The European nation-states live in extraordinary times. The dominant superpower, the United States, may no longer be fully committed to their defense. The timing could not be worse, as the continent faces a potentially destructive risk coming from its eastern border. One solution to Europe’s current predicament is to constitute a unified military capable of acting as a deterrent regardless of the US posture. To achieve this, the European Defense Union needs to be created, and that requires remembering how political entrepreneurship works.
Giorgi Tskhadaia is a Professor of Political Science at Caucasus School of Governance, Caucasus University
Even if Russia’s imperialist aggression in Ukraine can be brought to a temporary halt, the Kremlin could still try to explore vulnerabilities in NATO’s eastern flank and test the willingness of both the United States and other NATO allies to come to the aid of Russia’s neighboring European countries. As the recent report by the Washington think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggests, Russia’s war-induced socioeconomic changes have been so significant that it is unlikely that the militarization of the economy would be rolled back even after the war in Ukraine ends.
European states cannot act individually against the imperialist power that has demonstrated the ability to use the means of conventional and hybrid warfare to sow destruction and illegally seize territories. The current geopolitical predicament is driving structural shifts beyond the control of any single nation-state. Even President Trump confronts a world in which the American superpower cannot unilaterally dictate the terms of a peace agreement to Ukraine or its European allies, let alone fully reverse global geopolitical trends.
But for Europe to move closer to securing itself, it needs to reassess some of the established conventions regarding state sovereignty.
The myth of complete national autonomy in the defense sphere must be debunked. The EU has been providing substantial military aid to Ukraine, not least through initiatives like the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) and the European Peace Facility (EPF). Thanks to these efforts, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that by 2026 the EU and Ukraine will together match – and potentially surpass – Russia’s annual production of artillery shells, provided European output continues to expand.
Thus, from a geopolitical perspective, the EU already plays an indirect yet crucial role as a military supplier in Ukraine’s war against Russia’s aggression. Even if the EU would like to play it down, Russia already interprets it this way at the very least. Already in 2022, the Kremlin warned that arms supplies to Ukraine can make the Western military aid convoys “legitimate targets” of war.
In other words, since the EU is already sending military aid to Ukraine as a unified entity, it already acts as a unified actor in defense, whatever the Treaty says. Or, to put it differently, the Union’s current industrial initiatives, legally sanctioned by the Treaty, already spilled over into the realm of international military and security affairs.
Perhaps the EU states could maintain the illusion of national autonomy in defense matters, while the United States was committed to the so-called “liberal international order,” which meant several NATO members could free-ride on military spending. But Russia’s aggression and the US administration’s isolationism have ended that illusion.
It is a well-known paradox in political philosophy that whenever individuals cannot defend themselves, they must cede some of their freedoms to remain autonomous. Hobbes and Locke argued that in the state of anarchy, where life can be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” we should choose to relegate our rights to a higher sovereign entity, to find security (a minimal, Hobbesian view) or even to guarantee personal autonomy (a Lockean, liberal view).
Hobbes and Locke argued, that whenever individuals cannot defend themselves, they must cede some of their freedoms to remain autonomous.
Extending the analogy from individuals to states is imperfect. Hobbes and Locke were concerned with creating a unified territorial state that includes potential aggressors, whereas EU defense integration obviously cannot encompass the Russian Federation. Yet the basic logic still applies. Defending against Russian imperialism is only possible on a collective level, and, as in the original Hobbesian situation, this can be effectively accomplished only if some of the European states’ rights are transferred to a higher sovereign entity. Otherwise, the absolute freedom – or frankly, the illusion of it – in the state of international anarchy can quickly turn into a nightmare of war and conquest, where “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
Admittedly, the EU’s defense integration won’t be easy. Yet, the mechanics of it notwithstanding, an important political element is already in place: a record 81% of EU citizens are in favor of further integration in this traditionally reserved national domain. That number amalgamates opinions and hides the details: one might suspect that the degree of support for the European Defense Union would depend on specific design choices and might be unevenly concentrated across countries and segments of the electorate. If done without proper consultation and consensus-building, efforts to push through a closer defense union may further bolster anti-EU attitudes, against the backdrop of national populisms feeding on Euroscepticism.
Moreover, further defense integration is legally fraught. Article 42 of the Treaty of the European Union does not rule out the development of a common defense policy, but makes it contingent on a unanimous vote in the European Council and the member states’ specific constitutional requirements.
The consensus has eluded the EU in the current crisis, and, understandably, Brussels treads lightly when addressing the Union’s insufficient defense readiness, even though the threat it faces is real. Some of the boldest steps are being made in the defense industrial sector, an economic field where the Union acts with greater legal and political confidence. Yet, even in this sphere, the scope, effectiveness, and long-term sustainability of joint industrial efforts remain to be tested.
But the times of tergiversation are gone. The European states can no longer avoid pushing the limits of possible at the supranational level. As the adage goes, extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions, and Europe must rediscover political entrepreneurship, which drove so much of the European integration in the early days.
After all, defense integration could proceed partially – starting as a coalition of willing states and gradually garnering wider support. In any case, European states can no longer pretend they can maintain their sovereignty without ceding part of it.
