Illusions of Autonomy

Illusions of Autonomy Hugo Meijer and
Stephen G. Brooks

Why Europe Cannot Provide for Its
Security If the United States Pulls Back

In the past decade,
Europe’s security landscape has changed dramatically. Russia is far stronger
militarily than it was ten years ago, and its annexation of Crimea in 2014 et
subsequent aggressive actions in Eastern Ukraine demonstrated that territorial
revisionism remains a security concern in Europe. The Barack Obama ad-
ministration’s “pivot to Asia,” combined with recurring, sharply critical com-
ments from key policymakers about insufªcient European burden sharing
—including from Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, aussi
as Obama himself—greatly magniªed European concerns about the long-term
robustness of the transatlantic alliance.1 Against this backdrop, in June 2016
the European Union Global Strategy issued a strong call for Europe to achieve
“strategic autonomy.”2 The momentum behind this call received a boost from
the administration of Donald Trump, whose highly critical comments of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reinforced European concerns
about the credibility and strength of the U.S. commitment to the Alliance.3

Hugo Meijer is CNRS Research Fellow at Sciences Po, Center for International Studies, and the director of
the European Initiative for Security Studies. Stephen G. Brooks is a professor of government at Dartmouth
Collège. For the online appendices, go to doi.org/10.7910/DVN/L3W8XF.

For constructive feedback, the authors would like to thank Jan Joel Andersson, Jonata Anicetti,
Christian Anrig, Félix Arteaga, Jordan Baev, Jordan Becker, Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Bruno Cardoso
Reis, Dionysios Chourchoulis, Fabrizio Coticchia, Eugenio Cusumano, Julien Demotes-Mainard,
Darrel Driver, Filip Ejdus, Daniel Fiott, Giuliano Fragnito, Andrew Futter, Bastian Giegerich,
Andrea Gilli, Mauro Gilli, Clément Godbarge, Gunther Hauser, Keith Hayward, Dorle Hellmuth,
Ben Hodges, Stephanie Hoffman, Adrian Hyde-Price, Andres Kasekamp, Benjamin Kienzle, Wim
Klinkert, Ina Kraft, Ulrich Kühn, Alexander Lanoszka, Arthur Laudrain, Douglas Lute, Alexander
Mattelaer, Mauro Mantovani, Yohann Michel, Andrew Michta, Francesco Moro, Michal Onderco,
Frédéric Pesme, Magnus Petersson, Barry Posen, Peter Roberts, Sten Rynning, Olivier Schmitt,
Luis Simón, Ian Speller, James Sperling, Thierry Tardy, Matthew Uttley, Mark Webber, Moritz
Blanc, William Wohlforth, Marco Wyss, Katarzyna Zysk,
the anonymous reviewers, et
anonymized European foreign and defense policy ofªcials. The authors also are grateful to Rohan
Chakravarty and Tyler Vergho for their outstanding research assistance.

1. Voir, Par exemple, Galia Press-Barnathan, “Managing the Hegemon: NATO under Unipolarity,»
Security Studies, Vol. 15, Non. 2 (2006), pp. 271–309, doi.org/10.1080/09636410600829554; and Jolyon
Howorth, “Implications of the U.S. Rebalance toward Asia: European Security and NATO,” in
Hugo Meijer, éd., Origins and Evolution of the U.S. Rebalance toward Asia: Diplomatic, Military, et
Economic Dimensions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 197–222.
2. European External Action Service, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe—A Global
Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy (Brussels: Union européenne, Juin 2016),
pp. 4, 9, 19, 46.
3. Voir, Par exemple, Donald Trump and CSPAN, “Trump Conªrms He Threatened to Withdraw
from NATO,” NATOSource blog, Atlantic Council, Août 23, 2018, https://www.atlanticcouncil

International Security, Vol. 45, Non. 4 (Spring 2021), pp. 7–43, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00405
© 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

7

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International Security 45:4 8

And although President Joseph Biden intends to reinvest in U.S. alliances
and in the transatlantic relationship in particular, the polarization of U.S.
politics—which now extends to foreign policy—has heightened doubts among
European policymakers about the long-term reliability of the U.S. security
commitment to the continent.4 As President of the European Commission
Ursula von der Leyen puts it, “Some shifts in priorities and perceptions run
much deeper than one politician or administration” and they do not “disap-
pear because of one election.”5 In this regard, the special adviser to European
Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,
Nathalie Tocci, stresses that, irrespective of the U.S. administration, Europeans
should therefore not stick their “heads in the sand” and should instead con-
tinue to pursue strategic autonomy.6

Strategic autonomy can be deªned as the institutional capacity to independ-
ently plan and conduct military operations across the full spectrum of conºict
(including in high-intensity military operations such as expeditionary warfare
and territorial defense missions) and to autonomously develop and produce
the related defense capabilities with minimal or no assistance from the United
States.7 Although analysts agree that Europe currently lacks strategic auton-
omy, recent European defense initiatives—including the European Defense
Fund (EDF), the strengthening of the Permanent Structured Cooperation
the European Intervention Initiative, et le
mechanism (or PESCO),
EU Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC)—purportedly indicate
that the Europeans are taking meaningful steps toward strategic autonomy, ou
what some analysts call “the new Grail of European defense.”8

The European ambition to seek strategic autonomy amid rising concerns
over U.S. commitments to the continent and over Russia’s revisionist behavior
raises an important counterfactual question: Could Europeans develop an au-

.org/blogs/natosource/trump-conªrms-he-threatened-to-withdraw-from-nato/; and John Bolton,
The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), chap. 5.
4. Voir, Par exemple, the assessment of the political scientist Ivan Krastev, quoted in Steven
Erlanger, “Europe Wonders If It Can Rely on U.S. Encore, Whoever Wins,” New York Times,
Octobre 22, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/world/europe/europe-biden-trump-
diplomacy.html.
5. Quoted in Tom Wheeldon, “‘Less Unpleasant but Not Fundamentally Different’: Transatlantic
Divides after Biden Win,” France24, Décembre 1, 2020, https://www.france24.com/en/europe/
20201201-less-unpleasant-but-not-fundamentally-different-transatlantic-divides-after-biden-win.
6. Quoted in Erlanger, “Europe Wonders if It Can Rely on U.S. Encore, Whoever Wins.”
7. For the purpose of this article, Europe and Europeans refer to the member states of the EU plus
the United Kingdom. In the analyses below, we do, cependant, provide data on a wider range of
des pays, including European states that are not EU members. This conception of strategic auton-
omy builds on Jolyon Howorth, For a True European Defence Union (Brussels: Wilfried Martens Cen-
tre for European Studies, Décembre 7, 2017), pp. 7–8.
8. Frédéric Mauro, Strategic Autonomy under the Spotlight: The New Grail of European Defence
(Brussels: Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security, 2018), https://grip.org/
strategic-autonomy-the-new-grail-of-european-defense/.

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Illusions of Autonomy 9

tonomous defense capacity if there were a complete U.S. withdrawal from
Europe? Although a U.S. withdrawal from Europe is unlikely in the short
it is hardly a far-fetched scenario for the longer term. Examining
term,
this counterfactual
is useful for two key reasons. D'abord, a complete U.S.
withdrawal—one entailing an exit from NATO and the withdrawal of all
U.S. conventional and nuclear forces from the continent—is the strongest pos-
sible incentive that could drive the Europeans to pursue strategic autonomy,
and is therefore the best way to assess their capacity to do so. Deuxième, exami-
nation of this counterfactual advances the U.S. grand strategy debate in light
of the prominent theoretical argument from U.S. “restraint” scholars such as
Barry Posen, who argue that a U.S. withdrawal is warranted on the grounds
that Europe can quickly and easily create an effective deterrent to Russia.9 As
we explain, Europe is the key fulcrum in the grand strategy debate between
these restraint scholars and “deep engagement” scholars, who favor maintain-
ing current U.S. security commitments in Europe and elsewhere.10

Determining whether Europeans could achieve strategic autonomy anytime
soon if the United States were to pull back from Europe requires an examina-
tion of the historical trajectory and the current and likely future state of
European interests and defense capacity. Although existing studies have ana-
lyzed important elements of each, a more systematic analysis is needed.11
Regarding interests, this article provides the most comprehensive and thor-
ough coding of national threat perceptions across all of Europe, showing
where each country falls across a set of deªned categories of threat priori-
tization. Concerning defense capacity, it adds to existing understandings of
Europe’s deªciency by providing novel longitudinal data on European con-
ventional defense capabilities over the past three decades and by outlining a
series of four interwoven challenges that would greatly complicate the pursuit
of strategic autonomy.

Our analysis shows that European efforts to achieve strategic autonomy
will be hampered by two major constraints: profound defense capacity short-
falls that will be hard to close, and “strategic cacophony," c'est, profound,
continent-wide divergences across all the domains of national defense policies,

9. Barry R. Posen, “Europe Can Defend Itself,” Survival, Vol. 62, Non. 6 (Décembre 2020), pp. 7–34,
doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2020.1851080; and Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S.
Grand Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014), especially pp. 87–91. “Restraint” is the
standard term used to describe scholars who advocate that the United States pull back now from
its overseas security commitments. For citations to a range of restraint scholars, see online appen-
dix G.
10. The deep engagement grand strategy is outlined in Stephen G. Brooks and William C.
Wohlforth, America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century (New York: Oxford
Presse universitaire, 2016)
11. For a list of key existing studies on these issues, see online appendix E.

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International Security 45:4 10

most notably threat perceptions.12 These mutually reinforcing constraints im-
pose a rigid limit on the capacity of Europeans to achieve strategic autonomy
anytime soon. Par conséquent, if the United States were to fully withdraw, le
continent would become signiªcantly more vulnerable to Russian meddling
and aggression. En outre, if the U.S.-backed NATO were to disappear,
this would undermine the only institutional framework that has fostered
some degree of coordination in Europe (at the strategic, doctrinal, and capabil-
ity levels) and partly contained Europe’s strategic cacophony. Ce, à son tour,
would make institutionalized, intra-European defense cooperation apprecia-
bly harder.

Finalement, we conclude that the notion that Europeans would be able to
achieve defense autonomy following a U.S. pullback is illusory.13 And if even
the major shock of a complete U.S. pullback would be very unlikely to move
Europe away from its current strategic cacophony and capability shortfalls, un
partial U.S. pullback—a much more likely counterfactual—would be more un-
likely to do so. The policy implication is straightforward: if the United States
wants European stability, it needs to stay in Europe.

The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. D'abord, we set the stage for
our analysis by outlining why the U.S. military presence in Europe, estab-
lished after World War II, has such signiªcance for the existing U.S. grand
strategy debate and what the scenario of a full U.S. pullback from the conti-
nent would entail. In the second and third sections, we lay out the overarching
constraints that hamper the capacity of Europeans to achieve strategic auton-
omy. We ªrst shed light on Europe’s strategic cacophony, demonstrating that
Europeans are divided by contradictory threat prioritizations—and the result-
ing strategic priorities—regarding Russia, terrorism, and other threats such as
regional instability in the Middle East and Northern Africa. We then discuss
Europe’s profound military capacity deªciency and delineate four major chal-
lenges to rectifying it. In the fourth section, we consider the restraint counter-
argument that, even though Europe is currently split by strategic divisions
and hindered by severe capacity shortfalls, a complete U.S. withdrawal would
heighten Europeans’ threat perceptions of Russia and thus compel the United
States and Europe to come together to effectively balance Russia. Building

12. “Strategic cacophony” is a term ªrst coined, although without being deªned, in a 2013 politique
paper that referred to the incongruences in the national security strategy documents of the EU
member states. See Olivier de France and Nick Witney, Europe’s Strategic Cacophony, Policy Brief 77
(Londres: European Council on Foreign Relations [ECFR], Avril 2013). In this article, we build on,
reªne, and further develop this concept.
13. Our claim is probabilistic, not deterministic: if the United States were to pull back, we contend
that it would be highly unlikely, not impossible, for Europe to achieve strategic autonomy anytime
soon.

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Illusions of Autonomy 11

upon our empirical analysis, we argue that there is no basis to support this op-
timistic assessment in either the conventional or nuclear realm. We conclude
with a discussion of the policy implications of our ªndings for both the United
States and Europe.

