Rethinking Europe’s Security Dilemma: The Illusion of Strategic Autonomy

By /

Luc Hillion

Luc Hillion is pursuing a Master in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, Class of 2026.

Title photo: Pete Hegseth at the Munich Security Conference, February 2025.
Crédit photo : Damian Lemanski/Bloomberg

In 2013, following the launch of Opération Serval, France deployed a 4,000-strong intervention force in Mali to defend its government against Islamist militants. Despite the success of the engagement, only 5% of the deployment’s transportation from France to Mali relied on French means. The remaining 95% was conducted via foreign means, including air transports from Russian companies.1 In terms of combat readiness, France was not much better. In 2016, an average of 25.6% of France’s Tigre attack helicopter fleet was operational at any given time. 2 These cases illustrate France’s extremely limited capacity to independently project force or sustain the deployment of essential aerial assets. If France was one of the most powerful European militaries during the 2010s, I do not need to speak further about the deplorable state of other European militaries.

Despite significant increases in defense spending and the acquisition of 23 additional A400M heavy transport aircraft, France’s capacity to project force in 2025 alongside its European allies—without U.S. support—remains limited.3 This constraint becomes especially evident when military planners consider the prospect of facing a serious adversary like Russia, and not only ragtag militias composed of gunmen mounted on Toyota Hilux pickup trucks. As of early 2025, Europe is panicking. It remains uncertain whether it can ever muster a meager deployment of 40,000 troops to Ukraine, all while facing the looming prospect of the U.S. stepping back from its historical role in guaranteeing European security.4

It’s amusing that, as Europeans, we often criticize the U.S. for lacking a universal healthcare system while allocating what appears to be an exorbitant sum to its military. We may laugh with our Sécurité sociale, but perhaps our system has not yet fallen apart because of the U.S.’s substantial defense spending. We can redirect what we save on defense to our beautiful welfare states, at least in France. We can afford to have ridiculously small militaries while remaining relatively secure in a fragmenting world because the U.S. has largely shouldered Europe’s security burden since 1945. In the words of NATO’s first Secretary-General, Hastings Ismay, the raison d’être of NATO is to “keep […] the Americans in [Europe]” while it protects the continent from whatever is in the East. Following the end of the Cold War, Europe has allegedly saved €1.9 trillion by keeping its defense budgets below 2% of GDP while the U.S. accounts for 70% of all NATO spending.5

It seems that this good deal, where we rode freely the protection of the U.S. via NATO, may no longer be sustained by our American friends. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth explicitly stated how the “United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages [European] dependency” on the U.S.’s security apparatus.6 This growing American aversion to Europe failing to pull its weight in the transatlantic alliance is not merely a whim of the Trump administration. As early as 2014, Obama demanded that NATO members increase their security expenditure after stating, “We [the U.S.] have seen a decline steadily in European defense spending generally. […] That has to change.”7

European underinvestment in defense is certainly becoming costly for Europe. As the U.S. engages in bilateral talks with Russia behind Europe’s back—discussing, in the words of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the “incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians geopolitically”—Russia remains hostile to Europe. 8 We can’t defend ourselves against Russia in the event of a conflict due to our substandard militaries, which are also likely incapable of deterring such an adversary. If you think France’s nuclear weapons are useful deterrents against Russia or have any utility on the battlefield, be mistaken: the days when France planned to irradiate Germany in case of a Soviet invasion are long gone.9

For most non-radical European politicians, the obvious way out of this position of weakness is for Europe to start investing seriously in defense. But with what money? While ambitious, the European Commission’s recent proposal to mobilize €800 billion for defense over the next four years may not be realistic nor sustainable.10 Europe appears to have little financial capacity to increase military spending without raising sovereign debt or cutting other expenditures. How will we convince European constituencies that austerity may be necessary because we need to buy more weapons?

France’s recently approved 2025 budget illustrates the growing dilemma European governments face in balancing competing priorities: reducing public debt, meeting rising welfare demands, and addressing increasing defense needs. Taking the 2024 budget as a baseline, France has reduced overall spending by €8.8 billion for 2025. Notably, defense spending has increased by 6.9%, while employment subsidies were cut by 16.7%, education funding has decreased by 1.86%, and Sécurité sociale expenditure has risen by 3.8%.11 Meanwhile, France’s neighbor Germany considered freezing social spending to reallocate funds for defense, albeit unsuccessfully.12 With the rising popularity of parties on the political extremes, opposition to austerity-for-defense measures is likely to intensify.

If Europe wants to achieve “Strategic Autonomy”—ensuring its security independently of the U.S.—Europe will need to radically increase defense spending. At the current pace of rearmament in September 2024, it would take Germany a century to replenish its howitzer artillery stockpiles to 2004 levels.13 Additionally, Europe has struggled to meet even half of its commitment to deliver one million artillery rounds to Ukraine within a year.
Even if Europe could secure the finances, further dilemmas remain over what should be purchased. Few countries can construct strategic weapons at scale. Missile defence is a dimension where Europe relies heavily on the U.S.14 Currently, only France and Italy manufacture systems comparable to the U.S. Patriot medium- to long-range surface-to-air-missile system.

If the goal is to rapidly acquire weapons rather than spend 30+ years developing systems that may barely function, the obvious supplier is the U.S. However, if “Strategic Autonomy” is meant to divorce European dependence on the U.S. security apparatus, further reliance on American-made armaments undermines that objective.
The concern over foreign technology dependence is at the heart of France’s reluctance to join the European Sky Shield Initiative—a project launched by Germany in 2022 to build a European air defense system integrating European, U.S., and Israeli technologies.15 If Europe should increase defense spending, it should minimize reliance on U.S. systems or, ideally, diversify suppliers. However, viable alternatives beyond the U.S. are limited, other than Russia, China, and Israel.

