OP-ED: A unified concept has guided Europe’s post-war transformation from a war-torn battleground to a peaceful stronghold, driven by established multilateral security systems that prevent major wars while necessitating ongoing development to address the strategic changes anticipated in 2025. Since the mid-twentieth century, NATO, along with the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has created complementary systems for deterrence, crisis management, and confidence-building. The collective defense guarantee under Article 5 of NATO has proven effective; by early 2025, the alliance achieved its first-ever average defense spending above 2 percent of GDP, and Canada is expected to meet the 2 percent target in 2025, indicating that European states are increasingly sharing defense responsibilities.
Security in Europe depends on economic integration alongside military defense arrangements. The EU’s CSDP has established itself as an operational force that now operates 4,000 military and civilian staff in 22 ongoing missions and operations that stretch from Western Balkan crisis management to African training activities. Through these operations, the region achieves two objectives: it demonstrates a form of soft power and establishes stability, which minimizes regional conflict potential. The OSCE implements its arms-control frameworks alongside election-monitoring missions to build transparency in Eastern Europe through confidence-building measures and multilateral dialogue that prevent brinkmanship.
Seven decades of peaceful existence face a growing number of challenges that threaten its sustainability. The main obstacle to enduring peace in current times stems from state aggression that is seeking to revise existing borders. The post-Cold War order faces direct attack through Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its complete takeover of Ukraine during 2022. NATO has substantially raised its rapid-reaction forces since the conflict in Ukraine began because it now has over 300,000 personnel on high alert while maintaining readiness that has increased tenfold from its initial 40,000 troops as of early 2025.
The unified position of Europe faces internal divisions that act as a threat to its collective security. The 2 percent spending requirement applies to 11 NATO nations, but other members have not reached this threshold, which leads to disagreements about defense burden sharing. The different threat priorities between border states that focus on Russian coercion and Southern members who focus on migration and terrorism lead to inconsistent defense investments and conflicting strategic directions. Nationalist parties and political polarization within member states create difficulties in policy agreement, which leads to policy confusion and weakens solidarity at times when it is needed most.
Europe must address traditional military dangers together with hybrid threats and international problems. ENISA (2025) documented more than 1,000 major incidents affecting critical infrastructure such as energy grids, banking networks, and government services during 2024. State-backed disinformation operations work to damage democratic institutions through public trust erosion, as seen in documented Russian and other actor-led narratives during recent European Parliament elections. Social media platforms serve as instruments for these digital attacks, which target societal fractures to demand unified digital security measures.
The threat from terrorism has decreased since its peak in the early twenty-first century, but it continues to exist as a security concern. The return of Middle Eastern conflict veterans and homegrown extremism requires national security services to share their intelligence data vigilantly. The EU’s Counter-Terrorism Agenda from 2024 enhanced information sharing through its Entry Exit System and interoperable criminal databases, yet various member states struggle to implement these measures, which creates vulnerabilities that transnational networks can utilize.
Security considerations in Europe now face additional challenges because of climate change. North African and Middle Eastern migrants are displaced by resource shortages and severe weather events, and increasing sea levels, which challenge EU border management and member state solidarity. The 2023 Mediterranean migration surge, exceeding 400,000 arrivals, triggered European asylum quota disputes and border control debates, which simultaneously damaged external cooperation frameworks and created strain on frontline countries Italy and Greece.
The breakdown of institutional frameworks threatens the security order that currently exists. European security faces a new risk of a potential missile competition because the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty has ceased to exist. The absence of regulatory frameworks for intermediate-range missiles has made small states vulnerable to attacks, so they demand a new European security conference modelled after Helsinki. The OSCE possesses exceptional capabilities to host this forum, yet it fails to generate enough political support for restarting its broad arms-control initiatives.
To conclude, a comprehensive and proactive plan is required to tackle these complex security issues. European defense institutions need modernization for dealing with conventional threats, but the continent needs adaptive security measures to confront non-traditional threats. The EU Defense Fund receives €8 billion during 2021–2027 to build a defense industrial base through Permanent Structured Cooperation that helps reduce external supply dependence and standardize member state procurement. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization needs to update its defense-planning mechanisms to speed up reinforcements of defense sectors, while all member states must fulfill their agreed spending obligations to maintain credibility and deterrence capabilities.
The institutions of Europe must develop better protection mechanisms against hybrid warfare threats. NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence should deepen its partnership with the EU’s cybersecurity agency while developing joint exercises to simulate cyber-physical attacks and building legal frameworks to prosecute malicious actors. A shared digital sovereignty framework should address disinformation through three components: social media regulations with transparency standards, international fact-checking networks with public information campaigns to protect people from fake information.
The security framework established from past conflict ruins continues to protect Europe from both state-level war and existential threats. The combination of collective defense, along with economic integration and wide-ranging security strategies, created the most peaceful period in history. The strategic environment has become more unstable because of state aggression, together with internal divisions and hybrid threats, and climate-driven pressures, so this architecture needs adaptation. The peace of Europe during 2025 and the following years depends on both strengthening alliances and unifying defense spending and implementing new security solutions that address classic threats and emerging risks. The combination of united determination with powerful institutions, together with shared democratic principles, will help Europe convert potential conflict points into cooperative opportunities.
[The opinions expressed in this article are of the author. Europeantimes.org takes no responsibility for the same.]
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Simon Hutagalung
Simon Hutagalung is a retired Indonesian Foreign Ministry diplomat and received his Master’s degree in Political Science and Comparative Politics from the City University of New York. He writes opinion pieces for Europeantimes and all opinions expressed in his article are his own.
