In a striking interview earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron issued a stark warning. If European states could not break free of acting as “America’s followers,” becoming increasingly involved in the China-Taiwan conflict and other disputes that have long characterized American interests abroad, Macron told Politico, Europe would risk getting “caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”
Although many were taken aback by such comments from a key ally of the United States, Macron’s argument cuts to the heart of the concept of strategic autonomy. It’s a worldview that has pervaded European defense discourse for decades.
The idea envisions Europe as an independent pole of defense, working closely with, but not overpowered by, an overarching American “grand strategy” in which all U.S. allies work together in sync. France in particular has long been an advocate of an autonomous outlook, having famously refused to join the U.S.-led coalition to authorize an invasion of Iraq at the U.N. Security Council in 2003.
While it already holds great sway as an economic powerhouse, pursuing this concept of strategic autonomy could push the European Union forward as a true global superpower. As an autonomous security bloc, the EU would be better placed to pursue a grand strategy better suited to the values it espouses, as opposed to being permanently tied to U.S. interests. Disentanglement from a deep reliance on the United States for its security would help ensure that the EU becomes more confident in its ability to defend itself, even if the U.S. becomes less reliable as a security guarantor in the future.
While it already holds great sway as an economic powerhouse, pursuing this concept of strategic autonomy could push the European Union forward as a true global superpower.
Jolyon Howorth, a leading academic expert in European security and defense policy and research fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, says it’s not just Macron calling for strategic autonomy today. Europe appears to be united in favor of moving toward a stronger and more autonomous pillar of European defense, he says.
Yet is the idea of a Europe united yet detached from American interests politically feasible today?
New global challenges
To analyze the idea of European unity, we can first look to the war in Ukraine.
The first major invasion of one European state by another since World War II has galvanized European support for Ukraine, bringing EU member states together in their condemnation and sanction of Russia and in their aid for the Ukrainian government. That includes states such as Germany, which have historically been reliant on Russian energy imports.
Howorth tells Analyst News that so long as the “current war of attrition” continues, the EU will be defined by “total unity of intention.” But that sense of unity is potentially shallow and limited to the Russia-Ukraine war. The EU is far from united on other issues, such as the nature of the EU’s relationship with China and the wider world. That leaves a clear sense of security identity as a distant vision.
Nonetheless, Howorth suggests that it is “not useful anymore” to bifurcate Europe into two camps — “Europeanists” versus “Atlanticists” — over their attitudes toward cooperation with America.
Rather, he says, Europe is now faced by new global challenges that define its current lack of coherence perhaps more than its lack of internal agreement. The debate on European defense must be moved beyond the divides of yesteryear.
Donald Trump’s presidency and the current war in the Ukraine taking place in the backdrop of a domestically divided U.S. has set off alarm bells in the capitals of Europe. Europe can no longer rely on the U.S. to permanently guarantee its security — especially in the context of a more isolationist America under a conservative administration, or even a longer term American “pivot to Asia” (as President Obama described it) which may gradually become an inevitability.
While European leaders other than Macron — such as European Council President Charles Michel — are increasingly aligning themselves with the growing need for their own security identity, that’s not enough. “The problem,” Howorth says, “is delivery.”
Gaining strategic clarity
One key component of any future European pillar of autonomous security would need to be capabilities, a department in which Europe has historically struggled.
With limited spending on defense across the continent combined with a heavy historical reliance on the United States’ security umbrella, a lack of independent European capability is likely the most significant hurdle to a project centered around strategic autonomy: A phenomenon which scholars have termed as the European “capabilities expectations gap.”
Though the war in Ukraine has inspired fresh promises of increased military spending to match NATO’s 2% target across European capitals, including Germany, such goals are currently far from attaining fruition. This is in stark contrast with the ambitious goals outlined by the EU in its 2022 Strategic Compass, which aims for the establishment of “a strong EU Rapid Deployment Capacity of up to 5,000 troops for different types of crises.”
As Howorth notes, although there is now “a very real” European ambition for developing a collective capacity, we are still “very far from meeting the objectives of the strategic compass.”
The picture painted so far is of a Europe which is now increasingly unified over the need to forge a more unified and strategically autonomous pole of security and defense – but that is unable, so far, to put words into action.
How can Europe resolve this? For Howorth, the answer is clear: Achieving strategic clarity. A ship cannot set sail before its destination is even known.
In order to begin to come up with a collective program, Europe first needs to reach “collective clarity in its own neighborhood,” Howorth says. What sort of force does the EU aspire to be? What are its “strategic objective viz a viz Russia and the rest of the world”? These, he says, are fundamental questions about its vision which Europe needs to resolve before setting on the path of autonomy.
The picture painted so far is of a Europe which is now increasingly unified over the need to forge a more unified and strategically autonomous pole of security and defense – but that is unable, so far, to put words into action.
But, as exemplified by European leaders’ response to Macron’s interview with Politico, there are clear barriers to achieving that clarity. Relations with China will likely be a point of contention in a more autonomous world of European security. Although Macron appears keen to keep relations with China docile (a viewpoint perhaps reflected in his involvement within the EU delegation to Beijing earlier this year), such a strategic outlook seems far from unanimous among European leaders.
Despite Brexit, the U.K. will also necessarily play a role in any future European security framework. As Howorth succinctly notes, “the U.K. needs the EU and the EU needs the U.K.” This interdependence is all the more significant with regards to security and defense, with the U.K. being the largest military spender in Europe (with at least 2% of GDP consistently being allocated to defense). This importance within Europe is also visible in its significant contributions to Ukrainian military aid.
The U.K.’s involvement in a future European security framework is therefore essential, but is sure to bring its own challenges. China may well be a stumbling block on relations between the EU and the U.K., as the U.K. seeks to take on a more antagonistic approach towards the Chinese. As a historical “Atlanticist,” the U.K.’s strategic outlook may be too intertwined with wider U.S. interests for an autonomous European security framework to tolerate.
Europe needs a unified and autonomous security and defense policy, but to pursue this goal, it needs clarity above all else.
With the next U.S. presidential election just around the corner, the EU-U.S. defense relationship cannot be taken for granted any longer. In an age where Europe currently faces the threat of a more belligerent Russia and a rising China, it is high time that Europe comes together to find a clearer sense of strategic direction.
