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ISSN 2562-8429 

 
 

 
 

NATO and the CSDP after the Ukraine War: The End of European Strategic Autonomy? 

 

Luca Ratti, Università Roma Tre 

  
 

 
 
Abstract 

The paper debates the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the relationship between the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union’s Common Security and Defence 

Policy (CSDP). It argues that the invasion has dramatically changed Europe’s security landscape, 

carrying major implications for both organizations and their relationship. After NATO’s withdrawal 

from Afghanistan in 2021 and persisting frictions between the US and its European allies about 

burden-sharing, the war instilled a new sense of purpose into the Alliance, placing renewed emphasis 

on its core functions of territorial defence and deterrence. However, the war was also a reality check 

for the EU, raising important questions about the future of the European security architecture, the 

Union’s role within it, and its relationship with NATO (hereafter also referred to as the Alliance). 

The aim of this article is to try to answer some of these questions by providing an assessment of the 

impact of the war on the relationship between NATO and CSDP and to discuss potential avenues for 

strengthening the EU’s role in transatlantic security. More specifically, the paper will try to answer 

the following questions: what are the implications of the conflict on NATO and CSDP? How did the 

war impact the EU’s aspiration to strategic autonomy? Will the conflict trigger more effective burden-

sharing within the Alliance as the US prepares for deepening systemic competition with China, or 

will it be another missed opportunity to strengthen the EU’s role in transatlantic security?  

 
 
  
  



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Introduction 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked the foundations of Europe’s post-Cold War security 

architecture, ushering in a critical junction for European and transatlantic security. After the 2008 

economic crisis, frictions about burden-sharing between the US and its European allies had cast a 

sense of fatigue over the transatlantic partnership, fuelling American threats of disengagement from 

Europe as well as European fears of de-coupling and calls for strategic autonomy from the US. 

However, the outbreak of the largest and most brutal war on the European continent since 1945 made 

it evident that European countries remain heavily dependent on the US both in terms of political 

leadership and military capabilities. Nevertheless, the war also highlighted the need for an expanded 

EU role in security and defence and intensified cooperation between NATO and CSDP. In future 

years, closer coordination between the Alliance and the EU will be particularly needed, as the 

revamped American commitment to Europe is unlikely to usher in a structural “pivot in reverse” of 

US strategic priorities (Haroche and Brugier 2023, 6). Rather, increasing US concerns about China’s 

assertiveness will require Europeans to carry a bigger share of the burden of transatlantic security. 

While in the aftermath of the invasion, both organizations updated their key guiding strategic 

documents, in January 2023, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the President of the 

European Council Charles Michel, and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der 

Leyen signed a Joint Declaration on NATO-European Union cooperation, promising to bring their 

partnership to the ‘next level’ (Council of the EU 2023). This document was the fourth joint 

declaration signed by the two organizations after the 2002 EU-NATO Declaration (NATO 2002), the 

2016 Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation (Council of the EU 2016), and the 2018 Joint 

Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation (Council of the EU 2018). While condemning Russia’s 

invasion of Ukraine and restating a common determination to act together against a wide array of 

security threats, the declaration confirmed NATO’s premier role for Euro-Atlantic security, firmly 

enshrining the prospect of closer European security cooperation within the boundaries of the Alliance. 

To a degree, it also cast aside calls for European strategic autonomy.  

Nonetheless, the paper argues that, in the current systemic context, European leaders should grab 

onto the momentum created by the war to further institutional integration in security and defence. In 

the face of the ongoing conflict in Europe as well as deepening systemic tensions between the US 

and China, the risks implied in inaction were summed up in 2021 by the EU’s High Representative 

for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, who remarked that the EU could no longer afford to 

be an herbivore in a power struggle between carnivores (Borrell 2021, 292). Rather, the paper argues 

that in the current systemic context, Europeans need to make a quantum leap towards achieving a 

degree of supranational centralization of the decision-making process in order to endow the EU to 

play a larger role in European and transatlantic security. It is from these assumptions that the paper 

proceeds as follows. The first section discusses the impact of the war on NATO. The second section 

debates the implications of the war on the CSDP. In the third section, the paper assesses the impact 

of the conflict on the relationship between the two organizations, arguing that the war confirmed 

NATO’s premier role for European and transatlantic security and the CSDP’s inability to act 

effectively without support from the Alliance. Lastly, it sketches out potential future scenarios for the 

relationship between the two organizations, concluding that EU members need to take stock of the 

current situation to further advance integration in security and defence.   

