Illusions of Autonomy: Why Europe Cannot Provide for Its Security If the United States Pulls Back

Abstract

Europe's security landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade amid Russia's resurgence, mounting doubts about the long-term reliability of the U.S. security commitment, and Europe's growing aspiration for strategic autonomy. This changed security landscape raises an important counterfactual question: Could Europeans develop an autonomous defense capacity if the United States withdrew completely from Europe? The answer to this question has major implications for a range of policy issues and for the ongoing U.S. grand strategy debate in light of the prominent argument by U.S. “restraint” scholars that Europe can easily defend itself. Addressing this question requires an examination of the historical evolution as well as the current and likely future state of European interests and defense capacity. It shows that any European effort to achieve strategic autonomy would be fundamentally hampered by two mutually reinforcing constraints: “strategic cacophony,” namely profound, continent-wide divergences across all domains of national defense policies—most notably, threat perceptions; and severe military capacity shortfalls that would be very costly and time-consuming to close. As a result, Europeans are highly unlikely to develop an autonomous defense capacity anytime soon, even if the United States were to fully withdraw from the continent.

Coping flexibly: role reorientation and the UK’s military cooperation with European allies after Brexit

“…On the other hand, this loss of influence can be tolerated as the UK does not regard the EU as a meaningful defence actor. European efforts to achieve strategic autonomy are still hampered by several constraints: profound capacity shortfalls that will be hard to close and even harder without the UK, divergences across all domains of national defence policies, otherwise called ‘strategic cacophony’ (Meijer and Brooks 2021 , 10), varying threat perceptions and also differing views of China, something that has created notable rifts among EU Member States (Santander and Vlassis 2021 ). On top of that, the Ukraine war has strongly unified NATO, reprioritising its core task of collective defence (Bell 2022 ).…”

Prospects for the Formation of a Collective Security System in Asia: A Comparative Analysis with the European Security System. Opportunities for Kazakhstani Diplomacy

“…In a semantic sense, an institution means the existence of a systematized relationship between the parties, expressed in the format of collective security, i.e., kind of institutional framework. Thus, some experts note that the spectrum of perception of Russia as a key threat is significantly different -France and the Netherlands do not see Russia as a threat, Germany and the UK perceive it at an average level, and only Poland and the Baltic countries give priority in terms of perception of Russia as the main source of threat (Meijer, Brooks, 2021).…”

A Weakening Transatlantic Relationship? Redefining the EU–US Security and Defence Cooperation

“…The results are military capacity shortfalls that will be hard to close, causing this security deficit. This makes some scholars ask whether European strategic autonomy is just an illusion (Meijer & Brooks, 2021).…”

“…These differences relate to the EU's relationship with NATO and the US, i.e., how Europe should respond to a reduced US will to lead. In addition, this discontinuity also relates to differences in threat perceptions and whether security and defence should become more supranational (Meijer & Brooks, 2021).…”