U.S. Presence in Europe and the Grand Strategy Debate

In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington famously warned: “Europe
has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation.
Ainsi, she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are
essentially foreign to our concerns. Ainsi, donc, it must be unwise in us to
implicate ourselves, by artiªcial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her poli-
tics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmi-
ties.”14 Reºecting this sentiment, from the United States’ founding until World
War II, detachment from European security affairs was a, if not the, deªning
element of U.S. security policy.15

How then did the United States become so enmeshed in Europe’s security?
After World War II, U.S. ofªcials concluded that, to paraphrase the famous dic-
tum (attributed to Lord Ismay) regarding NATO’s purpose, keeping the
United States in was the ideal method for keeping the Soviet Union out while
keeping Germany down.16 In other words, a Germany strong enough to check
the Soviet Union, absent a major U.S. presence, would have demanded
German rearmament and acquisition of nuclear weapons, which would have
risked alienating France and other neighbors and wrecking the alliance.17 Over
the four decades of Cold War rivalry, the United States thus built up complex
relationships that allowed it to shape the strategic environment in Europe to
facilitate balancing Soviet power.18

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States chose to sustain
those relationships by maintaining NATO and its leadership of the Alliance.
En même temps, it did drastically cut its forward-deployed troop presence
in Europe. In the ªnal phase of the Cold War, environ 350,000 U.S.

14. George Washington, The Writings of George Washington: 1794–1798, Vol. 13, éd. Worthington
Chauncey Ford (New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1890), p. 316.
15. Charles A. Kupchan, Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World
(New York: Presse universitaire d'Oxford, 2020).
16. Pierre J. Duignan, NATO: Its Past, Present, and Future (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press,
2000), p. 82.
17. Timothy Andrews Sayle, Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2019).
18. For an overview, see Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Benedikt Schoenborn, and Barbara Zanchetta, Trans-
atlantic Relations since 1945: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2012).

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International Security 45:4 12

troops were based in Europe, a number that plummeted to a mere 118,000
troops in 1995 and was then further reduced almost by half to just around
65,000 active-duty U.S. troops today.19

europe: the key fulcrum in the u.s. grand strategy debate

Scholars participating in the ongoing U.S. grand strategy debate are sharply
divided regarding whether the United States should maintain its military
presence in Europe. Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth—who are propo-
nents of deep engagement—identify seven security beneªts that America gar-
ners from its security presence in Europe: bolstered regional security in light of
a resurgent Russia and strengthened U.S. bargaining leverage with Moscow; un
deep and broad institutional framework for coordinating and fostering trans-
atlantic security cooperation; assistance with out-of-area operations; U.S. ac-
cess to permanent bases, logistical assets, overºight rights, et ainsi de suite; key
infrastructure and lines of communications to sustain U.S.-led military actions
in western and central Eurasia, the Middle East, or Africa; U.S. inºuence and
leverage over allies regarding issues such as arms sales to China; and en-
hanced intelligence cooperation.20 In addition, Brooks and Wohlforth stress
that the U.S. security partnership with Europeans helps facilitate cooperation
on issues other than security and advance U.S. economic interests.21

In contrast, restraint advocates—a large group of more than thirty scholars
that includes many of the most prominent members of the security studies
ªeld—all agree that the United States’ continued membership in NATO and
its troop presence in Europe no longer serve U.S. interests and that it is time to
fully withdraw.22 Yet, proponents of restraint do not have a uniform perspec-
tive concerning the United States’ presence in Asia or the Middle East. Regard-
ing the Middle East, some restraint scholars (par exemple., Eugene Gholz and Daryl
Presse) favor the United States completely removing its forces from the region;23
others (par exemple., Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, and Barry Posen) advocate that
the United States retain a limited onshore military presence in the region.24

19. See ªgure in online appendix F.
20. This seven-item list is delineated in Brooks and Wohlforth, America Abroad, p. 117.
21. Ibid., pp. 155–189.
22. For a list of studies on restraint, see online appendix G.
23. Eugene Gholz and Daryl Press, “Footprints in the Sand,” American Interest, Vol. 5, Non. 4
(Mars 2010), https://www.the-american-interest.com/2010/03/01/footprints-in-the-sand/; Eu-
gene Gholz and Daryl G. Presse, “Protecting ‘The Prize’: Oil and the U.S. National Interest,»
Security Studies, Vol. 19, Non. 3 (2010), pp. 453–485, doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2010.505865; Eugene
Gholz, “Restraint and Oil Security,” in Thrall and Friedman, U.S. Grand Strategy; and Emma Ash-
ford, “Better Balancing the Middle East,” in A. Trevor Thrall and Benjamin H. Friedman, éd., U.S.
Grand Strategy in the 21st Century: The Case for Restraint (New York: Routledge, 2018), chap. 9.
24. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, “The Case for Offshore Balancing,” Foreign Affairs,
July/August 2016, p. 82; and Posen, Restraint, p. 113.

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Illusions of Autonomy 13

The positions of restraint scholars diverge even more dramatically regarding
Asia: quelques (par exemple., Christopher Layne, Gholz, and Press) favor quickly ending
all U.S. alliances in the region and pulling back all U.S. forces;25 others
(par exemple., Posen) favor a gradual pullback from the region and argue that “some
kind of extended nuclear deterrence relationship will probably remain neces-
sary” in at least some parts of the region;26 and still others (par exemple., Mearsheimer
and Walt) advocate for a similar stance to deep engagement with a continua-
tion of current alliances and the U.S. military presence in Asia as part of “a ma-
jor effort” to prevent China from achieving regional hegemony.27 Europe is
thus the key fulcrum in the grand strategy debate: all proponents of deep en-
gagement maintain that the United States should stay, whereas all advocates of
restraint argue that it should leave.

Restraint scholars support a U.S. pullout by arguing that European states are
big enough and rich enough to autonomously address the military threat from
Russia (a threat that they claim is the “main security problem for Europe”28).
Walt, Par exemple, asserts that the notion that the EU “lacks the wherewithal to
defend itself against [Russia] . . . is risible,” given that “the countries of the
European Union are home to more than 500 million people and boast a com-
bined annual GDP [gross domestic product] exceeding $17 trillion,” whereas Russia “has a population of just 144 million and an annual GDP of only $1.6 trillion.”29 For his part, Posen argues that “a coalition of any two of the
principal Western European powers—Germany, France, and Britain—could
easily balance Russia.”30

For restraint scholars, the core problem is that the United States has pro-
vided the Europeans “with such a high level of insurance that they have
been able to steadily shrink their militaries and outsource their defense to
Washington. . . . With their high per capita GDPs, these allies can afford to de-
vote more money to their militaries, yet they have no incentive to do so. . . .
This is welfare for the rich.”31 According to these scholars, the United States
could make better use of these ªnancial resources at home.32

25. Christopher Layne, “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America’s Future Grand
Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 22, Non. 1 (Été 1997), pp. 86–124, est ce que je.org/10.1162/
isec.21.4.5; and Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Presse, and Harvey M. Sapolsky, “Come Home, America:
The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation,” International Security, Vol. 21, Non. 4 (Spring
1997), pp. 5–48, doi.org/10.2307/2539282.
26. Posen, Restraint, pp. 100–101.
27. Mearsheimer and Walt, “The Case for Offshore Balancing,” pp. 81–83.
28. Posen, “Europe Can Defend Itself,” p. 9.
29. Stephen M. Walt, “The End of Hubris and the New Age of American Restraint,” Foreign Affairs,
May/June 2019, p. 30.
30. Posen, Restraint, p. 71.
31. Barry R. Posen, “Pull Back: The Case for a Less Activist Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs,
January/February 2013, p. 121.
32. Voir, Par exemple, Posen, Restraint, pp. 35–40, 166.

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International Security 45:4 14

the counterfactual: a complete u.s. withdrawal from europe

The counterfactual scenario examined in this article, the one favored by re-
straint scholars, is that the United States ofªcially exits from NATO and fully
withdraws its forces and military units from Europe, including the roughly
65,000 active-duty personnel under the U.S. European Command, 2,000 reserv-
ists, 16,350 Department of Defense civilian personnel, et autour 930 person-
nel assigned to NATO’s Command Structure. The United States also would no
longer continue its rotational presence of air, atterrir, and sea forces throughout
Europe as part of the European Deterrence Initiative (which includes a U.S. ar-
mored brigade combat team and a combat aviation brigade).33 En outre,
the United States would remove all its European-based nuclear capabilities.

Although it is difªcult to envision a full U.S. pullback from Europe in the
short term, it is hardly implausible in the longer term in light of both domestic
and international dynamics. Structural trends in the international system—
most notably, the rise of China relative to the United States and the growing
strategic centrality of the Asia-Paciªc region—have caused the United States to
downgrade the importance of Europe in its grand strategy.34 Moreover, le
United States pursued an isolationist grand strategy for most of its history;
leaving Europe would simply be a return to its traditional foreign policy base-
line regarding the region. And signiªcantly, there is every indication that
Trump tapped into, rather than created, the political momentum for curtailing
the United States’ security presence overseas. Prior to Trump becoming presi-
bosse, U.S. public opinion in favor of the United States disengaging from the
world had already increased substantially.35 Reºecting these public attitudes,
in the early 2010s, a number of Republican ªscal hawks and liberal Democrats
ramped up their calls for eliminating the U.S. presence in Europe.36 Likewise,
according to a 2011 poll, 65 percent of the U.S. public favored scaling back U.S.
military commitments to reduce the country’s debt.37

A U.S. decision to actively withdraw from Europe is not the only means by

33. Data retrieved from Lucie Béraud-Sudreau and Nick Childs, “The US and Its NATO Allies:
Costs and Value,” Military Balance blog, IISS, Juillet 9, 2018, https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-
balance/2018/07/us-and-nato-allies-costs-and-value; U.S. Department of Defense, “European De-
terrence Initiative,” Department of Defense Budget Fiscal Year 2019, Février 2018; and U.S. Mis-
sion to NATO, “US Contributions to NATO Capabilities” fact sheet (Washington, D.C.: Blanc
Maison, Juillet 8, 2016).
34. Linde Desmaele and Luis Simón, “East Asia First, Europe Second: Picking Regions in U.S.
Grand Strategy,” War on the Rocks blog, Août 27, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/
east-asia-ªrst-europe-second-picking-regions-in-u-s-grand-strategy/.
35. Voir, Par exemple, Public Sees U.S. Power Declining as Support for Global Engagement Slips:
America’s Place in the World 2013 (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, Décembre 3, 2013),
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2013/12/03/public-sees-u-s-power-declining-as-support-
for-global-engagement-slips/.
36. Voir, Par exemple, Emmarie Huetteman, “Despite Cuts, U.S. Army Prepares for Threats in
Europe,” New York Times, Octobre 18, 2015; and Barney Frank, “It’s Time to Rearm Germany and
Japan,” Politico, Octobre 21, 2015.
37. In Shift from Bush Era, More Conservatives Say “Come Home, America” (Washington, D.C.:

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Illusions of Autonomy 15

which this outcome could occur; it could also unfold passively with Europe
and the United States drifting further apart over many years, eventually reach-
ing a point where NATO has been hollowed out and exists essentially in name
only. En fait, because of rising doubts about the long-term credibility and ro-
bustness of the U.S. commitment, many prominent European policymakers
and security analysts have concluded that Europe should rely less on the
transatlantic partnership and bolster its capacity for autonomous action.38 As
then President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker stated in
2016, “If Europe does not take care of its own security, nobody else will do it
for us.”39 Yet, as we show in the next two sections, two overarching constraints
jointly limit the capacity of Europeans to achieve strategic autonomy: Europe’s
strategic cacophony and profound capability shortfalls that will take a long
time to close.

Europe’s Strategic Cacophony

The ªrst two decades after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the col-
lapse of the Soviet Union constituted an era of strategic exception, character-
ized by the absence of a major conventional security threat. During this
period in which European states lacked any semblance of a unifying threat,
wide discrepancies emerged in their national threat assessments. The threat
perceptions of European defense policymakers shifted away from conven-
tional state threats to nonconventional ones such as terrorism, instability in the
Mediterranean area, migration, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruc-
tion (WMD), and failed states.40

Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 shattered the long-held
assumption that the European territorial status quo would not be upset via the
use of military force. Encore, far from bringing Europe together, Russia’s assertive-
ness only further deepened Europeans’ profound divergences of threat percep-

Pew Research Center, Juin 16, 2011), https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2011/06/16/in-shift-
from-bush-era-more-conservatives-say-come-home-america/.
38. Voir, Par exemple, Sven Biscop, “Letting Europe Go Its Own Way: The Case for Strategic Auton-
omy,” Foreign Affairs, Juillet 6, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-07-06/letting-
europe-go-its-own-way.
39. Cited in European Defense Action Plan: Towards a European Defence Fund (Brussels: européen
Commission, Novembre 30, 2016), https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP
_16_4088.
40. European Security Strategy—A Secure Europe in a Better World (Brussels: Council of the European
Union, Décembre 2003). See also Timothy Edmunds, “A New Security Environment? The Evolu-
tion of Military Roles in Post–Cold War Europe,” in Timothy Edmunds and Marjan Malešic, éd.,
Defence Transformation in Europe: Evolving Military Roles (Amsterdam: IOS, 2005), pp. 9–18; et
Hugo Meijer and Marco Wyss, “Introduction: Beyond CSDP: The Resurgence of National Armed
Forces in Europe,” in Meijer and Wyss, éd., The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed
Forces (Oxford: Presse universitaire d'Oxford, 2018), pp. 8, 9, 17–26.

