The analysis takes aim at a growing disconnect at the heart of the European Union – soaring global ambitions paired with stalled, unfinished business at home. Brussels talks like a geopolitical heavyweight, but acts like a bloc still tripping over its own rules. The paper argues that this mismatch is no longer cosmetic. It is actively undermining Europe’s credibility, leverage and ability to deliver.

Europe is walking into the AI age with its guard down. This CEPA analysis warns that Russian propaganda is finding its way into AI chatbots, quietly shaping answers, narratives and perceptions. These systems learn from open data polluted by disinformation, state-backed media and manipulated content. Once trained, they repeat distortions at scale, with no intent and no context. The danger is blunt: Europe risks automating lies faster than it can correct them.

Four years into Russia’s war against Ukraine, Europe still looks like a slow learner. This RUSI commentary distils ten hard lessons from the conflict – and most of them point to European weakness, delay and dangerous self-deception. The war has exposed how unprepared Europe was for high-intensity conflict and how dependent it remains on others to sustain one. Adaptation has happened, but late, unevenly and often under pressure from events rather than strategy.

Germany is talking itself into paralysis. This IP Quarterly examination argues that a deepening culture of pessimism is now shaping German politics, economics and security choices – and not for the better. Public debate is dominated by decline narratives, threat inflation and a belief that everything is getting worse at once.

Europe is confronting a darker kind of violence – and it does not fit the old playbooks. This Konrad Adenauer Foundation study examines the rise of nihilistic violence, a form of brutality driven less by ideology and more by alienation, rage and the desire for destruction itself. Unlike classic extremism, this violence is harder to track, harder to deter and harder to explain.

This ECFR commentary argues that the dramatic US military capture of Venezuela’s president under a revived Monroe-style foreign policy forces Europe into a set of hard political dilemmas. Washington’s intervention isn’t only about Latin America – it signals a shift toward a more interventionist and unpredictable US posture that leaves European capitals scrambling for answers.

This EUISS commentary exposes a tangled frontline where Russia’s hybrid energy tactics are still inflicting damage on Europe and Ukraine. Moscow has weaponised misinformation, market manipulation and geopolitical pressure to undermine European unity, hit public confidence and delay hard decisions on energy security.