Europe is in a historic decline that threatens its economic model, political autonomy and global influence, and lacks the intellectual framework needed to reverse the trend, according to the head of France's elite Sciences Po university.

In a sweeping critique of Europe's strategic complacency, Sciences Po director Luis Vassy argued in a long essay in French publication Grand Continent that European institutions, universities and policymakers remain intellectually trapped in a post-Cold War worldview that no longer corresponds to geopolitical reality. The result, he says, is a continent increasingly acted upon by external powers rather than shaping events itself.

"We have moved from a world where we projected ourselves through our ideas, our values and our strengths to a world that projects itself onto us," Vassy writes. "The conditions of possibility of our social model, our freedoms and our capacity to choose our collective path are determined to a large extent outside ourselves."

The starkest illustration of that decline, he argues, is economic. The European Union's share of global output has fallen from 30% to 17% between 2008 and 2025.

"In relative terms, we are declining three times faster than the Qing dynasty," Vassy writes.

For Vassy, the problem is not merely economic but intellectual. European elites continue to analyse the world through domestic political, social and economic lenses while neglecting the role of power, security and interstate competition.

"There is something missing in our collective way of thinking about the world," he writes. "Studying international relations is not studying the world but privileging the analysis of the external framework."

He argues that a generation of academics and policymakers who came of age between 1990 and 2005 were shaped by assumptions of permanent peace, US-led globalisation and Western predominance. Those assumptions, he says, have been shattered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East, the return of great-power competition and the rapid rise of China.

The consequence is a Europe that increasingly finds itself dependent on foreign technologies, foreign energy, foreign defence capabilities and foreign digital infrastructure.

Vassy dismisses arguments that globalisation has made traditional concepts of power obsolete.

"The observation that power is not omnipotent does not authorise the conclusion that it is no longer structuring," he writes. "Renouncing the effort to think about power does not free us from it; it means accepting in advance that others will exercise it over us."

His proposed remedy is a broad intellectual and institutional rearmament. Universities should place far greater emphasis on international relations, security studies, defence, intelligence, geoeconomics and strategic competition. Policymakers should focus less on abstract regulatory ambitions and more on innovation, industrial capacity, energy security and technological sovereignty.

Vassy points approvingly to warnings from Mistral chief executive Arthur Mensch that "in AI, France must act now to avoid becoming a vassal". He argues that Europe must confront uncomfortable trade-offs between regulation and competitiveness, and between social preferences and strategic effectiveness.

The challenge is compounded by what he describes as Europe's unique tendency to judge itself primarily through the lens of its past power while rivals focus on accumulating future power. Europe, he argues, is "the only one simultaneously weakened and still on trial".

Whether his prescription can succeed remains uncertain. The reforms he advocates would require changes not only to university curricula but also to long-established political assumptions across much of Europe. Yet Vassy suggests that the alternative is continued relative decline in a world increasingly shaped by military strength, technological leadership and economic scale.

"If we care about our model," he writes, referring to Europe's commitment to liberty, equality and the rule of law, "we must be able to think about the conditions for its survival in a world where these values are retreating everywhere."