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International Security 45:4 16

tion, with growing disagreements among Europeans about how to prioritize
Russia versus other challenges.41

Below we provide a bottom-line assessment and systematic coding of na-
tional threat perceptions across twenty-nine European countries. We in-
clude all countries that are members of the EU or NATO, or both, except for
Turkey and seven countries that have GDPs smaller than $25 milliard: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, and Montenegro. We identify where the threat assessment of each country falls across ªve categories: (1) Russia is unimportant or not a threat; (2) Russia is a threat, but other threats are more signiªcant; (3) Russia and other threats have roughly equal signiªcance; (4) Russia is the highest threat, but other threats also are signiªcant; et (5) Russia is the dominant threat by far. To produce these codings, we adopted a nested approach. D'abord, we coded the threat evaluations of these countries made by eighteen experts who contributed to a recent comprehensive examination of European defense policies.42 To double-check our codings, we consulted all eighteen authors to ensure that our understanding of each country corresponded with theirs.43 Second, we looked at all available government reports that provide a national assessment of the regional threat environment and prioritize among different threats. En particulier, we examined the national security/defense/military strategies, the intelligence threat assessments, the analyses of particular threats (par exemple., cyberthreats and terrorism), and regional/geographic analyses of all twenty-nine European states in our study. In total, we examined eighty-seven ofªcial documents and reports. (Online appendix A provides a full list of these sources; they are referenced in the footnotes by document number as indicated in this appendix.)44 41. On threat perceptions in Europe, see Lucie Béraud-Sudreau and Bastian Giegerich, “NATO Defence Spending and European Threat Perceptions,” Survival, Vol. 60, Non. 4 (2018), pp. 53–74, doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2018.1495429; De France and Witney, Europe’s Strategic Cacophony; Meijer and Wyss, “Beyond CSDP”; Hugo Meijer and Marco Wyss, “Upside Down: Reframing Eu- ropean Defence Studies,” Cooperation and Conºict, Vol. 54, Non. 3 (Septembre 2019), pp. 378–406, doi.org/10.1177/0010836718790606; Susi Dennison, Ulrike Esther Franke, and Pawel Zerka, The Nightmare of the Dark: The Security Fears That Keep Europeans Awake at Night (Brussels: ECFR, Juillet 2018); and Luis Simón, Alexander Lanoszka, and Hugo Meijer, “Nodal Defence: The Changing Structure of U.S. Alliance Systems in Europe and East Asia,” Journal of Strategic Studies, published online 2019, doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2019.1636372. 42. These eighteen experts were authors of chapters in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces. This source was the essential building block for the analysis in this section, and the authors are grateful to Marco Wyss for his help in developing the line of argu- ment advanced here. For full citation information for the sixteen chapters that we coded, see on- line appendix B. 43. The eighteen experts we consulted were Jan Joel Andersson, Félix Arteaga, Jordan Baev, Bruno Cardoso Reis, Dionysios Chourchoulis, Fabrizio Coticchia, Gunther Hauser, Andres Kasekamp, Wim Klinkert, Ina Kraft, Mauro Mantovani, Andrew Michta, Michal Onderco, Magnus Petersson, Sten Rynning, Olivier Schmitt, Ian Speller, and Matthew Uttley. 44. These ofªcial documents constitute the best currently available (nonclassiªed) sources to eval- uate national threat perceptions. To be sure, like any type of source, they also present potential l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 Illusions of Autonomy 17 Tableau 1. Threat Assessments in Europe Russia is a threat, but other threats are more signiªcant Russia and other threats have roughly equal signiªcance Russia is the highest threat, but other threats are also signiªcant Russia is the dominant threat by far Austria Croatia France Switzerland Czech Republic Belgium Norway Denmark Romania Germany Netherlands Slovakia United Kingdom Sweden Estonia Finland Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia is unimportant/ not a threat Bulgaria Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Luxembourg Portugal Serbia Spain Slovenia NOTE: The table includes European Union member states, member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, plus Serbia and Switzerland. For most states, the combination of these ªrst two sources provided enough information to reliably code national threat assessments. But for others, they were insufªcient because ofªcial threat assessments were somewhat ambigu- ous. For these countries, a third step was thus to interview senior foreign policy and defense ofªcials to obtain additional information and gain further clarity into the national threat assessment.45 We conclude that Europe is char- acterized by strategic cacophony (see table 1). Whereas some states rank ter- rorism and instability in the Mediterranean region at the top of their threat assessments—with little, if any, threat perception vis-à-vis Russia—others identify Russia as their overarching security concern, while largely ignoring the diffuse threats on Europe’s southern shores. Between these two extremes, different countries and groups of countries exhibit varying perceptions of their core security challenges. Dans l'ensemble, the continent is marked by profoundly diver- gent threat assessments and ensuing strategic priorities. The varied threat perceptions of European states have been shaped by a complex mix of history, politique, and geography, as well as by changes in the challenges. The documents can have multiple audiences (par exemple., the state bureaucracy, the larger public, and foreign governments). En tant que tel, they are political documents. National governments, donc, might prefer to conceal their main perceived threat(s) in such documents for political purposes. En outre, different government ministries and domestic constituencies can have dif- ferent threat assessments. Space constraints prevent an in-depth analysis of the bureaucratic and/ or domestic political disagreements on threat perceptions. The nested approach that we adopted helps circumvent these potential problems. 45. The interviews were conducted with current and formal ofªcials with responsibilities in political-military affairs, European affairs, and/or transatlantic relations in the ministries of for- eign affairs, defense, and the interior in Berlin, Londres, and Paris from January to June 2020. All the interviewees requested anonymity. l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 International Security 45:4 18 regional strategic environment. Details on our country codings are discussed below, according to category of threat prioritization. russia is uninmportant or not a threat Most smaller powers in Western and Southern Europe prioritize as their main sources of concern transnational terrorism, WMD proliferation, and instability across the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) and the resulting ºows of migrants (see table 1).46 Par contre, ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was perceived as the overarching conventional and nuclear threat during the Cold War, Russia has little, if any, signiªcance in their na- tional threat assessments.47 Indeed, some of these countries, such as Italy or Spain, have long advocated for sustained engagement with Moscow.48 Likewise, two countries that do not share the same level of anxiety held by most Central and Eastern European countries vis-à-vis Russia are Hungary and Bulgaria. Considering the threat of conventional war to be minimal, and given their strong ties with Moscow, they instead prioritize terrorism, migra- tion ºows, WMD proliferation, and cyberattacks.49 russia is a threat, but other threats are more signiªcant Other countries also prioritize transnational turmoil around Europe and the MENA, cyberattacks, and illegal migration, but dis- play higher threat perceptions of Russia than do states in the ªrst category (see terrorism, régional 46. Doc. 37, pp. 11–16; doc. 40, pp. 16–25; doc. 41, pp. 5, 6; doc. 42, p. 18; doc. 43, pp. 27, 29; Dionysios Chourchoulis, “Greece, Cyprus, and Albania,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of Eu- ropean Defence Policies and Armed Forces, pp. 313–329; doc. 36, p. 12; doc. 48, p. 12; doc. 47, 2018; doc. 60, pp. 21–23 (the authors are grateful to Bruno Cardoso Reis for translating the relevant por- tions of the document); doc. 64, pp. 9–11; doc. 65, pp. 6–8; doc. 67, p. 11–3; doc. 70, p. 4; doc. 66, p. 3; doc. 69, pp. 10–18; and doc. 74, p. 4. On Italy, see also Francesco N. Moro, Lorenzo Cicchi, and Fabrizio Coticchia, “Through Military Lenses: Perception of Security Threats and Jointness in the Italian Air Force,” Defence Studies, Vol. 18, Non. 2 (2018), pp. 207–228, doi.org/10.1080/14702436 .2018.1461014. Note that for Ireland, dissident republican paramilitaries constitute an additional (domestic) national security challenge. 47. On NATO’s southern ºank during the Cold War, voir, Par exemple, Dionysios Chourchoulis, The Southern Flank of NATO, 1951–1959: Military Strategy or Political Stabilization (Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2014); Ennio di Nolfo, “The Cold War and the Transformation of the Mediterranean, 1960–1975,” in Melvyn P. Lefºer and Odd Arne Westad, éd., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: la presse de l'Universite de Cambridge, 2010), pp. 238–257. 48. Doc. 75, p. 42; and Nadezhda Arbatova, Italy, Russia’s Voice in Europe? Russie.Nei.Visions No. 62 (Paris: Institut Français des Relations Internationales [IFRI], Septembre 2011). 49. Doc. 34, pp. 4, 12–13; doc. 35, p. 9; doc. 8, p. 13–14; doc. 5, pp. 29–32; and doc. 6, p. 11. For an analysis of Bulgaria and Hungary’s defense policies and their main strategic documents, see Jordan Baev, “Bulgaria and Romania,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European Defence Pol- icies and Armed Forces, pp. 263–278; Michal Onderco, “Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces, p. 285; and Dennison, Franke, and Zerka, The Nightmare of the Dark, pp. 14, 24. l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 Illusions of Autonomy 19 table 1). They perceive Russia as a threat, but nonetheless see other threats as relatively higher sources of concern.50 Croatia’s threat assessment, par exemple, focuses largely on challenges such as terrorism, regional instability, migration, and the proliferation of WMD.51 Still, in a veiled yet clear reference to Russia’s inºuence in the Western Balkans, Croatian policymakers put greater emphasis than the ªrst group of countries on threats such as “non-conventional, asymmetric, and cyber ac- tions” that are “planned, permanent and systematic activities supported by state bodies.”52 France is the only major power in this group. Its threat perceptions revolve, foremost, around transnational terrorism and regional instability in Europe’s southern periphery. French policymakers consider jihadist terrorism as “the most immediate” threat,53 especially in light of the steep rise in the number of terrorist attacks on French soil since the mid-2010s.54 France is also concerned with the proliferation of conventional and WMD-related technology,55 as well as with regional instability in Northern Africa and the Middle East.56 The French government puts particular emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa, où, partly because of its postcolonial history, France retains “a direct security and economic interest” in the stability of the region.57 Accordingly, although France has displayed growing concerns vis-à-vis Russia’s assertiveness after the Ukrainian crisis,58 other threats remain more signiªcant. russia and other threats have roughly equal signiªcance The United Kingdom and Germany—together with less powerful Western European states (Belgium and the Netherlands) and Denmark—consider Russia and other security challenges to be equivalent threats (see table 1). British policymakers include both Russia and terrorism in the UK’s “Tier 50. On Austria and Switzerland, see doc. 1, p. 7; doc. 2, 2020, pp. 24–51; doc. 80, pp. 9, 15–17; and doc. 78. See also Gunther Hauser and Mauro Mantovani, “Austria and Switzerland,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces, pp. 187–213; and Marco Wyss, “Military Transformation in Europe’s Neutral and Non-allied States,” RUSI Journal, Vol. 156, Non. 2 (2011), pp. 44–46, 48, doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2011.576474. 51. Doc. 7, pp. 7–9. 52. Ibid., pp. 8–9. 53. Doc. 25, p. 37. 54. Jessica Rivinius, Background Report: Mass-Fatality, Coordinated Attacks Worldwide, and Terrorism in France (College Park, Md.: National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Novembre 16, 2015). 55. Doc. 25, pp. 38–41. 56. Ibid., pp. 22–23, 25. 57. Ibid., p. 25. See also Nathaniel K. Powell, “Battling Instability? The Recurring Logic of French Military Interventions in Africa,” African Security, Vol. 10, Non. 1 (2017), pp. 47–72, est ce que je.org/ 10.1080/19392206.2016.1270141. 58. Doc. 25, pp. 41–42. l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 International Security 45:4 20 One” category of risks (in terms of probability and impact).59 In light of Russia’s increasingly assertive behavior, they assess that the “risks from state- based threats have both grown and diversiªed,”60 which is why the UK “can- not rule out the possibility that [Moscow] may feel tempted to act aggressively against NATO Allies.”61 According to a UK former senior defense ofªcial, the main areas of concerns vis-à-vis Moscow are (1) Russia’s military moderniza- tion, including the development and deployment of weapon systems that can threaten the UK’s NATO allies; (2) Russia’s gray-zone activities (par exemple., subver- sion, use of proxies, cyberattacks, use of military-grade nerve agents for tar- geted killings); et (3) Moscow’s activities outside Europe, such as in parts of Africa, mais, most notably, in the Middle East.62 Yet, at the same time, the UK sees transnational terrorism as an equally sub- stantial threat. British policymakers have perceived a rising threat from terror- ism since at least the 2005 London bombings and the subsequent wave of terrorist attacks that swept across Europe and the UK in the 2010s.63 In their eyes, “ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], Al Qa’ida, and afªliates remain committed to attacking UK and Western targets” and continue to be “the most direct and immediate threat” to the UK’s “domestic security.”64 In 2015, the British government therefore decided to increase its counterterrorism spending by 30 pour cent, including £2 billion of new investment in the capabili- ties of UK special forces.65 Germany, aussi, considers terrorism and Russia to be threats of roughly equal signiªcance. German policymakers view terrorist attacks as “the most im- mediate challenge” to their country’s domestic security.66 In 2018, Germany’s minister of interior stated that the security situation concerning terrorism con- tinued to be “very threatening.”67 For Germany, transnational terrorism is tied closely to regional stability in the MENA and to the existence of failing states in which terrorist organizations can thrive.68 Accordingly, it seeks to bolster co- operation with partners in Africa and the Middle East to train their security forces so as “to create a bulwark against international terrorism.”69 59. See doc. 81, Annex A—Summary of the National Security Risk Assessment 2015, p. 85; see also pp. 15–6, 18. 