Stressing the need for European reform and unity in the face of multiple challenges, Aléxis Tsípras, the former prime minister of Greece, addressed a standing-room-only crowd at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies on March 25, which marked Independence Day in Greece.

Tsípras presented proposals for Europe to counter looming financial and trans-Atlantic turbulence, strengthen its cohesion, and elevate its geopolitical and economic position. The presentation was moderated by Peter A. Hall, Harvard’s Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies and a resident faculty member at CES, where Tsípras is a Policy Fellow this spring.

“We are seeing historical changes in the world that affect not only the geopolitical balance of power and the post-war liberal international order, but democracy itself,” said Tsípras, who currently serves as a member of the Hellenic Parliament for the SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance party.

He noted that the post-Cold War international order led not to unfairly distributed growth but to the deregulation of financial markets, culminating in the global and European financial crises. He also said that the West had “underestimated the warnings that Russia would respond militarily if NATO insisted on adopting an open-door policy on Ukraine and Georgia in 2008.” U.S. engagement in the region has not allowed for the pivot to the Indo-Pacific to take place, leaving more space for China, “not only in the South China Sea but globally.”

These developments have heralded “a shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world in which the United States remains the most powerful force but has lost its dominance,” Tsípras said. To counter, the U.S. is “disengaging itself from any obligation toward Europe and promoting a logic of might makes right.”