Wishful thinking about America

Joris Luyendijk wrote one of the sharpest opinion columns I have read this year. His thesis: America has not merely turned away from us, but has actively turned against us. And we — Europeans, the Dutch — act as though nothing is happening.

Luyendijk describes a meeting with Martin Wolf of the Financial Times in London. Wolf had said out loud, shortly after the inauguration, what almost nobody dared to articulate. Europe is dependent on American technology in a way that makes us vulnerable to blackmail. Big Tech operates not on the basis of profit but on the basis of lock-in — making European businesses and governments so dependent that they cannot leave.

What makes this piece so powerful is the historical parallel. The Netherlands has a long pattern of wishful thinking about existential threats. In 1914, we believed our neutrality would be respected. In 1940, again. In Srebrenica, we thought the situation was under control. During Covid, we believed our hospitals could handle it.

The mechanism is always the same: we hope it will not be that bad. We cling to the next hopeful moment — the midterms, the next election, an internal power struggle. Anything rather than face the reality that things have fundamentally changed.

Luyendijk also attended the Escape Forward conference in Brussels, where European policymakers discussed technological and military sovereignty. There was optimism, but also the realisation that Europe has decades of deferred maintenance on defence, technology, and strategic thinking.

This is not just about geopolitics. The same pattern of wishful thinking appears in organisations that ignore warning signs. In sectors that know their model is unsustainable but muddle on. In leaders who would rather commission another report than make a difficult decision.

The lesson is not that we should be pessimistic. The lesson is that we should be honest. About the risks, about our dependencies, about what is at stake. Only then can you act. Only then do you take control.