Something has shifted in the transatlantic alliance since President Donald Trump attempted to use his leverage to threaten the EU and Denmark into giving up Greenland, which he claims is necessary for US national security. Although he eventually stepped down without anything to show for it, the EU has now woken up to the urgency of the situation. The realizations that few Republicans were willing to take hard stances in defence of their allies, or that the anti-European instincts of the current administration may have permanently taken root among many Americans, have surely pushed them into action. With that, the ever-present question of European defence has once more come to the forefront, but this time with demands of a unified European military. I’ve written at length as to why this is both difficult and unlikely in the coming decade without some serious reform of the EU (which may be appearing likelier lately, but still lacks the political capital for leaders to even consider it), and while Trump has cast some doubt on NATO over this past year it is far from falling apart. The US and Europe will most likely remain close, although the relationship will probably never quite be the same. Perhaps that’s for the best.
However, the seed has been planted. The EU now understands the acute need for Europe’s defence to be handled by Europe, and so this discussion regarding a combined military is likely to continue. But as it may take decades before that can be properly achieved, there may need to be an interim solution in place. If a united European military is impossible right now, what can we do in the meantime? There are plenty of solutions that stop just short of a full-fledged military that may serve as an effective deterrent. But before we can get there, we must first understand the prerequisites for a military, and just why they will be so hard to achieve.
What We Need
There are both political and practical reasons the EU can’t manage its own combined military as of now. To begin with, among the EU’s 27 members there are 30 separate procurement programmes which mainly favour domestic production and 178 major weapon systems, as compared to a mere 30 systems in the US. This fragmented base makes cooperation across borders incredibly difficult – the only reason it works within the framework of NATO is because it relies on an outsider to Europe, the US, to swoop in, pull it all together and orchestrate interoperability. For the EU, political integration is key to make a unified military work, but that is not the case for NATO, who can for instance eschew certain suppliers without domestic political blowback. Furthermore, who should this military be under the civilian command of? The EU? The monopoly of violence is exclusively held by the member states today, and barring any sudden attacks, it’s hard to imagine any politician willingly giving up so much power to a supranational entity that doesn’t even have a clear constitution. On the flipside, it would be equally foolish to attempt to have all 27 countries in command at once.
That is not to mention the issue of language. While Western Europe has high English literacy, chief among them the Nordics, the same can’t be said for much of Eastern Europe. And what about the issue of nuclear weapons? France, the only member in possession of such weapons of mass destruction since Britain’s departure from the union, may require a special preference for themselves in the chain of command. The endless negotiations that would come with this matter also risk watering down whatever “military” the EU could gather support for (again, barring any sudden attacks). All these questions must be resolved first, not least the issues of command and procurement. Given this, all these issues are also the limiting factors on any interim solution, but even then, there are plenty of options.
Three Half-Militaries
Any interim solution, whether it is called a military, task force or coalition, will still rely heavily on the NATO framework. That should be of no surprise, as cooperation in defence has been finetuned towards this alliance for over 80 years at this point. However, it should be noted that even if the EU does miraculously unify under one single military it does not spell the end for NATO. Rather, it may actually bolster the alliance, especially in terms of deterrence – just because the EU doesn’t “need” NATO to fulfil its defensive needs, doesn’t mean they can’t still work closely together. With that out of the way, here are three alternatives for a closer EU defensive alliance:
1) EU Defence Pillar
Over the last ten years, the EU has launched several projects in order to streamline procurement and military cooperation within the union: the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC) and the European Defence Fund. All of these initiatives provide an architecture of an army on several planes (political, material and funding), which if taken seriously could eventually scale up into a functioning federal military. Politically-mandated interoperability and joint planning creates industrial and technological mass and is easy to sell, as these initiatives already exist and become more of a matter of burden-sharing than starting up something new.
However, even here there would need to be significant reform to make it a viable option. Most of these initiatives rely on voluntary participation, which in practice has shaken out to mean that even countries that do participate end up prioritising domestic policy with few downsides. PESCO has been good at generating projects but less good at forcing states to close hard gaps in air and missile defence, long‑range fires, and enabling capabilities, so the EU pillar risks being politically visible but militarily thin. The CSPD still operates under unanimity which risks decision paralysis in urgent matters, and even deploying the 5,000 troops under the RDC would be challenging. For this idea to work, all these programmes would need some serious beefing up and ruthless political prioritisation across all members, or they risk wasting scarce resources chasing similar projects. Currently, given the weight of the other issues the EU is currently dealing with, this seems rather unlikely. Even staunch defenders of a European military rarely bring up any of these initiatives as examples, perhaps due to how ineffectual they are in practice and how their problems are reflective of the issues a real European military would face. For now, this option remains the closest one to grasp but carries with it some serious downsides.
