Europe is quietly preparing for something that would have seemed unthinkable only a decade ago: technological decoupling from the United States. The process is slow, partial, and politically contested, yet the direction is becoming clear enough. What began as regulatory disputes with Silicon Valley has evolved into a broader strategic conversation about sovereignty, security, and economic survival.

The immediate trigger is technology, but the phenomenon is deeper. Europe’s push for “digital sovereignty”, for one thing, reflects a growing realization among European elites that dependence on American systems may very well have geopolitical consequences.

A recent Foreign Policy report describes how European leaders increasingly fear that US technological dominance could be weaponized geopolitically. As the article bluntly puts it, European policymakers worry that Washington might one day disrupt or restrict digital services as leverage in order to extract concessions from allies. Such concerns may sound dramatic to some, but European officials apparently do not consider them far-fetched at all, given the rising US-Europe tensions. The result is a gradual push toward alternatives in cloud computing, semiconductors, and even social media platforms.

At present, the scale of Europe’s dependence is quite staggering. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft provide more than two-thirds of Europe’s cloud computing services, while most advanced chips used in the continent come from American firms such as........

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