 

The Impact of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on NATO 

A Revamped Transatlantic Alliance 

The beginning of Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine at the end of February 2022 ushered 

in a critical junction for European and transatlantic security. For the first time since the Yugoslav 

wars of the 1990s, prolonged and high-intensity warfare returned to European soil. Although Ukraine 

was neither a NATO nor an EU member when the invasion began and is unlikely to secure 



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membership in any of these institutions anytime soon, Russia’s invasion shook the foundations of the 

Euro-Atlantic security architecture that was established at the Cold War’s end and gradually 

consolidated between the end of the 1990s and early 2000s. This architecture was based on the 

Alliance’s premier role for European and transatlantic security as a provider of both collective 

defence and as a crisis management tool but also on the development of European capabilities for the 

conduct of peacekeeping and crisis management operations (the so-called Petersberg Tasks). This 

architecture also relied on the search for a durable accommodation between the Euro-Atlantic 

institutions and Moscow. While relations with Russia had already begun to deteriorate during the late 

1990s and early 2000s and never fully recovered after the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 (Ratti 2013), 

the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have caused significant 

harm to the prospect of a durable arrangement between the West and Russia. 

With the war in its second year, the European security architecture has now been radically 

transformed with immediate consequences for both NATO and the EU as well as their relationship 

with the Russian Federation. More specifically, the war has produced three main consequences for 

the Alliance and the EU. First, rekindling a security discourse based on deterrence and territorial 

defence, rather than crisis management and cooperative security, it triggered a reinvigoration of the 

US role on the continent and strengthened transatlantic cohesion. The war brought about a tactical 

reorientation of the US priorities towards Europe, leading, for the first time since the end of the Cold 

War, to a significant enhancement of NATO’s forward presence on the eastern flank. It also gave a 

fundamental impulse towards allied unity, acting as a catalyst for transatlantic unity and firmness. 

The US used intelligence, diplomatic, defence, deterrence, and economic assets to respond to the 

invasion, reassuring its European allies and consulting extensively with them to support Ukraine and 

provide a coordinated response. The Biden administration’s policy thus restored a strong sense of 

unity between the two sides of the Atlantic. Both the 2022 US National Security Strategy (NSS) and 

National Defense Strategy (NDS) stressed the importance of working closely with the NATO allies 

(Department of Defense 2022; White House 2022).  The US lead allowed the allies to signal unity 

and showcase their ability for joint action (Simón 2022). 

Second, the war has been a reality check for the EU and for the ambition of some European leaders 

to achieve strategic autonomy from the US. In the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, due to 

deepening frictions within the Alliance about burden-sharing, and even more so during the troubled 

years of the Trump presidency, some European decision-makers began calling for the EU to acquire 

strategic autonomy from the US and NATO. Burden-sharing disputes are as old as the Alliance itself 

and are certainly not a novelty (Pothier and Vershbow 2017). They reflect a long-standing view in 

Washington that there is a dysfunctional disproportion in the contribution made by member states to 

the Alliance’s management and operations. In the aftermath of NATO’s intervention in Libya in 

March 2011, in his last official speech as Secretary of Defence, former CIA director Robert Gates 

brandished NATO as a two-tiered alliance and warned Europeans that future US leaders “may not 

consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost” (Joyner 2011). Similar views 

were also expressed by his successor Leon Panetta on his first trip to NATO’s headquarters as 

Secretary of Defence (Michel 2013, 257). In 2016, then-US President Barack Obama openly 

criticized Washington’s European allies, accusing them of acting like “free riders” (Goldberg 2016). 