The idea of Europe refusing to purchase U.S. weapons is likely to further reduce U.S.  security commitments to the continent. In 2019, Washington warned the E.U. that approval of a European Military Fund favoring the limiting of American companies out of defence contracts amounted to “poison pills.”16 Europe is in a precarious position when the U.S. questions its security commitments while simultaneously pressuring Europe to remain dependent on American defense systems—all against the backdrop of an emboldened neighbor on its eastern flank.

If Europe can secure the necessary finances to substantively increase defense investments and if European defense firms can achieve “Strategic Autonomy” before Russia looks in the direction of the Baltics, then prioritizing non-U.S. defense investments is obvious. When Europe realizes that fixing its security apparatus is not a process that can occur overnight without creating more dependencies on the U.S., it should consider other options. The first would be to reassess Europe’s relationship with Russia. It would be best not to antagonize Russia if Europe cannot defend itself autonomously. Second, Europe can demonstrate its strategic importance to the U.S. by leveraging its shared interests with Washington. Strengthening European partnerships with China, for example, will allegedly weaken America’s position in the emerging technology race. The U.S. needs the Netherlands to maintain export controls on its deep ultraviolet lithography systems to prevent China’s ability to develop high-end chips.17 Overall, if Washington chooses to weaken its security commitments to Europe, the E.U. should signal a willingness to seek alternative partnerships, pressuring the U.S. to uphold what remains of the transatlantic security alliance.

  1. Assemblée Nationale, Rapport d’information relatif au transport stratégique, no. 4595, presented by François Cornut-Gentille, March 28, 2017, https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/rap-info/i4595.asp. ↩︎
  2. Pierre Tran, “French Military Helicopter Readiness? Depends on the Fleet,” Defense News, May 16, 2017, https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/05/16/french-military-helicopter-readiness-depends-on-the-fleet/. ↩︎
  3. Thierry Dubois, “French Air Force Receives Newest-Standard Airbus A400M,” Aviation Week Network, April 6, 2021, https://aviationweek.com/defense/multi-mission-aircraft/french-air-force-receives-newest-standard-airbus-a400m. ↩︎
  4. Steven Erlanger, “Can European ‘Boots on the Ground’ Help Protect Ukraine’s Security?” The New York Times, February 11, 2025, Can European ‘Boots on the Ground’ Help Protect Ukraine’s Security? – The New York Times ↩︎
  5. Lachlan Williams, “Europe’s Dilemma: Social Spending vs. Defense in the Face of New Threats,” The Rio Times, September 24, 2024, https://www.riotimesonline.com/europes-dilemma-social-spending-vs-defense-in-the-face-of-new-threats/.
    Max Colchester, David Luhnow, and Bojan Pancevski, “Alarm Grows Over Weakened Militaries and Empty Arsenals in Europe,” The Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/alarm-nato-weak-military-empty-arsenals-europe-a72b23f4. ↩︎
  6. Pete Hegseth, “Opening Remarks by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at Ukraine Defense Contact Group (As Delivered),” U.S. Department of Defense, February 12, 2025, https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/4064113/opening-remarks-by-secretary-of-defense-pete-hegseth-at-ukraine-defense-contact-group/. ↩︎
  7. Barack Obama, “Obama Warns NATO Allies to Share Defense Burden: ‘We Can’t Do It Alone,’” Atlantic Council, June 3, 2014, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/obama-warns-nato-allies-to-share-defense-burden-we-can-t-do-it-alone/. ↩︎
  8.  Michael Hirsh, “The New Meaning of ‘Munich,’” Foreign Policy, February 19, 2025, https://foreignpolicy.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/2025/02/19/europe-trump-vance-munich-security-conference-russia-ukraine/. ↩︎
  9.  Caleb Larson, “Why France Once Had Its Nuclear Weapons Aimed at Germany,” The National Interest, May 18, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-france-once-had-its-nuclear-weapons-aimed-germany-155326. ↩︎
  10. European Commission, Acting on Defence to Protect Europeans, accessed April 22, 2025, https://commission.europa.eu/topics/defence/future-european-defence_en. ↩︎
  11. Sébastien Dumoulin, “Budget 2025: les grands perdants et les rares gagnants parmi les ministères,” Les Echos, February 7, 2025, https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/budget-fiscalite/budget-2025-les-grands-perdants-et-les-rares-gagnants-parmi-les-ministeres. ↩︎
  12. Tom Fairless and Bertrand Benoit, “Europe Has a Painful Choice: War vs. Welfare,” The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-has-a-painful-choice-war-vs-welfare-41e9e7f7. ↩︎
  13. Tom Fairless and Bertrand Benoit, “Europe Has a Painful Choice: War vs. Welfare,” ↩︎
  14. Camille Grand, Defending Europe with Less America, European Council on Foreign Relations, July 3, 2024, https://ecfr.eu/publication/defending-europe-with-less-america/. ↩︎
  15. Hensoldt, “ESSI – European Sky Shield Initiative,” Hensoldt, accessed February 28, 2025, https://www.hensoldt.net/programs/essi-european-sky-shield-initiative ↩︎
  16.  Alexandra Brzozowski, “Pentagon Warns EU Against Blocking US Firms from Defence Fund,” Euractiv, August 19, 2019, https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/pentagon-warns-eu-against-blocking-us-firms-from-defence-fund-2/. ↩︎
  17.  Nisarg Jani, “The ‘Fab 4’ Allies Are Pushing Back on US Export Controls on China,” The Diplomat, October 29, 2024, https://thediplomat.com/2024/10/the-fab-4-allies-are-pushing-back-on-us-export-controls-on-china/. ↩︎

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