There Was Never a Completed Transatlantic Project

By Marita Sparrer-Dolidze

Monday, November 10, 2025

Almost every week, someone in Brussels or Washington calls for a "new transatlantic project." As NATO struggles to define its purpose amid the war in Ukraine, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic reheat the same grand idea - to restore unity, end wars, and defend democracy. But the problem has never been the lack of lofty plans. It's the gap between what the world needs and what domestic politics in the U.S. or Europe will allow, whether due to eccentric individuals or poorly managed economic priorities. The hope is noble. The follow-through is missing.

Back in 2002, when the trauma of 9/11 still shaped Western thinking, two American strategists, Ronald D. Asmus and Kenneth M. Pollack, wrote an essay called "The New Transatlantic Project." They claimed that the United States and Europe had finished their post-Cold War homework: democracy secured, peace guaranteed, NATO triumphant. The next mission, they wrote, was to export stability to the "Greater Middle East."

Reading it today feels like opening a time capsule from a world that never existed. The biggest flaw in their reasoning? They believed Russia was integrating and that NATO could now spread democracy abroad like a benevolent fairy. But from where I stand - geographically in Berlin and originally from Georgia - Europe has always looked like Janus: one face peace, the other fire. Just a few months ago, pro-Palestine rally members were violently dispersed by the Berlin police, whereas in Georgia, the government will soon need to build new prisons to fit all the political prisoners held by the Russian regime.

Asmus and Pollack identified terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and rogue states as the century's "new totalitarian threat." Their cure was what they called "political preemption": promoting democracy, education, and economic reform. The U.S. would, of course, lead, and Europe would lend its soft power. The underlying assumption was that the liberal order could transform the world simply by example.

It was a very American, very optimistic blueprint. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were meant to prove it right. Instead, they exposed the fragility of liberal transformation itself. While the West looked toward Kabul and Baghdad, Moscow kept working on its own transformation - differing, however, from what the 2002 article had anticipated.

Six years after the essay appeared, Russia invaded Georgia. Fourteen years later, it invaded Ukraine. The notion that Europe's security was "locked in" collapsed in a single morning in February 2022. What Asmus and Pollack called the "new transatlantic project" turned out to be the oldest one of all: defending the internal security of Europe itself.

Their cautious optimism about Vladimir Putin reads as grim foreshadowing, all things considered. They noted that Russia's "commitment to democracy" was uncertain, yet described relations as "back on track." That track ended in Avnevi, Tskhinvali, then in Donbas, Crimea, and later in Bucha, Mariupol, and Kharkiv. The grand project of integrating Russia failed - and with it, the illusion that peace in Europe could ever be self-sustaining.

To its credit, NATO has adapted faster than most politicians. The alliance insists it is not part of the war - and legally, it isn't. It trains Ukrainian troops, coordinates weapons logistics among more than 30 allies, and provides intelligence and cyber defense. But it avoids direct combat, keeping just below the legal threshold of belligerency. The line is delicate, even elegant: NATO has become Ukraine's strategic backbone without firing a shot. That distinction matters. It preserves unity inside the alliance and prevents a direct war with a nuclear power - call it Kennan and Morgenthau in practice.

Meanwhile, NATO has returned to its roots. It has reinforced its eastern flank, welcomed Finland and Sweden, and built a 300,000-strong rapid-response force. Yet its political hesitation remains. The July 2023 Vilnius Declaration promised that "Ukraine's future is in NATO," but gave no date - alas, the geopolitical calendar runs on victories.

Revisiting The New Transatlantic Project today is not an act of nostalgia but of accountability. It captured a unipolar moment when liberal optimism and American self-confidence supposedly felt infinite. But that optimism blinded the West to an older truth: when power retreats, predators move in. We are now living through the correction.

The liberal world order still refuses to accept that ideals need armor. Democracy, stability, and human rights endure only when defended by those strong enough to bear the cost. That may sound cynical, but it is realism in its purest form.

Even though it is so late, it is still valid for opinion-makers to stop asking the world to be fair when they should instead be asking for readiness and urgency. If only Georgia had been relevant enough, it could have served as a factual example that values without power are invitations to tragedy.

When I reread Asmus and Pollack's call for the U.S. to lead and Europe to follow, I hear the echo of a partnership still searching for balance. The United States wants to remain an indispensable power, though increasingly unsettled from within; Europe wants to remain the moral chorus, with ammunition largely in museums. Reconciling the two is no longer a matter of strategy but of survival.

Asmus and Pollack urged the West to lead with conviction. Their geography was wrong, but their instinct was right. The transatlantic alliance remains the finest defense humanity has against chaos. Yet to remain so, it must act decisively - in the trenches of Ukraine, among other priority spots.

This op-ed is not a call for conflict; this op-ed is a claim that the defense of freedom begins with the capacity for force.