by Radu Magdin
In 2026, the United States will mark a symbolic milestone: 250 years since 1776. The official “America250” framework presents the semiquincentennial as a civic moment, a pause for reflection, renewal, and national storytelling. For Europeans, it may appear as an inward-looking exercise, heavy on symbolism and light on strategy.
That would be a misreading.
Anniversaries are never just about memory. They are about narrative power. They are opportunities to clarify identity, direction, and ambition. And when viewed from Europe, USA@250 sits within a much broader global pattern that should concentrate minds in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and beyond: the rapid normalization of long-horizon national agendas as instruments of geopolitical and geoeconomic competition.
China’s 2049 objective, India’s 2047 ambition, Indonesia’s 2045 vision, Africa’s Agenda 2063, Saudi Vision 2030, España 2050, the UAE Centennial 2071 and others are not aspirational brochures. They are strategic statecraft documents. They discipline policy, align institutions, mobilize capital, and signal intent to the outside world. In comparison, Europe often appears strategically sophisticated, but directionally fragmented.
What distinguishes the current moment is not that states plan for the long term, but that they now compete through planning. Long-horizon agendas have become a form of competitive governance. They stabilize national direction beyond electoral cycles, sequence reforms and justify trade-offs, act as investment magnets by offering predictability, and increasingly function as geopolitical signals. Saudi Vision 2030 integrates economic diversification, social transformation, and state capability into a single national project. Africa’s Agenda 2063 reframes a continent as an actor with agency rather than a recipient of policy. Indonesia’s 2045 vision ties national unity to economic scale and global relevance.
For Europe, the implication is uncomfortable but unavoidable: many emerging and middle powers now articulate their futures more clearly than the EU does collectively.
USA@250 is not, formally, a grand strategy. It is a commemorative platform. Yet its timing matters. The United States enters its 250th year while the global system is being reshaped by industrial policy, technological rivalry, demographic divergence, and security fragmentation. Domestically, the anniversary is an attempt to rebuild civic confidence and institutional legitimacy. Externally, it unfolds in direct comparison with long-horizon projects elsewhere, most notably China’s 2049 goal of national rejuvenation.
RAND’s Strategic Rethink collection captures this tension well, framing a United States navigating turbulence while needing strategic continuity. For Europeans, this dilemma is familiar. The difference is that America still retains a single strategic center of gravity. Europe does not.
China’s 2049 horizon binds national identity, party legitimacy, and state capacity to a centenary endpoint. This does not guarantee success, but it guarantees focus and continuity. For Europe, China’s long-horizon discipline is both competitor and mirror. It competes in technology, standards, and influence. It mirrors Europe’s struggle with short-termism. While Europe debates frameworks, China seeks to execute sequences.
The lesson is not imitation, but recognition: clarity of direction is itself a strategic asset.
India’s “Viksit Bharat@2047” reframes development as geopolitical identity, positioning India as a civilizational-scale actor combining growth with strategic autonomy. Indonesia’s 2045 agenda signals that middle powers are no longer content with incremental relevance. Africa’s Agenda 2063 does the same at continental scale, insisting that future global growth and governance will be co-shaped, not merely accommodated. European engagement with these regions will increasingly be judged against their own visions, not European assumptions.
Saudi Vision 2030 introduces a variable Europe often underestimates: execution speed. In systems where legitimacy is increasingly linked to delivery, velocity becomes power. The Saudi model does not compete with Europe ideologically. It competes pragmatically, through decisiveness, scale, and a coherent transformation narrative. For global capital, this combination matters. Europe, by contrast, often offers stability without momentum. That is no longer sufficient.
España 2050 stands out as a serious attempt to counter short-termism within the EU. It seeks to orient public debate and policy beyond electoral cycles and demonstrates that Europe can think strategically when it chooses to. Yet it also exposes Europe’s structural constraint: strong diagnosis, weak enforcement. National strategies coexist with EU ambitions without converging into a single, legible trajectory beyond 2030. Others accept imperfect coordination in exchange for direction. Europe still hesitates.
Agendas anchored after 2035 share one belief: national advantage is built over generations. The UAE Centennial 2071, Rwanda’s Vision 2050, and Japan’s Society 5.0 all integrate state, market, and society into a shared forward narrative. For Europeans, long-term thinking is no longer aspirational. It is the baseline of competition.
The lessons are increasingly clear. Long-horizon visions work when they are operational, not rhetorical. The rising world links identity, policy, and delivery in ways that investors can price and institutions can follow. Whole-of-society alignment matters: business, diaspora, academia, and civil society are treated as co-architects, not peripheral stakeholders. Sequencing matters: transformation is broken into phases with visible wins. Europe often promises transformation while delivering adjustment. Narrative discipline matters too. Many rising powers answer clearly where they are going. Europe rarely does so beyond sectoral silos.
*CEO, Smartlink Communications
By: N. Peter Kramer