60. Doc. 82, p. 6. 61. Doc. 81, p. 18. See also Doc. 84, p. 5. 62. Hugo Meijer interview with former UK ministry of defense ofªcial, Février 17, 2020. See doc. 82, p. 8; and doc. 87, p. 11. 63. Doc. 82, p. 5; and doc. 81, p. 15. 64. Doc. 81, p. 85. 65. Doc. 83, p. 86. 66. Doc. 30, p. 34. See also doc. 29, p. 89. 67. Quoted in “Germany: Horst Seehofer Lays Down ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy,” Deutsche Welle, Mars 23, 2018. 68. Doc. 30, p. 34. See also doc. 31, p. 15. 69. Speech by Federal Minister of Defence at the Bundeswehr University, Munich, Novem- l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 Illusions of Autonomy 21 En même temps, Germany sees Russia as “openly calling the European peace order into question with its willingness to use force to advance its own interests and to unilaterally redraw borders guaranteed under international law, as it has done in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.”70 According to the minis- try of defense, “this has far-reaching implications for security in Europe and thus for the security of Germany.”71 A comparison of Germany’s 2006 White Paper and of the subsequent strategic documents (c'est à dire., le 2011 Defense Policy Guidelines and the 2016 White Paper) highlights the enhanced focus of the German armed forces on territorial defense since the Russia-Georgia war and Moscow’s landgrab in Crimea.72 Interviews with current and former German ofªcials reveal that the foreign affairs, intérieur, and defense ministries have different threat assessments. Whereas the ªrst two consider terrorism to be Germany’s main security chal- lenge, the latter prioritizes Russia as the main threat.73 Across the German gov- ernment, terrorism and Russia ultimately emerge as being roughly equally signiªcant threats. Smaller Western European powers such as the Netherlands and Belgium similarly consider Russia and other threats to be largely equivalent.74 Like- wise, in Northern Europe, Danish policymakers rank terrorism and regional instability in the MENA—which can provide fertile ground for terrorists— relatively higher than do their Nordic neighbors in their threat assess- ments.75 At the same time, Russia is seen as posing “a signiªcant security challenge,”76 and its military buildup and increased military exercises in the region, as well as its use of gray-zone operations, are considered “a clear chal- lenge” to Denmark.77 The Danish government thus sees Russia, terrorism, and regional instability in the MENA as equally signiªcant threats. russia is the highest threat; other threats are also signiªcant Several Northern and Eastern European states have displayed mounting threat perceptions of Russia—which they see as their major threat—especially since ber 7, 2019, https://www.bmvg.de/de/aktuelles/speech-federal-minister-of-defence-security- policy-147072. 70. Doc. 30, p. 31. 71. Ibid., p. 31. 72. Compare doc. 33, p. 9; doc. 32, p. 9; and doc. 30, p. 24. 73. Authors’ interviews with current and former ofªcials of the German ministries of foreign af- fairs, defense, and the interior, December 2019-March 2020. 74. On Belgium and the Netherlands, see doc. 4, pp. 24–29; doc. 3, pp. 38–40 (for Belgian troop de- ployments); doc. 16, pp. 19–20; doc. 15, p. 8; and doc. 14, p. 7. 75. Doc. 12, pp. 8, 10; doc.11, pp. 9, 25–38; and Dennison, Franke and Zerka, The Nightmare of the Dark, p. 18. 76. Doc. 11, p. 9. 77. Doc. 12, p. 13. l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 International Security 45:4 22 the Russo-Georgian War and, increasingly, the Ukrainian crisis (see table 1). Encore, they continue to share security concerns vis-à-vis terrorism, regional insta- bility in the MENA, and illegal migration. In Northern Europe, Norway and Sweden emphasize both the “long belt of instability” to the south of Europe and terrorism as signiªcant national secu- rity concerns.78 Yet, most notably since the 2010s, Russia has returned to the top of their national security concerns. En particulier, they highlight the devel- opment of Russia’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities, its numer- ous military exercises in Northern Europe, and its activities in the Arctic as amplifying the risk of an accident or a crisis resulting in unintended escalation to war.79 The Norwegian government, Par exemple, considers that “Russia’s overall military capacity is the most signiªcant security challenge for Norway and NATO.”80 Likewise, in Central and Eastern Europe, although the Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovakia also emphasize other security challenges (par exemple., instabil- ity in the Southern Mediterranean and terrorism), their threat assessments pri- oritize Russia’s assertiveness.81 While refraining from ofªcially labeling Russia a threat, the Romanian government argues that Russia’s naval buildup— and the ensuing “destabilization of the security situation in the Black Sea Extended Region”—“represent the most important factor of military risk against national security.”82 russia is the dominant threat by far The Baltic states, Finlande, and Poland exhibit the highest threat perceptions of Russia in Europe. The former Soviet-controlled states in the Baltic region (c'est à dire., Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) prioritize Russia’s conventional and gray- zone military threats as their core national security concern.83 Likewise, given Finland’s geographical proximity to Russia and their shared border, politique- 78. Doc. 55, p. 6; and Erna Solberg, “Security Policy Challenges Facing Norway and Europe Today,” speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Londres, May 6, 2018, https://www .regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/security-policy-challenges-facing-norway-and-europe-today/ id2603739/. See also doc. 77, pp. 12, 20; and doc. 76, pp. 2, 7. 79. Doc. 77, pp. 12, 17, 20; doc. 76, p. 1; and doc. 55, p. 15. On Russian attempts at exerting “control over the waters of the High North,” see doc. 53, p. 12. See also doc. 52, p. 5; doc. 55, p. 14; and Kristian Åtland, “Interstate Relations in the Arctic: An Emerging Security Dilemma?” Comparative Strategy, Vol. 33, Non. 2 (2014), pp. 156–157, doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2014.897121. 80. Doc. 51, p. 4. See also doc. 54, p. 8. 81. Doc. 10, p. 7; doc. 68, p. 33; doc. 62, p. 8; doc. 63, pp. 12–15; and Kamil Calus, Romania’s New Se- curity Strategy (Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies, Juillet 15, 2020). See also Baev, “Bulgaria and Ro- mania,” pp. 263–278; and Onderco, “Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,” pp. 279–288. 82. Doc. 62, pp. 7–8 (emphasis in the original). See also doc. 63, p. 12; and Siemon T. Wezeman and Alexandra Kuimova, Romania and Black Sea Security (Solna, Sweden: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Décembre 2018). 83. Doc. 45, p. 4; doc. 46, p. 4; doc. 20; doc. 44, p. 3; and doc. 18, pp. 4–5. l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 Illusions of Autonomy 23 makers in Helsinki have viewed Russia as their dominant national security threat throughout the post–Cold War period.84 Finland considers that the “use or threat of military force against Finland cannot be excluded.”85 Given its history of recurrent invasion by foreign powers, Poland has also consistently put Russia at the center of its security concerns since the end of the Cold War.86 Moscow’s “aggressive policy”—through which it aims to “destabilize the internal order of other states and to question their ter- ritorial integrity”—is seen as “a threat mainly for Poland and other countries in the region.”87 European Defense Capacity Shortfall European national assessments thus diverge profoundly regarding the priori- tization among different threats. Signiªcantly, Europe’s strategic cacophony greatly exacerbates a second overarching constraint on Europe achieving strategic autonomy: severe military capacity gaps that cannot be closed any- time soon. Since the end of the Cold War, Europe’s defense capacity has markedly de- creased.88 Operationally, le 2011 European military action in Libya revealed a severe shortage of key enablers for offensive military operations: the United States had to provide critical capabilities that the Europeans otherwise lacked, such as air-to-air refueling; suppression of enemy air defenses; and intelli- gence, target acquisition, and reconnaissance.89 Indeed, a recent systematic study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the German Council on Foreign Relations found that, because their capability shortfalls are 84. Voir, Par exemple, Jyri Häkämies, “Statesmen’s Forum: Jyri Häkämies, Finland’s Defense Min- ister,” speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., Sep- tember 6, 2007, https://www.csis.org/events/statesmens-forum-jyri-h%C3%A4k%C3%A4mies- ªnlands-defense-minister; Jannicke Fiskvik, Nordic Security: Moving towards NATO? CSS Analyses in Security Policy No. 189, Christian Nünlist, éd. (Zürich: Center for Security Studies [CSS] ETH Zürich, Avril 2016), p. 2; and Barbara Kunz, Northern Europe’s Strategic Challenge from Rus- sia: What Political and Military Responses? Russie.Nei.Visions No. 111 (Paris: IFRI, Octobre 2018), https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/notes-de-lifri/russieneivisions/northern-europes-strategic- challenge-russia-what. 85. Doc. 23, p. 11. 86. Andrew A. Michta, “Poland,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces, pp. 140–156. 87. Doc. 59, pp. 6, 23, 24. 88. For a recent assessment, voir, Par exemple, Douglas Barrie et al., Protecting Europe: Meeting the EU’s Military Level of Ambition in the Context of Brexit (Londres: IISS, Novembre 2018); and Douglas Barrie et al., Defending Europe: Scenario-Based Capability Requirements for NATO’s European Members (Londres: IISS, Avril 2019). 89. Philippe Gros, Libya and Mali Operations: Transatlantic Lessons Learned (Washington, D.C.: Ger- man Marshall Fund of the United States, 2014), p. 13, https://www.frstrategie.org/sites/default/ ªles/documents/publications/autres/2014/2014-gros-gmf-libya-mali.pdf. l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 International Security 45:4 24 so signiªcant, Europeans would struggle to autonomously undertake opera- tions even at the low end of the spectrum of conºict (such as peace enforce- ment missions).90 Dans cette section, we focus on Europeans’ capacity for conventional warfare because it is indispensable for defense and deterrence vis-à-vis Russia and because this allows us to directly address the argument of restraint schol- ars who maintain that the Europeans could autonomously balance Russia with ease. We identify four major challenges that are likely to hinder the capacity of Europeans to develop an autonomous conventional defense capacity. lack of weapon systems for conventional deterrence and defense During the Cold War, Europeans invested heavily in the kind of conventional capabilities required for conventional deterrence and defense. But after the Cold War, European defense spending plummeted, and a great proportion of these limited resources were directed toward out-of-area operations.91 As a re- sult, Europeans are lacking in even the most basic conventional deterrence and defense capabilities. A key reason for this situation is Europe’s strategic ca- cophony. The ªve economically largest European countries—the UK, France, Allemagne, Espagne, and Italy—are all located in Western or Southern Europe, which collectively have greatly de-emphasized the territorial defense mission since the end of the Cold War. In contrast, states in Central and Northern Europe have tended to focus relatively more on territorial defense, especially after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea; yet, these parts of Europe contain only small to medium-sized countries.92 Until now, there has been no long-term examination of the year-to-year shift across all of Europe of the kinds of core capabilities needed for conventional deterrence and defense. To address this gap, we systematically gathered data from the IISS Military Balance for the 1990–2020 period on three core military systems for conventional warfare: main battle tanks (MBTs), armored person- nel carriers (APCs), and artillery. To be sure, conventional warfare requires more than simply land capabilities. Encore, Russia’s A2/AD capacity is aimed at eroding, or nullifying, NATO’s local control of its airspace, thus compelling NATO forces, in the case of conºict, to operate in an environment of land war- fare with contested air support.93 In this context, land resistance—and thus 90. Barrie et al., Protecting Europe. 91. Meijer and Wyss, “Beyond CSDP,” pp. 9-dix. 92. Ibid., pp. 63–66. 93. Voir, Par exemple, NATO Standard AJP-3.2 Allied Joint Doctrine for Land Operations, Edition A Version 1 (Brussels: NATO, Mars 2016); and Brigadier General Mehmet Yalinalp, “Air Operations in Contested Environments,” Joint Air and Space Power Conference, Messe Essen GmbH Ger- many, October 4–6, 2016, https://www.japcc.org/air-operations-contested-environments/. l Téléchargé à partir du site Web : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 Illusions of Autonomy 25 Chiffre 1. Number of Main Battle Tanks of Large European Powers l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / direct . m je t . e d u / i s e c / art – pdlf / / / / 4 5 4 7 2 0 7 9 8 5 2 / i s e c _ a _ 0 0 4 0 5 pd . f par invité 0 7 Septembre 2 0 2 3 SOURCE: International Institute of Strategic Studies, Military Balance, 1990–2020. land capabilities—become key, which is why we focus on these three speciªc systems (they constitute a sample of the needed land warfare capabilities). The data for MBTs of Europe’s major powers are displayed in ªgure 1.94 (Online appendix C shows the data on MBTs of medium and smaller European coun- tries as well as the data for APCs and artillery for all European countries.) These data underscore the marked decline of European conventional war- fare capabilities in the past three decades. Depuis 1990 à 2020, the combined European total number of MBTs plunged by 85 pour cent; APCs fell by 64 par- cent; and artillery declined by 56 pour cent. As Sven Biscop concludes, “Europe’s capability shortfalls are such that it can neither meet its NATO obligations for territorial defense, nor achieve strategic autonomy with regard to the protec- tion of Europe.”95 In reality, the situation is even worse than these data indicate, because most European militaries have signiªcant readiness deªciencies. Par exemple, an analysis by the German Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces 94. Large powers are those with GDPs above $1 trillion and/or populations above 30 million; me-
dium powers are those with GDPs between $250 billion and $1 trillion and/or populations below
30 million; and small powers are those with GDPs between $100 billion and $250 milliard.
95. Sven Biscop, “European Defence: Give PESCO a Chance,” Survival, Vol. 60, Non. 3 (2018),
p. 173, doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2018.1470771.

