There is no common objective of what NATO wants to achieve, be it a common military industrial production facility, increasing the efficiency of its output, or a procurement policy. Rather, Europe made itself content with pleasing the old Trumpian rhetoric, which puts ‘paying’ as the paramount metric to determine what foreign policy to implement.

Major powers lose their sphere of influence, not due to encroaching adversaries, but to their denial of their neighbor’s autonomy. They overplay their hand, abuse their power, and fail to provide their neighbors with anything worth staying for.

Middle powers are countries that, while not great powers, have significant influence in international relations through diplomacy, regional concentration, and more flexible partnerships. Other than traditional powers that focus more on ideological alliances or military strength, middle powers concentrate on solutions over status and act as bridge-builders detached from values.

This is no longer just a story of young people leaving and aging societies with significant internal migrations reshaping the spatial structure of the countries. It is the story of a region that has leveraged the EU integration context to ascend economically, but is demographically on the brink of erosion. Because where there is a vacuum, capital, influence, infrastructure—and often geopolitics—flow in.

Including national minorities in the national and European dialogue in politics and resource allocation is essential to securitize the continent against power that tries to hold back the continent.

What we can be sure of is that the war that has already begun between Russia and NATO is brewing in a pressure cooker at high temperature.