2) Coalition of the Willing
Understandably, there is great reluctance among several members of the EU regarding European militarization. With this idea, the EU accepts that some members would prefer to move at a slower pace or not participate at all and instead forms a hardened core of likeminded and high-spending members to form a de-facto European Defence League alongside NATO. To work as advertised, this league would need to include bigger members of the EU, particularly France and Germany. This would have the obvious deterrent effect the first suggestion lacks, with European‑commanded headquarters, pre‑agreed contingency plans and permanently assigned forces, able to fight without depending on US decisionmaking. Furthermore, this group could create more proactive rules of engagement (within reason) which addresses grey-zone, hybrid threats more efficiently. It can also maintain interoperability with NATO, invite non-EU partners like the UK or Norway, and gradually fold in others as their spending and broader political will catches up.
This, though, risks fragmentation and unclear primacy in decisionmaking. The original appeal of the EU was the relative equality between members, no matter if you’re a smaller country like Estonia, or a massive one like Germany – everyone has a say. This structure risks creating a two-tier EU, where the more populous and often richer countries have more political say than other member states. Furthermore, adding another defence structure on top of NATO, the RDC, PESCO and CSPD risks causing confusion as to primacy, especially where mandates may overlap. It could create strategic gaps and diplomatically awkward moments if certain members that are key to specific strategies refuse cooperation, weakening the overall alliance. Washington might initially welcome more European initiative but will likely also worry about being sidelined in command and doctrine, especially if the coalition explicitly plans to operate without US involvement.
3) Defence Clusters
Riffing on the above suggestion, rather than allowing a core to reign supreme one could instead create regional defence forces. That is to say, instead of having certain members be key players and working with increased interoperability, one could instead have larger regional coalitions which could plug the strategic gaps. These regions could then be represented in some larger council with the explicit goal of harmonising the work of the different regions. One very obvious cluster would be a Nordic-Baltic alliance, which could focus on securing the Baltic Sea. Regional groupings can tailor their posturing, infrastructure and mobilisation to their theatres) and plan around shared threat perceptions more easily than 30‑plus allies. It would also solve the problem of slow decision making, as a few neighbours are far more likely to find consensus amongst themselves, tailored to their unique situations. Harmonising procurement and doctrine in regional clusters creates plug‑and‑play building blocks that a future European army could later assemble at continental level.
Although my personal favourite option, it is not without flaws. Most obviously, if some regional clusters are more reluctant or under-funded while others are more robust, they create strategic weaknesses that adversaries can use to probe at the weakest links. Furthermore, it may leave gaps that could easily be exploited by hybrid warfare. This suggestion would also need careful planning at both a continental level and in tune with NATO, or they risk pursuing incompatible capabilities or duplicate efforts. It does not address the issue of common procurement either, in which countries are already more likely to pursue regional contracts anyways – in fact, it might just deepen the problem, creating further impediments to future EU-wide procurement. On top of this, regional focus can make it harder to think in terms of a single European theatre, including out‑of‑area tasks like protection of sea-lanes, cyberspace and infrastructure defence that cross all regions.
All of these options come with their own upsides and downsides, illustrating what a difficult task this ambition really is. It would certainly extend beyond any single politician’s mandate, meaning the political will must be so strong that the effort can last over decades. Barring a severe shock to the system, it doesn’t seem likely that the EU would want to add another heavy boulder to roll up the hill when it already has so many. However, one must keep in mind that a flawed solution may be a better gamble than no solution at all. NATO isn’t without its flaws either, after all. Indeed, perhaps the choice isn’t so much whether to unify militarily or not, but what consequences you’re willing to live with. One would hope there wouldn’t need to be a catastrophe to make politicians act, when doing so during peacetime would be much more prudent.
That being said, NATO isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, nor is the EU very very interested in addressing this issue as long as NATO remains strong. Perhaps this article, then, amounts to little more than a fun thought-exercise, but it’s important to be aware of one’s choices when push comes to shove. The question then for all Europeans is, if we are to create a unified European military, what are the consequences you could live with?