CAMBRIDGE – US President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy warns that Europe faces “civilizational erasure.” While the language is deliberately forceful, the underlying concern is not misplaced. Europe does, in fact, risk becoming a continent shaped by the decisions of others rather than an actor controlling its own destiny. The problem lies not in the diagnosis but in the proposed remedy. In Trump’s worldview, the solution is more nationalism: weakening the European Union and restoring primacy to individual member states. In reality, Europe’s problem is not too much integration, but too little. To endure as an economic, political, and military force in a world increasingly dominated by continental powers, Europe must complete its common institutions. That project requires a distinctly European form of nationalism. For all its flaws, Trump’s critique points to a fundamental truth: a viable state requires a political community. Without a collective “we,” taxation feels like extortion, laws are perceived as an imposition by outsiders, and military service be