Welcome to the age of minilateralism.
Irrespective of whether Europe emerges from its current crisis without a war, it will almost certainly emerge battered and with alliances shaken. Regional ties that had been cultivated since World War II and that had already started to fray have been largely upended by Russia’s renewed menacing of the European security order.
Like the bankruptcy in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the change has happened “Gradually, then suddenly.” The age of a united and multilateral West may be over, with the age of minilateralism beginning.
