Contours of European Strategic Autonomy

Europe is moving on without the US, and the US does not seem to like it after all.

It was quite a remarkable news day in Europe today. Two developments are signalling that Europe is moving on and has started to build alternatives for a security architecture without the US:

First, the Financial Times reported that France and the UK have agreed to begin coordinating on nuclear responses. This move is a tectonic shift in French nuclear policy, which has been strictly sovereign and national to the point that France has hitherto refused any and all multilateral coordination mechanisms on nuclear deterrence. (The FT describing the French nuclear deterrent as “entirely homegrown” is very much the current Zeitgeist.) France does not, for example, participate in NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements and is the only NATO member that has opted out of the Nuclear Planning Group. Now, France has agreed to set up a nuclear supervision group co-chaired by the Élysée and the UK Cabinet Office, which will be responsible for “coordinating the growing co-operation in the areas of policy, capabilities, and operations” (from the FT article). This is revolutionary on the scale that hell might just as well freeze next.

The planned coordination is based on the assessment that “[t]here is no extreme threat to Europe that would not prompt a response by both nations […] As such, any adversary threatening the vital interests of Britain or France could be confronted by the strength of the nuclear forces of both nations”, as the UK government puts it. The agreement with France means that “for the first time that the respective deterrents of both countries are independent but can be co-ordinated”. And the Franco-British nuclear supervision group is not foreseen to remain a mere debate club: potential cooperation could include refits of nuclear submarines to ensure that a maximum number of SSBNs are at sea at any given time. According to the UK sources cited in the FT article, France and the UK are also working together on a number of projects: next-generation long range and air-to-air missiles, high-tech microwave weapons and jammers for downing drones and missiles, and on using artificial intelligence to improve synchronised strike capabilities.

France and the UK only possess about 300 nuclear warheads each, which limits their ability to replace the US-provided extended deterrence as it has existed in Europe through nuclear sharing arrangements. The goal is therefore rather to make the best of what the two European powers have and lift the threshold for adversaries (uh, Russia) potentially contemplating unwise moves. Europe is in that sense better off than Asian US allies, whom the US has hitherto managed to talk out of developing own nuclear weapons. But that might soon change, as South Korea and Japan are both capable potential proliferators - and now Trump has given them a push.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets French President Emmanuel Macron for a bilateral meeting at the Élysée in April 2025. Picture by Simon Dawson/ No 10 Downing Street.

Second, the coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France and consisting of 32 countries that have committed to support Ukraine, will get a three-star multinational operational headquarters in Paris. In true European style, the headquarters will rotate to London after 12 months. The new permanent headquarters will be a step towards institutionalising the coalition and enables flexible military contributions from partner nations. The coalition has had operational plans for a possible post-ceasefire reassurance force for some months now, but the political conditions have been lacking. Should (or “when”, as the UK government phrases it) the reassurance force be deployed, a coordination cell will also be established in Kyiv, headed up by a UK 2-star military officer. I suppose it is reassuring that such a force is basically ready to go if needed.

The UK government lists three main tasks for the force:

• Regenerate land forces: providing logistic, armament and training experts to assist with the regeneration and reconstitution of Ukraine’s land forces.

• Secure Ukraine’s skies: The Coalition will provide safe skies alongside Ukraine’s Air Force using Coalition aircraft to deliver Air Policing, reassuring the Ukrainian population and establishing the conditions for normal international air travel to re-commence.

• Support safer seas: The existing Black Sea Task Force of Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria will be bolstered by additional specialist staff to accelerate the clearance of mines from the Black Sea and ensure safe and secure maritime access for all vessels transiting to and from Ukraine ports.

However, what is more remarkable than the reassurance force is the institutionalisation of the coalition of the willing. It was created to bypass NATO and since the US has withdrawn from the leadership, it has also been a way for Europeans to coordinate with each other and Indo-Pacific partners - without the US. It already has an established meeting system for the highest political and military leaders: the heads of state, and the chiefs of defence.

The most advantageous feature is that Ukraine is already in (obviously), while Hungary is out. The US was on its way out too, but apparently got second thoughts and is now trying to slime its way back in: US representatives joined the meeting of the coalition for the first time, including Special Presidential Envoy, General Keith Kellogg, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Richard Blumenthal. Perhaps they realised that they are becoming irrelevant now that Europeans are actually doing what the US has demanded of them, and given that the Trump administration has been reluctant to grant Ukraine any new additional aid.

Together, these two new elements - the Franco-British nuclear coordination and the institutionalisation of the coalition of the willing - can become a subtle way to work around existing institutions that have proven dysfunctional or insufficient to meet the needs of supporting Ukraine and increasing European independent capability. Depending on the US trajectory, NATO may lose its centrality as Europe’s main defence and security arrangement, and then such alternatives come in handy. Both can become institutional elements in a new European security architecture, this time built without the US. It is up to the Trump administration to recognise its best interests and start engaging more constructively. But Europe is clearly moving on either way.