International Security 45:4 26

concluded in 2018 that the “readiness of the Bundeswehr’s major weapons
systems is dramatically low in many areas,”96 noting that only 39 percent of
Germany’s Leopard 2 battle tanks were available for use given a lack of spare
parties; the operability of only a quarter of its PUMA infantry combat vehicles;
the nonavailability of any of its six submarines; and the ability of less than half
of its Euroªghters and Tornado combat aircraft to ºy.97 Signiªcantly, Europe’s
readiness problems, such as the obsolescence of its MBTs, are projected to be-
come even more challenging in the decades ahead.98

the complexity of employing modern weapons systems

As dramatic as these weapons shortfalls are, European defense spending—if
allocated properly—could eventually secure the needed systems. Encore, not only
is the efªcient allocation of resources a major challenge because of Europe’s
strategic cacophony (as detailed below), but securing the needed weapons
systems would only be the ªrst step.

The effective employment of modern weapons systems is far more challeng-
ing than in past eras for a variety of reasons. A key consideration is the im-
mense premium put on command, control, communications, computers,
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). C4ISR—often referred
to as the “nervous system” of modern militaries—is crucial for gathering infor-
mation about the combatants, for effectively processing that information, et
for disseminating and using that information to develop and implement
complex plans.99 NATO’s 2011 mission in Libya shows the heavy reliance of
Europeans on the United States’ C4ISR capacity. Europeans would therefore
need to develop their own C4ISR capacity to be able to autonomously balance
Russia, which would not be an easy undertaking given that Russia is no Libya.
They would need large amounts of new C4ISR systems (par exemple., reconnaissance
and communication satellites; early warning and control aircraft; sensor sys-
thèmes; air, naval, and land command and control platforms), the most complex
of which have very long development times. Notably, the already signiªcant
difªculty of Europeans assembling the needed systems would be made even
more acute if the UK’s exit from the EU ends up meaning that British cap-

96. German Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Annual Report 2017 (59th Report),
Février 20, 2018, p. 41.
97. Ibid.; and German Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Annual Report 2019
(61st Report), Janvier 28, 2020, p. 42.
98. Yohann Michel, “France and Germany: On the Right Tank Tracks?” Military Balance blog, IISS,
Juillet 11, 2018, https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2018/07/france-and-germany-tank-
tracks.
99. Voir, Par exemple, Frans Osinga, “The Rise of Military Transformation,” in Terry Terriff, Osinga,
and Theo Farrell, éd., A Transformation Gap? American Innovations and European Military Change
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2010), pp. 14–34.

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Illusions of Autonomy 27

abilities also need to be replaced: at present, the UK detains, among other
capabilities, 53 percent of the EU’s combat intelligence, surveillance and re-
connaissance heavy unmanned aerial vehicles (CISR UAVs), 42 percent of
airborne early warning and control aircraft, et 38 percent of electronic-
intelligence aircraft.100

En outre, European countries lack the kind of specialized personnel
needed to operate modern weapons systems effectively. Redressing this weak-
ness would be a signiªcant undertaking, as they have reduced their number of
military personnel drastically since the end of the Cold War. As ªgure 2 shows,
the size of the total active militaries of the large European powers declined by
57 percent during the 1990–2020 period.101 Furthermore, beyond the difªculty
of securing the ªnancial resources to pay the needed personnel, recruiting
sufªcient specialized personnel would be a major challenge, as demonstrated
by the difªculties faced by many European militaries in attracting personnel
for skilled positions.102 Notably, a recent study has shown that the employ-
ment of advanced weaponry calls for highly skilled and highly trained mili-
tary personnel, which are now more difªcult to recruit and retain in the
military.103 Obtaining specialized military personnel to operate modern weap-
onry is only the beginning; they must also be trained to effectively use modern
weapons, which is extremely challenging and time consuming, partially be-
cause these weapons need to be used as part of a cohesive package that places
a premium not just on information gathering, but also on coordination and
delegation.104 It has taken U.S. military personnel an extraordinarily long time
to develop the skills required for effectively using today’s weapons systems: comme
Posen stresses, the United States’ “development of new weapons and tactics

100. Peter Round, Bastian Giegerich and Christian Mölling, European Strategic Autonomy and
Brexit (Londres: IISS, Juin 2018), p. 3, https://www.iiss.org/-/media/images/comment/military-
balance-blog/2018/june/european-strategic-autonomy-and-brexit-iiss-dgap.pdf.
101. The data and ªgures in online appendix C show that even more dramatic reductions oc-
curred concerning the size of all European powers’ active armies (which declined 65 pour cent), total
reserves (which fell by 88 pour cent), and army reserves (which dropped by 85 pour cent).
102. Voir, Par exemple, Ministry of Defence: Ensuring Sufªcient Skilled Military Personnel (Londres:
National Audit Ofªce, Avril 18, 2018), pp. 18–25; and French Senate, Améliorer la Condition Mili-
taire: Une Nécessité Stratégique, Opérationnelle et Humaine pour le Rapporteur Spécial de la Commission
des Finances du Sénat [Improving the military condition: a strategic, operational, and human neces-
sity for the special rapporteur of the Senate ªnance committee], Report No. 652, Juillet 10, 2019,
sec. 2.
103. Andrea Asoni et al., “A Mercenary Army of the Poor? Technological Change and the Demo-
graphic Composition of the Post-9/11 U.S. Military,” Journal of Strategic Studies, published online
2020, doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2019.1692660. See also European Organization of Military Associ-
ations and Trade Unions (EUROMIL), EUROMIL Position on Recruitment and Retention (Brussels:
EUROMIL, 2020), http://euromil.org/euromil-position-on-recruitment-and-retention/.
104. See Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli, “The Diffusion of Drone Warfare? Industrial, Organiza-
tional, and Infrastructural Constraints,” Security Studies, Vol. 25, Non. 1 (Hiver 2016), pp. 50–84,
doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2016.1134189.

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International Security 45:4 28

Chiffre 2. Number of Active Troops of Large European Powers

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SOURCE: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Military Balance, 1990–2020.

depends on decades of expensively accumulated technological and tactical
experience.”105 It would likely take Europeans even longer to develop the
needed skills, given differences across countries regarding operational cul-
photos, levels of ambition, languages, and so on.106

Enfin, the effective use of modern weaponry in the European theater de-
pends on European forces being able to move quickly and securely over large
distances within Europe. Encore, as a UK parliamentary report puts it, “NATO has
difªculty moving large forces” across Europe.107 In recent years, the Europeans
have sought to bolster military mobility through a variety of initiatives dis-
persed across different institutions (within both the EU and NATO).108 Encore, le
movement and training of military personnel and assets in Europe remain se-
verely hampered by a combination of capability shortfalls, legal/procedural
hurdles, and infrastructural deªciencies that will not be easy to resolve.109

105. Barry R. Posen, “Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony,»
International Security, Vol. 28, Non. 1 (Été 2003), p. 10, doi.org/10.1162/016228803322427965.
106. Voir, Par exemple, Sylvain Paile, The European Military Higher Education Stocktaking Report
(Brussels: European Security and Defence College, May 2010).
107. House of Commons Defence Committee, Indispensable Allies: NOUS, NATO, and UK Defence Rela-
tion, 2018, p. 9.
108. Ben Hodges, Tony Lawrence, and Ray Wojcik, Until Something Moves: Reinforcing the Baltic Re-
gion in Crisis and War (Tallinn: International Centre for Defence and Security, Avril 2020).
109. Ibid..

Illusions of Autonomy 29

the difªculty of institutionalized military cooperation

An additional challenge is institutional. Europe’s strategic cacophony has pre-
vented Europeans from developing an autonomous, military-planning, com-
(C2) structure.110 Indeed, a report by the European
mand and control
Parliamentary Research Service explains that one of the greatest challenges of
European defense is “the lack of integration of the military structures of the
Member States.”111 Although an effective and autonomous European defense
would require the creation of a permanent planning and C2 infrastructure,
the question of developing an autonomous Operational Headquarters (OHQ)
has proven highly divisive.112 An OHQ was never established because of
conºicting national interests and priorities among Europeans, in particular
France, Germany and the UK. Whereas Paris has long supported the establish-
ment of a military OHQ to bolster the EU’s strategic and operational planning
structures and its contingency planning and C2 capacity, London has strongly
resisted, seeing it as a duplication of NATO’s assets. Germany has stood some-
what in between, though closer to the UK, favoring a focus on civilian-military
planning and C2, not least to avoid duplicating structures already existing at
NATO.113 As a result, the EU remains entirely dependent on NATO or national
assets for the planning and conduct of major executive operations, for which it
has no autonomous military structures.114

If the United States were to pull back from Europe, it remains to be seen
whether the Europeans could rely on a “Europeanized” NATO, in which the
integrated structures would stay in place but without the United States.115 Mil-
itary planning and C2 require a clear chain of command. When NATO was
created, Europeans agreed to be under U.S. military command, rather than at-
tempting the far more difªcult task of agreeing to be under the command of

110. The chain of command for EU-led military operations is established on a case-by-case basis.
European External Action Service, EU Concept for Military Command and Control (Brussels: Council
of the European Union, Janvier 5, 2015), p. 10.
111. Blanca Ballester, The Cost of Non-Europe in Common Security and Defense Policy (Brussels: EU,
2013), p. 75, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2013/494466/IPOL-
JOIN_ET(2013)494466_EN.pdf.
112. Luis Simón, “CSDP, Strategy, and Crisis Management: Out of Area or Out of Business?” Inter-
national Spectator, Vol. 47, Non. 3 (2012), pp. 101, 114, doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2012.655051.
113. Luis Simón, “Neorealism, Security Cooperation, and Europe’s Relative Gains Dilemma,” Se-
curity Studies, Vol. 26, Non. 2 (2017), pp. 197–211, doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2017.1280297; and Luis
Simón, Command and Control? Planning for EU Military Operations, Occasional Paper No. 81 (Paris:
European Union Institute for Security Studies [EUISS], 2010), pp. 17–26.
114. The MPCC, established in 2017, is responsible for operational planning and conduct only for
smaller ‘non-executive’ missions, c'est à dire., which support the host nation with an advisory role only (comme
opposed to executive missions that directly replace host nation forces). See Thierry Tardy, MPCC:
Towards an EU Military Command? (Zürich: CSS ETH Zürich, Juin 13, 2017); and Jolyon Howorth,
Security and Defence Policy in the European Union, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014),
p. 78.
115. On this point, see Jolyon Howorth, “EU-NATO Cooperation: The Key to Europe’s Security
Future,” European Security, Vol. 26, Non. 3 (2017), pp. 454–459, doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2017
.1352584.

