreted within this context. Trump has simply made it clear that the EU (Europe, ed.) is of little or no use to him in this competition."

According to Crosetto, in Washington's eyes, Europe has lost interest because"it doesn't have particularly significant or useful natural resources. Because it is losing the competition in innovation and technology. Because it lacks military power. Because, compared to the world's new players, it is small, slow, and 'old.' The reasons why it has done so, even with a bit of harshness, aren't even a surprise to them, because its judgments (and those of many Republican or Maga representatives) on some of the Union's positions and political choices have been known for years."

For the Defense Minister, however,"the main issue is not the EU. As can be seen from the limited space dedicated to the old continent in the strategy released yesterday. Every decision, every future action will be addressed with a single objective: strengthening the US in competition with China." An approach that Crosetto defines as "pragmatic, without sentiments or attachments, utilitarian and exclusively oriented towards economic and technological supremacy in the coming years because it means supremacy in this century." "It is this scenario (as I said, widely foreseen) that must define the choices, decisions, and strategies of the smaller nations (like us)","not to exercise supremacy over anyone but to guarantee our future."

"The bad news is that we should (in my opinion, we should) think about what our American allies have provided us, free of charge, up to now: security, defense, and deterrence. I'm not just talking about military security," the minister continued, adding that"by political choice, in recent years we have built and consolidated a large number of bilateral relationships with nations that can help us on the future path (in Africa, the Gulf, Asia, South America, Australia) to guarantee and strengthen economic, energy, and strategic supply security," he added."By choice, we have helped give a small positive boost to a Europe that had lost touch with the trajectories of the world, thinking it could shape it in its own image and likeness. Small, because the ideological and bureaucratic resistance that rejects a rapid and pragmatic approach to evolving reality is very strong and deeply rooted."

According to Crosetto,"Europe is also a natural place to find partners to do what we are too small to achieve alone. For example, it's clear that the financial"entry threshold" to make up for lost time on key technologies requires a level of public and private investment that is burdensome even for 27 nations. But it must be done to survive. The same goes for Defense: the more we are, the stronger it is, the less it costs. We are in the midst of epochal changes. We need to see them, understand them, and steer the ship, like at sea during a storm. Because, as happens at sea, no one, not even the greatest, is able to control the currents of the times we live in, but everyone is forced to navigate them as best they can."