In mid-September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stood before the European Parliament and named the world as it has become: openly hostile. Her response was not alarm but architecture — a proposed European Security Council, a framework against infrastructure sabotage, and a deepened partnership with Canada, each piece designed to reduce Europe's dependence on assumptions that no longer hold. It was a speech about sovereignty in the truest sense: the capacity to act, to protect, and to choose one's allies with intention rather than habit.