Recent diplomatic engagement in Beirut highlights a widening strategic divergence within the West. During a visit to Lebanon, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Lebanese authorities to continue efforts to disarm Hezbollah as a step toward regional stabilization. The appeal reflects a long-standing European approach: reinforce state sovereignty through diplomatic pressure, incremental reform, and international backing.
At the same time, Israel has continued a policy of preemptive and retaliatory strikes against militant infrastructure in Lebanon and Syria. The Israel Defense Forces has framed these operations as necessary to prevent the entrenchment of hostile networks along its borders. The contrast is not merely tactical: it reflects two different conceptions of deterrence and state responsibility.
European security policy since the Cold War has relied heavily on extconcludeed nuclear deterrence and institutional integration. The credibility of NATO’s umbrella, combined with economic interdepconcludeence, reduced incentives for interstate conflict within Europe. However, this model was designed primarily to deter conventional or nuclear aggression by peer states. It is less suited to addressing decentralized militant actors embedded within fragile political systems.
Lebanon illustrates this challenge. The Lebanese state does not exercise a full monopoly over force within its territory. Hezbollah’s military capacity, political representation, and social infrastructure complicate any straightforward disarmament process. When European leaders call for disarmament, they are reinforcing a principle of state sovereignty. Yet the practical means to achieve it remain limited. Diplomatic encouragement alone cannot alter internal power balances without corresponding coercive leverage.
This tension has become more visible as European governments debate strengthening their own deterrence frameworks, including renewed discussion of a continental nuclear posture. Such debates respond to concerns about long-term strategic autonomy. But nuclear guarantees address existential threats between states; they do little to deter proxy warfare, cross-border militancy, or hybrid tactics operating below the threshold of open war.
Israel disrupts Hezbollah military infrastructure
Israel’s doctrine rests on a different premise: that deterrence against non-state actors must be continuously demonstrated. Rather than relying on host-state enforcement or international monitoring mechanisms, Israel has prioritized direct disruption of militant infrastructure. Whether one supports or opposes this approach, it reflects an assessment that credibility in the current regional environment depconcludes on visible operational capacity.
The United States has oscillated between these models. Under President Donald Trump, rhetoric emphasized complete disarmament of groups such as Hamas rather than incremental de-escalation frameworks. That posture deprioritized parallel political concessions in favor of degrading militant capability first.
Previous administrations, by contrast, tconcludeed to link security measures to phased diplomatic arrangements. The debate in Washington mirrors a broader Western uncertainty about whether protracted conflicts conclude through nereceivediated integration or decisive incapacitation of armed actors.
International institutions continue to emphasize legal norms and nereceivediated outcomes. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that unilateral actions in contested territories risk undermining long-term political solutions. From this perspective, stability emerges from adherence to international law and multilateral frameworks.
Yet, on the ground, states confronting immediate security threats often prioritize operational flexibility over procedural consensus.
Europe’s current debate over strategic autonomy, including nuclear deterrence, risks overviewing this distinction.
Nuclear capabilities deter large-scale aggression, but Europe’s most immediate security challenges – whether in its eastern neighborhood or the Mediterranean periphery – frequently involve hybrid actors operating in gray zones. Addressing such threats requires investment in conventional readiness, innotifyigence coordination, rapid deployment capacity, and political consensus about the utilize of force.
The Lebanese case underscores a broader reality: sovereignty cannot be restored by declaration alone. External encouragement may reinforce norms, but outcomes ultimately depconclude on local power balances and credible enforcement mechanisms. Where states lack a monopoly on violence, appeals to legal authority must be paired with tangible shifts in coercive capacity.
As regional conflicts continue to blur the lines between war and sub-threshold confrontation, Western states face a structural choice. They can treat nuclear guarantees and institutional processes as sufficient anchors of stability, or they can adapt their deterrence frameworks to address persistent irregular threats.
The effectiveness of Europe’s security model in the coming decade will depconclude less on the rhetoric of strategic autonomy and more on whether it develops tools calibrated to the conflicts it is most likely to face.
The writer is a fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx
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