The problem, according to analysts, is strategic autonomy means different things to different governments in Europe, and there\u2019s no defined end state of when it might be realized. While there is a shared understanding that a new beefiness in defense matters is vital, the degree of continued reliance on the United States \u2014 with its atomic weapons and troop deployments across Europe \u2014 as the ultimate security guarantor is where opinions collide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a widening gap now between Eastern and Western European countries along those lines. In Romania, for example, any military measures to protect the eastern front are perceived as having limited value unless they involve American boots on the ground, ideally stationed there forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Western European governments, some still expect the bloc\u2019s economic prowess and mere proclamations about Europe\u2019s own defense ambitions to insulate them from Russian aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christian M\u00f6lling, who leads the Center for Security and Defense at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations, said Macron\u2019s insistence on the term strategic autonomy is something of an anomaly among European leaders because it conveys a desire to be autonomous from others, namely Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Macron, M\u00f6lling explained, \u201cwas mainly speaking for himself,\u201d projecting France\u2019s national vision onto the rest of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany prefers softer terms, like European sovereignty, that simply express an ambition to act independently during crises, according to Sophia Besch, a Europe analyst at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is too much scorched earth associated with the term \u2018strategic autonomy<\/a>,\u2019 \u201d she said, referring to the years of futile discussions about the term by think tanks and politicians that suddenly shifted from academic to concrete when Russia invaded Ukraine last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitions aside, Russia\u2019s assault has highlighted Europe\u2019s dependence on not just U.S. military capabilities but also American leadership in orchestrating a trans-Atlantic<\/a> response, Besch added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, Europeans sense the writing on the wall calling for a greater degree of autonomy, driven by a mixture of increased defense spending and improved trust in the collective; that\u2019s because America\u2019s focus may shift to competition with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also possible is a scenario in which a future U.S. president could simply stop caring<\/a> about Europe\u2019s security, or actively sabotage key institutions like the European Union or NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do not think the idea of strategic autonomy is dead,\u201d said Bastian Giegerich, the director of defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank based in London. \u201cOne of the main drivers of it remains intact: the sense that the U.S. in the long run will be drawn away from Europe and will focus on the Indo-Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor the time being, however, for many European capitals \u2014 though not all \u2014 strategic autonomy takes a back seat, quite rightly in my view, to defeating Russia,\u201d Giegerich added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arturo Varvelli, who leads Rome\u2019s division of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said strategic autonomy must remain a goal, despite Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe must reduce Europe\u2019s dependencies when it comes to technology and energy as well as defense. All these elements are still on the table,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we give up, we will depend on China for green technology and the U.S. for defense,\u201d Varvelli added. \u201cBelieving we can lean on the U.S. is a bigger illusion than saying we can be autonomous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But building the muscles to create strategic autonomy \u2014 or whatever term one prefers \u2014 remains a long-term effort despite attempts by the EU to raise its defensive profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The objective is \u201cat this moment very far away,\u201d said Ester Sabatino, a research analyst at IISS\u2019 office in Berlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only now are countries like Germany, which for decades considered Russia a partner, starting to spend more on defense; however, it appears unlikely Germany will reach the NATO target to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense in the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The peace dividend following the collapse of the Soviet Union has left skeletal combat formations in place in many nations. The main problem has been a lack of a common threat perception, as well as the requirement for unanimity for EU decision-making for initiatives such as capability development planning, Sabatino told Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf there is no common perception of the threat, then how are you supposed to organize the security architecture to respond to [those threats]?