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International Security 45:4 30

another European country or group of European states. Plus généralement, as the
hegemonic power in NATO, the United States has facilitated institutionalized
cooperation among Europeans and helped partly contain Europe’s strategic
cacophony.116 For decades, a U.S.-led NATO has been the overarching shaper
of national defense policies and military transformation in Europe, helping
overcome coordination and collective-action problems.117 In light of Europe’s
deep-seated strategic divisions, a U.S. disengagement would amplify these co-
ordination and collective action problems (assuming NATO survived) et
would further hinder institutionalized, intra-European defense cooperation at
all levels: strategies and doctrines; entraînement; operational learning; interopera-
bility; and joint capability development. De même, without the United States,
the persistent and profound divergence of threat perceptions and strategic pri-
orities among Europeans is likely to impede their capacity to agree on shared
C2 structures for conducting operations, except for the lowest end of the spec-
trum of conºict (par exemple., peace support operations).118

As a result of strategic cacophony, the EU has, in fact, struggled mightily to
create even the most minimal C2 structure. As Luis Simón underscores, “It has
taken nearly 20 years of allegedly signiªcant steps for the European Union to
establish a ‘Military Planning and Conduct Capability’ composed of up
à 25 staffers, devoted to assisting with the planning and conduct of so-called
non-executive (c'est à dire., training and assistance) missions,” with an advisory role
only.119 Ultimately, given Europe’s deep-seated divergences, there is no basis
for optimism that Europeans will be able to agree being under the permanent
command of another European country for deterrence and defense or to con-
sistently undertake effective institutionalized military cooperation without the
enabling role played by the United States within NATO.

116. The literature on institutionalized cooperation clearly indicates that the loss of American he-
gemonic leadership would make European security cooperation considerably harder and much
less likely. As Robert Keohane emphasizes in this regard, “Leadership is indeed essential in order
to promote cooperation. . . . We know that in the absence of leadership, world politics suffers from
collective action problems, as each state tries to shift the burdens of adjustment to change onto oth-
ers. . . . We know that leadership is costly and states other than the leader have incentives to shirk
their responsibilities.” Robert O. Keohane, “Hegemony and After: Knowns and Unknowns in the
Debate over Decline,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2012, pp. 117– 118.
117. Anthony King, The Transformation of Europe’s Armed Forces: From the Rhine to Afghanistan
(Cambridge: la presse de l'Universite de Cambridge, 2011), p. 62; and Meijer and Wyss, “Upside Down,»
p. 39.
118. Ulrich Krotz and Katerina Wright have shown that, because of diverging interests and capa-
bility shortfalls, EU CSDP operations frequently remain limited in size, scope, and political or mili-
tary ambition. Ulrich Krotz and Katerina Wright, “CSDP Military Operations,” in Meijer and
Wyss, The Handbook of European Defense Policies and Armed Forces, p. 885.
119. Luis Simón, “Don’t Believe the Hype about European Defense,” War on the Rocks blog, Juin
27, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/06/dont-believe-the-hype-about-european-defense/.
On the MPCC, see also footnote 112.

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Illusions of Autonomy 31

the fragmentation of europe’s defense industrial base

If Europeans want to be strategically autonomous, they will have to produce
the defense systems they need without being reliant on the United States. Le
entrenched fragmentation of Europe’ defense industrial base, cependant, would
make this a daunting task.

On the demand side, European states have consistently privileged do-
mestically procured defense equipment over European arms cooperation.
According to data from the European Defense Agency, depuis 2006 à 2015, col-
laborative defense procurement in Europe accounted for less than one quarter
of total procurement.120 For example, a mere 7 percent of the European surface
vessels currently in use have been built through European armament coopera-
tion.121 As for ªghter aircraft—where the economic incentives for European-
wide collaboration are especially powerful given the immense cost and
complexity of these systems—there has been relatively limited defense cooper-
ation: less than a third (32.6 pour cent) of combat aircraft used by EU militaries
come from European collaborative production.122 Similarly, European states
spend more than 80 percent of their military research-and-development bud-
gets within national borders.123

On the supply side, these compartmentalized national markets for weapons
systems have resulted in a fragmented and noncompetitive European defense
and technological
industrial base (EDTIB) characterized by duplication,
inefªciencies, endemic overcapacity, and a lack of economies of scale.124 In
2017, 178 different weapons systems were in use in the EU, compared to 30
in the United States.125 As a result, the components that sustain the industrial
capacity to deliver high-end to low-end capabilities are scattered across
Europe.126 This is a signiªcant problem given that today’s scale requirements
are massive for many weapons systems, which also explains why Europe re-
mains highly dependent on the import of key components and weapons
systems from the United States.127

Europe has recognized the need for stronger defense production coordina-

120. Defence Data 2006–2016 (Belgium: European Defence Agency [EDA], 2017), https://www
.eda.europa.eu/docs/default-source/documents/eda-defence-data-2006-2016.
121. Daniel Fiott, Strategic Autonomy: Towards ‘European Sovereignty’ in Defence? Issue Brief 12
(Paris: EUISS, Novembre 30, 2018), p. 3.
122. Ibid..
123. Defense Data 2006–2016.
124. Antonio Missiroli, James Rogers, and Andrea Gilli, Enabling the Future—European Military Ca-
pabilities 2013–2025: Challenges and Avenues, Report No. 16 (Paris: EUISS, May 2013), pp. 10–11; et
Ballester, The Cost of Non-Europe in Common Security and Defence Policy, pp. 61–63.
125. European Commission, “Defending Europe: The Case for Greater EU Cooperation on Secu-
rity and Defense,” Factsheet, 2017.
126. Round, Giegerich and Mölling, “European Strategic Autonomy and Brexit,” p. 4.
127. See Valerio Briani et al., The Development of a European Defense Technological and Industrial Base
(EDTIB) (Belgium: EU, 2013), pp. 52–57; and Fiott, Strategic Autonomy, pp. 4–5.

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International Security 45:4 32

tion for a long time, and the mechanisms for fostering European-wide collabo-
ration in weapons production have been a topic of discussion for the past
several decades. On the demand side, this coordination would require a uni-
form European procurement policy, with common requirements and with de-
fense industrial cooperation among EU countries being prioritized over
national procurement.128 And on the supply side, this would require an
integrated defense and technological industrial base (par exemple., with one or two
major European prime contractors per sector) capable of sustaining military
innovation and the development, production, and maintenance of arms at rea-
sonable cost.

Encore, efforts to formulate the kinds of policies that would foster European-
wide defense collaboration have been feeble. As Matthew Uttley explains, ini-
tiatives taken over the years to rationalize and bolster the EDTIB have had a
“limited impact,” because governments see a strong national DTIB as a neces-
sary prerequisite for national political sovereignty and, as a result, “national
protectionist practices” remain “the dominant driving force in E.U. defense
procurement.”129 A report by the European Parliament conªrms that a key rea-
son for this lack of collaboration is Europe’s strategic cacophony, speciªcally,
“the current fragmentation of the defense market in terms of demand, regula-
tion, standards and supply.”130

Assessing the Counterargument: Can Europeans Balance Russia?

Ensemble, Europe’s strategic cacophony and its defense capacity shortfalls feed
and reinforce each other. For one thing, many of the needed steps to make up
for Europe’s defense capacity shortfalls will require prolonged cooperation;
Europeans would thus need to overcome their entrenched strategic cacophony
not just for a short time, but over a very long period. De plus, because di-
verging interests hamper defense industrial cooperation among Europeans,
this—coupled with major capability shortfalls—deepens their technological

128. On the initiatives intended to address such problems since the 1990s (par exemple., the Organisation
for Joint Armament Cooperation or the European Defense Agency), voir, par exemple, Daniel Fiott,
Defence Industrial Cooperation in the European Union: The State, the Firm, and Europe (New York:
Routledge, 2019), chaps. 3, 5. The most recent initiative, the EDF, is a ªnancial envelope seeking to
reduce the existing fragmentation by boosting research, development, and production of joint
European defense projects. Encore, dans 2020, the planned EDF budget was subsequently slashed almost
by half (depuis $13 à $7.95 bn). On the diverging national perspectives on EDF, see Luis Simón and
Antonio Calcara, “A Two-Level Playing Field? Market Size, Relative Gains and European Defense-
Industrial Cooperation,” working paper, 2021.
129. Matthew Uttley, “Arms Procurement,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European Defence
Policies and Armed Forces, p. 690.
130. European Parliament, The Development of a European Defence and Technological Industrial Base
(EDTIB) (Brussels: Directorate-General for External Policies, 2013), p. 22.

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Illusions of Autonomy 33

dependency on the United States, further reinforcing the challenges to ad-
dressing Europe’s capability shortfalls.

Restraint scholars arguing for a U.S. pullout would undoubtedly respond
que, even if Europe is currently split by strategic divisions and has severe de-
fense capacity shortfalls, a U.S. withdrawal would result in heightened
European threat perceptions of Russia and thereby lead Europeans to bolster
their defense investments—thus prompting them to come together to balance
Russia (through a balancing coalition or through the EU, or both). For restraint
scholars, it is the U.S. presence in Europe that affords Europeans the luxury of
low threat perceptions of Russia and thereby drives them to underinvest in de-
fense. Below, we assess the validity and robustness of this counterargument.

european threat perceptions after a u.s. withdrawal

We now evaluate how European threat perceptions would likely evolve
if the United States were to pull back, focusing ªrst on Europe’s three
major powers (France, the UK, and Germany) and then on its medium and
lesser powers.

Given its geographical location, colonial past, and continued engagement in
Africa, France tends to look south rather than east for the defense of its core
strategic interests.131 Furthermore, France’s strategic outlook remains shaped
partly by its Cold War, Gaullist foreign policy legacy, which was based on the
willingness to carve out a “third way” between the Soviet-led and the U.S.-led
blocs through some form of accommodation with Moscow while maintaining
an independent nuclear force and a French area of inºuence in Africa.132

The UK, as an offshore seapower, has since the early Cold War concluded
that the only way to deter the Soviet Union (and later Russia) is to use the
United States as a counterweight.133 Accordingly, the “special relationship”
with the United States, both bilaterally and through NATO, has been the cen-
ter of gravity of the UK’s defense policy—as illustrated by its heavy reliance
on U.S. military technology.134 Indeed, NATO has been the main vehicle
through which Britain has sought to entrench U.S. power in Europe and deter
external threats.135

131. Voir, Par exemple, Powell, “Battling Instability?»; and Stefano Recchia and Thierry Tardy,
“French Military Operations in Africa: Reluctant Multilateralism,” Journal of Strategic Studies,
Vol. 43, Non. 4, published online March 2020, doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2020.1733984.
132. Olivier Schmitt, “The Reluctant Atlanticist: France’s Security and Defence Policy in a Transat-
lantic Context,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 40, Non. 4 (2017), p. 468, doi.org/10.1080/01402390
.2016.1220367.
133. Andrew M. Dorman, “United Kingdom,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European De-
fence Policies and Armed Forces, p. 73.
134. Simón, “Neorealism, Security Cooperation, and Europe’s Relative Gains Dilemma,” p. 198.
135. Ibid..

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International Security 45:4 34

De même, Allemagne, because of its history and location in the heart of the
European continent, has strategic priorities different from those of France.
The defeat and subsequent occupation of Germany in World War II, y compris
by the Soviet Union, was followed by the division of the country in two, avec
one side under Soviet inºuence—thus making Germany the geostrategic epi-
center of the Cold War. After its reuniªcation and the end of the Cold War, comme
well as its self-imposed stringent parliamentary constraints on the use of mili-
tary force, Germany has opted for a combination of economic and political in-
tegration with the EU and military reliance on NATO, with the United States
as the ultimate guarantor for its security and the stability of the continent.136
Idiosyncratic historical legacies, géographie, and distinctive local security en-
vironments have thus profoundly shaped the threat assessments of the three
major European powers. To be sure, these differences existed during the Cold
War, aussi, but they were muted by the overwhelming, common Soviet threat.137
Par contre, in light of the diversiªcation of the post–Cold War threat environ-
ment, if the United States withdrew from the continent, the threat perceptions
of these major powers would be unlikely to converge around Russia.138

In such a scenario, the UK and Germany would be prone to exhibit height-
ened threat perceptions vis-à-vis Russia. Given their historical reliance upon
NATO as their ultimate security guarantee, if the United States were to re-
move its conventional and nuclear forces, the credibility of NATO’s deterrent
vis-à-vis Russia would founder in the eyes of British and German policy-
makers. Par conséquent, there is every reason to expect they would raise the
signiªcance of Russia and of territorial defense in their defense planning. À
the same time, they would still have to reckon with other signiªcant threats
(par exemple., transnational terrorism and regional stability in the MENA).

