5| R EGIONAL ACTOR , GLOBAL PLAYER : C AN THE EU GET THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS ? Crucially, the EU’s response to the crisis of the pan-European order threatens to undermine its influence at the global level. With nascent European security competition assuming a structural form the longer the war in Ukraine continues, the misdiagnosis of a global order in crisis could bring about a vicious cycle in which the EU’s influence is increasingly marginalised, even if its economic clout and partnership in multilateral contexts are still sought out when the interests of other actors align. I S THE EU A REGIONAL OR A GLOBAL ACTOR ? Because of the aforementioned difference between the European and global orders, the EU’s response in one context, if not carefully calibrated, may serve to undermine its positioning in the other. From a strategic perspective, this raises the question of whether the EU should think of itself as a regional actor or a global one – or at least privilege one foreign policy vector over another. The Strategic Compass, adopted just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, implicitly captures this dilemma in that it appears to lay the groundwork for a form of‘strategic shrinkage’, highlighting the importance of the EU’s immediate geographic strategic environment and thus providing a contrast with the 2016‘Global Strategy’. Of course, this is to some extent a false binary. The EU has both continental and global interests and will continue to engage – imperfectly – in both contexts. Moreover, the EU is perhaps often judged harshly because others view it as a full-fledged actor, which is not always or entirely the case, measuring it by the same yardstick as other leading players. The EU’s single actorness is more manifest in certain policy areas than in others and questions persist over whether an entity that is not a nation-state can genuinely be a pole in a multipolar system. This is especially relevant as recent events in Europe have reaffirmed the importance of military power in shaping political outcomes. Nonetheless, the binary remains useful for framing some of the policy choices and trade­offs that the EU faces. The EU’s potential for influence in the European periphery is undoubtedly more potent than in the wider world, as in the former context it can wield the prospect of membership and the political conditionality that comes with it. Moreover, not only is the war in Ukraine more of a transformative event for the European security order than it is for the wider world, but the transition of the global order towards a more decentred structure of power has already been ongoing for some time – unlike the rapid and cataclysmic transformation in continental relations in Europe since 2022. Together, these facts suggest that the EU should prioritise Europe, not only due to the immediacy of the