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU is struggling against a \u201clegacy of the past\u201d where members along the eastern and northern borders, for example, saw Russia as a much more existential threat than did France or Germany. While the war in Ukraine has served as a reality check that Russia is today\u2019s main threat, there remains a prioritization issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn their pool of national threats, they continue to have other threats, like terrorism or instability in the Sahel,\u201d Sabatino said. \u201cThat\u2019s the case of France, or migration when it comes to Italy. There is a kind of recalibration [occurring], but the legacy of the past is there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be sure, the EU and its member states have made financial and materiel contributions to Ukraine\u2019s defense that were previously unthinkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Josep Borrell, the bloc\u2019s defense and foreign policy chief, used a recent forum to trumpet how far those security efforts have come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU deployed its first collective military operations two decades ago, first in the Western Balkans and then in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Borrell told representatives from all 27 EU member states and the more than 50 partner nations present at the first biennial Schuman Security and Defence Forum, hosted by the European Parliament in Brussels in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since <\/b>then, more than 40 military operations took place across all continents, he noted. That being said, \u201cit is fair to say that our response to the war in Ukraine in particular has changed the way we, in Europe, regard our own security and defense agenda,\u201d Borrell added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The <\/b>EU collectively has provided about \u20ac3.6 billion (U.S. $4 billion) <\/b>worth of support to Ukraine\u2019s military via the European Peace Facility, the union\u2019s off-budget, military aid mechanism. On March 20, the bloc approved an additional \u20ac2 billion to spend via the EPF, split into two pots: one to gather up a million rounds<\/a> of ammunition from national stockpiles to rapidly send to Ukraine\u2019s front lines; and the other to begin the procurement of new ammunition of various types to replenish members\u2019 stocks, while keeping up deliveries to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the world watches Russia\u2019s ongoing attack on Ukraine, fears are growing in Moldova that it may be next in the firing line, after the country\u2019s president announced Moscow-backed <\/b>saboteurs<\/a> were supporting <\/b>a coup against the country\u2019s pro-European government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, the former Soviet republic is in line for European Union membership, hoping the bloc will keep it safe from Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But with Europe heavily dependent on U.S. cash and weaponry to back Ukraine, the question is: How useful a guardian angel can Europe be to countries now trembling on Russia\u2019s flank?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nathalie Tocci, the head of the Rome-based think tank IAI, said there is no doubt Europe\u2019s hope of being able to tackle external threats alone was exposed by the Ukraine war, although not in the way one might expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so much because the U.S. is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to supporting Kyiv, since the EU and U.K. are doing a lot when taken together, but it\u2019s because Europe\u2019s defense procurement dependency on the U.S. is increasing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When European defense budgets rose at the outbreak of the war, some envisaged a boom for common European programs. However, the opposite occurred, as nations opted for quick, off-the-shelf purchases, often from the U.S., including F-35 fighter jets for Germany and Abrams tanks for Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is bad news for Europe, but also for the U.S., since in a world in which the U.S. is no longer the global hegemon, it would surely have an interest in having more capable rather than merely dependent partners,\u201d Tocci said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine last year sparked a wave of weapons purchases in Europe that were animated primarily by immediate, national needs. Poland, for example, bought not only American-made tanks but found a new and faster supplier for armor and artillery in South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defense officials in Washington have admitted they see new export opportunities in restocking European armories depleted by donations to Ukraine, stoking fears among European arms companies they are missing out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that dynamic doesn\u2019t have to be a bad thing, M\u00f6lling said. He noted the \u201cwild growth\u201d of weaponry, however uncoordinated, could serve as something of a \u201cprimordial soup\u201d from which a more orderly arms mix could be shaped in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have reached a fork in the road,\u201d M\u00f6lling told Defense News. Whereas the EU, with its limited defense mandate, has focused on the seams of national capabilities, essentially seeking gains by way of growing connective tissue, Europe now needs sheer mass, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that thinking, officials may need to reevaluate the long-standing EU push for defense industry consolidation. It hasn\u2019t worked anyway, in part because Brussels cannot override<\/a> national industrial jockeying, according to M\u00f6lling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the current phase, the origin of capabilities shouldn\u2019t matter, he said. \u201cWe should take what we can get if it helps Europe\u2019s defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Britain is going through its own reassessment of defense and security priorities. From its perch outside the EU, London has been a key player from the start in galvanizing support for Ukraine on both sides of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-1233412981.jpg.jpg\")
Fickle friends?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23104237849720.jpg.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-1248022688.jpg.jpg\")
A tiny test case<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-1247401757.jpg.jpg\")
\u2018Wild growth\u2019 of arms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/48_europe_secondary.jpg.jpg\")
British outlook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n