Par contre, France’s threat assessment would most likely remain un-
changed if the United States withdrew. Although France might view Russia

136. Ibid., pp. 200–201.
137. On European threat perceptions during the Cold War, voir, Par exemple, Beatrice Heuser,
NATO, Britain, France, and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (Londres:
Palgrave Macmillan, 1997); and Vojtech Mastny, Sven S. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger, éd.,
War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and West (Abingdon, U.K.:
Routledge, 2013).
138. To be sure, Europe’s likelihood of banding together also would be inºuenced by the nature of
Russian actions following a U.S. pullback. Europe’s response would depend on exactly how—and
the extent to which—Russia engages in revisionism: Would it target Ukraine, members of either
NATO or the EU, or a country outside those institutions? Would it seek to take control of a whole
country or just a portion of one? Would it focus on one country or multiple ones? Would Russia
use its own military personnel, or deploy covert forces (par exemple., little green men)? Since there are so
many different hypothetical scenarios regarding how Russia might change its revisionism, we fo-
cus here on deriving a baseline understanding of how European countries would likely react to
Russia’s current level of territorial revisionism—that is, its past seizure of Crimea and its ongoing
actions in western Ukraine—if the United States were no longer in Europe.

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Illusions of Autonomy 35

with greater concern, it would continue to prioritize terrorism and, crucially,
threats on Europe’s southern periphery (c'est à dire., regional instability in the greater
Mediterranean area, in general, and in Africa, in particular). As a senior cur-
rent French defense ofªcial put it in an interview, “If the United States with-
drew, the risk represented by Russia would ostensibly be greater but, à la
same time, it would be greater only if France considered that the threat posed
by Russia to the Baltic states, Poland, etc.. constitutes a threat to our vital inter-
ests, which is far from sure.” This is because threats to Europe’s southern
periphery, such as “the destabilization of Africa or the Middle East are consid-
ered to be a much higher priority than Russia. . . . Our vital interests are not
threatened by Russia.”139

In sum, in the case of a complete U.S. pullback from the continent, Londres
and Berlin would likely move rightward into the second column from the right
in table 1 (Russia is a higher threat, but other threats are also signiªcant), alors que
France would not shift from its current position. Given their differing threat
prioritizations, the United Kingdom, Allemagne, and France would be very un-
likely to reach agreement on a common position vis-à-vis Russia. Allemagne
and the UK might lean more toward balancing and expand bilateral defense
cooperation to that end. Cependant, unlike countries that view Russia as the
dominant threat by far (c'est à dire., the Baltic states and Poland), they would face im-
portant trade-offs in their allocation of resources—between territorial defense
and power projection capabilities, between Europe’s eastern and southern pe-
riphery, and so on—given that they would continue to grapple with other sig-
niªcant threats. For its part, because France would likely continue to prioritize
threats on Europe’s southern periphery, it would be unlikely to provide a
substantial (if any) contribution to a balancing coalition. En fait, it might opt
for accommodation with Russia to develop a sphere of inºuence in Western/
Southern Europe or, potentiellement, even see some strategic advantages to band-
wagoning with Russia.

This predicament would be further compounded by fundamental diver-
gences in threat perceptions among Europe’s medium and small powers.
Except for lesser powers in Northern and Eastern Europe (c'est à dire., the Baltic states
and Poland), which would consistently see Russia as their overriding threat,
the other medium and small European states would likely display profoundly
different reactions to a U.S. pullback, depending on their geographic location,
histoire, and strategic priorities. While some countries would undoubtedly per-
ceive a higher threat from Russia and thus revise their threat assessments
(moving one column to the right in table 1), others would likely maintain their
existing threat hierarchization given the equivalent or higher priority they as-

139. Hugo Meijer interview, Janvier 29, 2020.

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International Security 45:4 36

sign to other threats or regions, or both. En fait, there is every indication that
most medium and small European countries that currently perceive threats
other than Russia to be more signiªcant or dominant would be highly unlikely
to revise their threat assessment. Several of these countries might even become
neutral or bandwagon with Moscow. It is therefore extremely implausible that
all European states would move Russia up in their ranking of threats. Et
even if they did, the cacophony of threat perception would remain, with only a
few lesser powers in Northern and Eastern Europe perceiving Russia as their
dominant threat.

Restraint scholars might reply that the above discussion is excessively pessi-
mistic about the chances for European defense coordination because it neglects
the role the EU can play in bringing Europe together in the security realm if
the United States leaves.140 The EU is not an effective institutional platform for
overcoming Europe’s strategic divergence, cependant. There are many reasons
for this, with the most notable being that the EU is a kaleidoscope of countries
with diverging interests that operates on the basis of consensus in the ªeld of
foreign and defense policy—thus making the Common Security and Defense
Policy a “structurally limited undertaking.”141 If the United States were to pull
back, rather than work to overcome European divisions, the EU would be
prone to inaction because of such divisions. Ainsi, only an effective institu-
tional structure could probably overcome, or at least mitigate, Europe’s divi-
sions, but strategic cacophony would prevent the EU from being enabled to
perform this function.

how easily can europeans balance russia’s military strength?

A complete U.S. withdrawal would thus not mitigate Europe’s strategic ca-
cophony and could exacerbate it. Restraint scholars might argue, cependant,
que, even if threat perceptions did not converge across Europe, balancing
Russia would not require much effort because it is so weak. Encore, Russia is a
much tougher adversary to match than restraint scholars now assess it to be—
both in the conventional and the nuclear realms.

conventional defense and deterrence. As Michael Kofman and Richard
Connolly convincingly argue, “Russian military expenditure is considerably
higher” than commonly estimated.142 Of key importance, they stress, is that

140. À cet égard, Posen stresses that the EU is “a good base on which Europeans could build an
autonomous defensive capability” and that the emergence of a Common Security and Defense
Policy “demonstrates that [the Europeans] can look after themselves.” Posen, Restraint, pp. 89, 90.
141. Jolyon Howorth and Anand Menon, “Still Not Pushing Back: Why the European Union Is
Not Balancing the United States,” Journal of Conºict Resolution, Vol. 53, Non. 5 (Octobre 2009), p. 741,
doi.org/10.1177/0022002709339362.
142. See Michael Kofman and Richard Connolly, “Why Russian Military Expenditure Is Much
Higher Than Commonly Understood (As Is China’s),” War on the Rocks blog, Décembre 16, 2019,

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Illusions of Autonomy 37

Russia gets a lot for what it spends on its military: it pays its soldiers a pittance
in rubles, et, even more important, it buys its weapons from its own defense
contractors in rubles, not dollars. De plus, the Russian government has
squeezed proªts in the defense sector, making the weapons it buys artiªcially
cheap. Notably, Russia’s unusually high capacity to produce advanced weap-
onry using domestic resources is a legacy of the Soviet Union’s massive level
of defense production during the Cold War. Finalement, Kofman and Connolly
maintain that, because Russia’s rubles can purchase so much military power
so cheaply, it is inappropriate to use market exchange-based estimates of its
military spending. Based upon purchasing power parity exchange rates,
“Russia’s effective military expenditure actually ranged between $150 billion and $180 billion annually” (depuis 2015 à 2019), and “taking into account hid-
den or obfuscated military expenditure, Russia may well come in at around
$200 billion.”143 Given this understanding, Russian military spending likely
exceeds the combined levels of defense expenditures of the three major
European powers (France, Allemagne, and the UK).

High levels of military spending have, à son tour, spurred signiªcant modern-
ization and expansion of Russia’s military forces, particularly in the 2010s.144
The Russian Federation is the descendent state of the Soviet Union, which cre-
ated a formidable military industrial base with a huge cadre of highly trained
personnel, providing a strong foundation for Russia’s current military infra-
structure. Although the Russian armed forces still display important weak-
nesses in areas such as surface shipbuilding, in the past decade Moscow has
substantially “modernized its armed forces through a massive introduction of
new and modernized weapons and infrastructure, accompanied by radical
structural changes in the military organization, evolving modes of operation
and a sharply increased number, scale and complexity of military training and
exercise.”145 Of particular note, depuis 2015 à 2019, Russia’s army increased in
size by almost 25 percent.146 (In online appendix D, we measure the military
capabilities of Russia and four potential European balancing coalitions regard-
ing two overall indicators of military personnel [total active and total reserves]
and three core weapon systems for conventional warfare [main battle tanks,

https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expenditure-is-much-higher-than-
commonly-understood-as-is-chinas/. See also Richard Connolly, Russian Military Expenditure in
Comparative Perspective: A Purchasing Power Parity Estimate (Washington, D.C.: Center for Naval
Analyses, 2019).
143. Kofman and Connolly, “Why Russian Military Expenditure.”
144. On Russia’s military modernization, see IISS, Russia’s Military Modernization: An Assessment
(Londres: IISS, 2020); and Katarzyna Zysk, “Russia,” in Meijer and Wyss, The Handbook of European
Defence Policies and Armed Forces, pp. 87–106.
145. Katarzyna Zysk, “Russian Military Vulnerabilities: Perceptions and Misperceptions,”Russia
Brief, Issue 6 (Cambridge: Changing Character of War Center, Avril 2020), p. 9.
146. IISS, Military Balance, 2015–2019.

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International Security 45:4 38

artillery, and armored personnel carriers]. Across all ªve of these measures, le
data show that Russia possesses a very substantial military superiority as com-
pared to all four potential European balancing coalitions.)

En plus, Russia possesses substantial C4ISR capabilities for employ-
ing weapons systems in a coordinated manner and for managing military
opérations. These capabilities are the combined result of legacy Soviet sys-
tems and of the Kremlin’s ongoing military modernization effort.147 Espe-
cially in the past decade, Russia has developed a more modular, ºexible
force structure with an emphasis on joint forces through a large-scale mili-
tary modernization.148

Military satellites are a useful indicator for understanding why Europeans
would have difªculty building up the necessary C4ISR infrastructure for bal-
ancing Russia. For one, military satellites are critical, because they enable the
rest of the C4ISR architecture to operate effectively by facilitating the ºow of
informational inputs. Speciªcally, military satellites are crucial for communica-
tion, navigation, early warning, attack assessment, and surveillance and
reconnaissance—and thus are key for pooling and employing military power.
Other C4ISR systems, such as ISR UAVs and airborne early warning and con-
trol systems constitute more speciªc components of a C4ISR architecture that
play particular roles therein. En outre, whereas full comparison data are
available for military satellites, existing databases do not list other C4ISR capa-
bilities systematically. The profound gap between Russia and European coun-
tries in military satellites is shown in table 2.

To be sure, notwithstanding such quantitative preponderance in military
satellites, one challenge faced by the Russian military in past decades has been
the integration of highly interoperable systems for network-centric warfare.149
Encore, Russia has placed such systems (referred to as the Reconnaissance Strike
Complex in Russian strategic parlance) at the “epicenter” of its military mod-
ernization in the 2010s, investing massively in C4ISR integration and electronic
warfare and in modernizing infrastructure, while boosting and streamlining
command and control, among other features.150

The net result is that, as stressed by a 2019 RAND report, the Kremlin has

147. On this point, see Andrew Radin et al., The Future of the Russian Military: Russia’s Ground Com-
bat Capabilities and Implications for U.S.-Russia Competition (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corpora-
tion, 2019), pp. xiii–xiv.
148. Roger McDermott, Tracing Russia’s Path to Network-Centric Military Capability (Washington,
D.C.: Jamestown Foundation, Décembre 4, 2020).
149. Paul Schwartz, “Russian Science and Technology: Current State and Implications for De-
fense,” in Stephen J. Blank, éd., The Russian Military in Contemporary Perspective (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S.
Army War College, 2019), p. 157.
150. McDermott, “Tracing Russia’s Path to Network-Centric Military Capability.” See also Roger
McDermott, “Russia’s Network-Centric Warfare Capability: Tried and Tested in Syria,” Eurasia
Daily Monitor, Vol. 15, Non. 154 (Washington, D.C.: Jamestown Foundation, 2018); and Roger N.

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Illusions of Autonomy 39

Tableau 2. Military Satellites

Country

États-Unis
Russia
France
Italy
Allemagne
United Kingdom
Espagne
Denmark
Luxembourg

Number of Military Satellites

209
104
12
9
7
6
4
1
1

SOURCE: Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS Satellite Database, https://www.ucsusa.org/

resources/satellite-database.

NOTE: The data show the combined total of low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit, geo-

synchronous Earth orbit, and elliptical orbit military satellites.

implemented “a modern, whole-of-government C4ISR infrastructure that will
enable Russia to pursue its vision of net-centric or ‘non-contact warfare’”;
these “advances in long-range strike, Russia’s command and control and infor-
mation gathering systems are fundamental in their ability to compete directly
with the West and dominate regional adversaries”151—an assessment shared
by other studies.152 Signiªcantly, the Russian military tried and tested its
C4ISR capabilities during the Syrian conºict.153

The experience of European states during the 2011 Libyan conºict showed
that they lack the technological infrastructure and personnel to autonomously
use weapons systems in a coordinated manner: they would need to replace
the United States’ C4ISR systems that they currently rely on; hire and train the
personnel to operate them; and develop a permanent, effective command
structure to conduct effective joint military operations in wartime. De même,
in stark contrast to Russia’s unity of command, Europeans display an “enor-
mous variation” in their C4ISR capacities, with “both technological and op-
erational gaps within Europe.”154 In sum, Europe exhibits a cacophony of
C4ISR capabilities.

A ªnal and related consideration that restraint scholars do not sufªciently
recognize is that Russia gains efªciencies—when compared to Europe—

McDermott, Russia’s Electronic Warfare Capabilities to 2025 (Tallinn: International Centre for Defense
and Security, Septembre 2017), pp. 3, 28.
151. Andrew Radin et al., The Future of the Russian Military, pp. 47, 54.
152. Zysk, “Russia,” pp. 88; and McDermott, Russia’s Electronic Warfare Capabilities, pp. 3, 28.
153. Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, Russian Lessons from the Syrian Operation and the Culture of Military
Innovation (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Allemagne: George C. Marshall European Center for Security
Études, Février 2020); and McDermott, “Russia’s Network-Centric Warfare Capability.”
154. Terriff, Osinga, and Farrell, A Transformation Gap? book abstract.

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International Security 45:4 40

because it is a single actor, rather than a collective patchwork of countries. Par
contraste, as a 2018 European Parliament report concludes, “It is precisely be-
cause European defense is fragmented by the decisions of 27 political and mili-
tary chiefs of staff, duplicates the same research, the same programs and the
same capabilities and has no chain of command that it is, collectively,
inefªcient.”155 The report notes further that “increasing the level of spending
without ªrst addressing the coherence between the different national defense
systems would only increase the amount of wastage.”156 Exactly how much
efªciency is lost would depend on how many European countries would need
to act together to balance Russia; but even two actors working together would
result in less efªcacy and effectiveness as compared to a single, unitary actor
of comparable size.157 If the United States pulled back, a single, centralized
Russian actor would confront a group of potential European balancers with di-
verging threat perceptions that would face coordination challenges likely to
hamper their capacity to devise a common strategy, to share the burdens of
their defense investments, to rationalize Europe’s highly fragmented defense
industrial base, to build integrated C2 structures, and to sustain the develop-
ment and deployment of a C4ISR capacity. As a report of the French Senate
states, “Compared to other European countries, Russia enjoys a considerable
but not quantiªable advantage: unity of command. The Russian army has
one commanding authority, one hierarchy, one language, and one equipment
range. Obviously, at the operational level, these are very important assets.”158

nuclear deterrence. As a legacy of the Cold War, Russia maintains a for-
midable arsenal of approximately 6,400 nuclear weapons, which vastly over-
shadows the combined arsenals of France and the UK (290 et 195 nuclear
weapons, respectivement).159 In addition to Russia’s numerical preponderance, it
matters greatly that this force is wielded by a single actor, not a collective one.
In contrast, strategic divergences and technological constraints are highly
likely to hamper the emergence of a European nuclear deterrent either through
the Europeanization of the French and/or British nuclear deterrents and/or
through a German nuclear deterrent.

As Ulrich Kühn and Tristan Volpe explain, Germany would have to sur-

155. Frédéric Mauro, EU Defence: The White Book Implementation Process (Belgium: EU, 2018,
pp. 58–59, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/603871/EXPO_STU
(2018)603871_EN.pdf.
156. Ibid..
157. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and
the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 35–37.
158. French Senate, European Defence: The Challenge of Strategic Autonomy, Information Report
Non. 626, Juillet 3, 2019, p. 33.
159. Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of Ameri-
can Scientists, Septembre 2020, https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-
forces/.

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Illusions of Autonomy 41

mount major technical, politique, and security obstacles before acquiring a nu-
clear deterrent.160 Not only would it face the domestic and international
pressures fueled by reviving fears of German hegemony, but it would have “to
either repurpose its nuclear energy infrastructure for weapons production or
sprint to the bomb from new military facilities,”161 a prospect made even more
unlikely given that Germany plans to shut down its entire nuclear ºeet by
2022.162 Accordingly, “Germany does not have the required wherewithal for
even a rudimentary program.”163

À son tour, the Europeanization of nuclear sharing (or Euro-deterrent) based on
the nuclear capabilities of France and/or the United Kingdom independent
of the United States would also “face high hurdles and immense costs that
might well prove prohibitive.”164 French nuclear experts note that there is
“near-zero appetite in France for transferring its nuclear assets to Europe.”165
De même, Barbara Kunz observes that analysts across Europe agree that the
Europeanization of the French bomb, however deªned,
is “unlikely and
hardly feasible.”166

The prospects of a Franco-British nuclear deterrent are even less likely. Pour
un, it is highly improbable that French or British policymakers would be will-
ing to sacriªce London or Paris for Tallinn or Riga. Deuxième, the UK has left the
EU, so France and the UK would have to overcome their previously discussed
divergent strategic priorities to create an integrated Franco-British military
structure for nuclear planning outside the EU. Enfin, the heavy dependence

160. Ulrich Kühn and Tristan Volpe, “Keine Atombombe, Bitte: Why Germany Should Not Go
Nuclear,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2017. On the debate in Germany around the prospect of de-
veloping nuclear weapons, see also Tristan Volpe and Ulrich Kühn, “Germany’s Nuclear Educa-
tion: Why a Few Elites Are Testing a Taboo,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 40, Non. 3 (2017), pp. 7–27,
doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2017.1370317; and Ulrich Kühn, Tristan Volpe, and Bert Thompson,
Tracking the German Nuclear Debate (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, Août 15, 2018).
161. Policymakers in Berlin also would have to face Russia’s likely reaction to such an endeavor;
any signal that Germany would be moving toward a nuclear deterrent force could encourage
Moscow to impede such an outcome through targeted killings of German nuclear scientists,
cyberattacks to sabotage nuclear facilities, or even a preventive strike. See Kühn and Volpe, “Keine
Atombombe, Bitte,” p. 109.
162. International Energy Agency, “Germany,” Country Proªle, 2018.
163. Bruno Tertrais, “Will Europe Get Its Own Bomb?” Washington Quarterly, Vol . 42, Non. 2 (2019),
p. 49, doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2019.1621651.
164. Oliver Thränert, No Shortcut to a European Deterrent (Zürich: CSS ETH Zürich, 2017), p. 1.
165. Bruno Tertrais, “The European Dimension of Nuclear Deterrence: French and British Policies
and Future Scenarios,” Finnish Institute of International Affairs, working paper, Novembre 2018,
p. 8. On the prospects of a Euro-deterrent, see also Jean-Loup Samaan and David C. Gompert,
“French Nuclear Weapons, Euro-Deterrence, and NATO,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 30,
Non. 3 (2009), pp. 486–504, doi.org/10.1080/13523260903327386.
166. Barbara Kunz, “Switching Umbrellas in Berlin? The Implications of Franco-German Nuclear
Cooperation,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 43, Non. 3 (2020), pp. 63–77, doi.org/10.1080/0163660X
.2020.1814007.

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International Security 45:4 42

of the UK’s nuclear deterrent on U.S. technology and on cooperation with the
United States would further complicate such an endeavor.

Finalement, the notion forwarded by restraint scholars that European coun-
tries can easily and quickly balance Russia is ungrounded. Balancing Russia
would be extremely difªcult, and such a buildup would necessarily take a
very long time. Our interviews with European policymakers reveal that they
clearly understand this problem. A former UK ministry of defense ofªcial
stresses that the “temporal factor would be quite long. . . . These sort of cap-
abilities take a long time to develop.”167 Likewise, as a former German ofªcial
bluntly explains, “The whole defense and capability requirements would be so
extreme that the upgrade that would be needed to ªll the gap if the U.S. com-
pletely withdrew is totally off limits for the foreseeable future.”168

Conclusion

Europe is characterized by profound, continent-wide divergences across na-
tional defense policies, particularly threat perceptions, as well as by a funda-
mental defense capacity shortfall that cannot be closed anytime soon because
of a series of overlapping challenges. Given the combination of strategic ca-
cophony and capacity gaps, which are mutually reinforcing, Europeans are
currently not in a position to autonomously mount a credible deterrent and
defense against Russia. This situation would likely continue for a very long
temps, even if there were a complete U.S. withdrawal from the continent, and all
the more so in the event of a partial U.S. withdrawal, a much more likely
counterfactual. If a U.S. pullback were to occur, it would leave Europe increas-
ingly vulnerable to Russian aggression and meddling, allowing Russia to
exploit Europe’s centrifugal dynamics to augment its inºuence. A U.S. avec-
drawal would also likely make institutionalized intra-European defense coop-
eration appreciably harder. Accordingly, a U.S. pullback would have grave
consequences for peace and stability on the continent.

These ªndings have major implications for both sides of the Atlantic. Dans
Europe, scholars and policymakers need to be realistic. The strong desire for
strategic autonomy is justiªed and understandable, but it is necessary to dis-
cern between distant hopes and present realities. Finalement, the barriers
to strategic autonomy are so substantial that the achievement of this goal
would require a long-term, sustained and coordinated effort. Sound European
defense policymaking needs to reºect this: working under an unrealistic as-
sumption that Europeans can quickly achieve strategic autonomy is both un-

167. Hugo Meijer interview, Février 17, 2020
168. Hugo Meijer interview, Mars 5, 2020.

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Illusions of Autonomy 43

warranted and unwise. Pursuing unrealistic goals can, in fact, undermine the
achievement of realistic ones. Plutôt, European policymakers should focus on
a manageable, affordable set of initiatives for augmenting military capacity in
the short term that the United States would see as valuable—and thus would
help consolidate the transatlantic alliance—but that would nevertheless also
prove useful if the United States does someday pull back. Such an approach
could gradually and cumulatively create the foundations for greater common-
ality and cooperation in the future and, au fil du temps, help mitigate the centrifugal
dynamics at play in Europe.

In the United States, restraint scholars—virtually all of whom are self-
described realists—also need to be realistic. Far from portraying the world as it
est, their assessment of Europe is guided by an unfounded optimism that
Europeans can easily balance Russia if the United States pulled out. Cur-
rently, Europe is presented by restraint scholars as the “easy” case for a U.S.
withdrawal, with Asia being the “hard” case.169 Although China is rising fast
and already has much more latent power than Russia, the latter is a greater
threat to the United States’ European allies than the former based on the other
three components of the balance of threat: geographic location, offensive mil-
itary capabilities, and aggressive intentions.170 The assessment of restraint
scholars that pulling back from Europe is an easy call ultimately rests on a
wholly unsubstantiated assumption: that an effective European balancing co-
alition would emerge quickly if the United States pulled back. What our analy-
sis shows is that Europeans would for a very long time be unable to effectively
confront Russia on their own if the United States were to withdraw, et
thus if America does want stability in Europe, it should retain a presence
on the continent.

To be clear, this analysis does not mean that the United States should never
pull back from Europe: in an ideal world, Europeans would and should de-
velop the institutional and material capacity to defend themselves without
needing to rely on the United States. But until Europeans can come together ef-
fectively in the political and foreign policy realms—a process that will take a
very long time to emerge—it is important to be realistic and recognize that
a U.S. departure would be destabilizing.

169. Voir, Par exemple, Posen, Restraint, p. 87; and Walt and Mearsheimer, “The Case for Offshore
Balancing.”
170. On the balance of threat, see Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
Presse universitaire, 1990). On European threat perceptions of China, see Hugo Meijer, Awakening to
China’s Rise: European Foreign and Security Policies toward the People’s Republic of China (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, forthcoming).

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