Under the Presidency of Donald Trump, these disputes intensified further and received widespread 

publicity. More specifically, the President openly adopted a critical position towards NATO, calling 

the Alliance obsolete and claiming that Europeans owe “vast sums” of money to the United States 

(Morin 2017). The severity of Trump’s position and his administration’s concerns about the systemic 

threat posed by China deepened fears that the US might abandon its contractual obligations to 

Europe’s defence. In response to Trump’s vociferous and repeated criticism of the European allies, 

French President Emmanuel Macron championed the notion of European ‘strategic autonomy’ as one 

of the key objectives of the EU foreign and security policy. In a speech at the Sorbonne in September 

2017, the French President called on the EU to develop an autonomous capacity for action (Macron 



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2017), while in August 2018, he publicly remarked that Europe “cannot entrust its security to the 

United States alone,” urging the EU to develop autonomous capabilities (Macron 2018). In a famous 

2019 interview with The Economist, Macron scornfully described NATO as “braindead” (The 

Economist 2019). The French President also embarked on a number of initiatives aimed at 

strengthening cooperation among EU members and pursuing the EU’s strategic autonomy. In 2019, 

Macron and Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel signed the Aachen Treaty, promising to 

deepen bilateral cooperation and extend it to their European partners. Their initiative mirrored the 

1963 Franco-German treaty, which Charles De Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer had signed at the height 

of a prolonged period of transatlantic frictions with the US —which stretched from the Anglo-French 

debacle at Suez to the Cuban missile crisis—to assert a degree of European autonomy in the bipolar 

structure of the Cold War. At the same time, both Borrell and his predecessor Federica Mogherini in 

the post of High Representative for the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy called for the EU to acquire 

the institutional capacity to independently plan and conduct military operations across the full 

spectrum of conflict—including high-intensity military operations, such as expeditionary warfare and 

territorial defence missions—and to autonomously develop and produce the related defence 

capabilities with minimal or no assistance from the US (Howorth 2017; Meijer and Brooks 2021). 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, revamping conventional high-intensity warfare and raising the prospect 

of a tactical nuclear strike in Europe, downplayed these ambitions. Whereas during the Trump 

administration, calls for European strategic autonomy had fuelled fears of a transatlantic drift, the 

debate on US detachment from Europe and the tussle for relevancy between NATO and the EU in 

defending the continent has been considerably softened (Maze-Sencier 2022). 

Third, although restoring a strong sense of purpose among the allies, the war also highlighted the 

need for an expanded European contribution to transatlantic security. The National Security Strategy 

approved by the Biden Administration in October 2022 makes a specific distinction between the 

“immediate” but localized threat of Russia and the “systemic” and “global” challenge posed by China 

(White House 2022). In February 2023, the US Congress established a new committee on the pressing 

threat of the Chinese Communist Party to US national security. Although the Alliance was expressly 

designed to address threats to the Euro-Atlantic area, in recent years, it expanded its focus to the Indo-

Pacific region, inviting the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand to participate 

in its 2022 Madrid and 2023 Vilnius summits. The New Strategic Concept (NSC) adopted in 2022, 

while focusing on the consequences of Russia’s invasion, names China as one of NATO’s priorities, 

stating that Beijing’s ambitions challenge the West’s “interests, security and values” (NATO 2022a, 

5). Strategic competition between China and the US is poised to deepen further in future years, 

requiring EU members to assume greater responsibility for the security and defence of the continent 

and show a willingness to act collectively to address complex and substantial challenges.  

Deterrence and Defence of the Eastern Flank 

The more direct consequence of Russia’s invasion has been a robust reinforcement in the Alliance’s 

posture on the eastern flank. Whereas after the end of the Cold War, NATO had refrained from 

deploying considerable military forces on the territory of its new members since the Russian-

Georgian war in 2008 over the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and Russia’s annexation of 

Crimea in 2014, NATO had begun to carry out small deployments of forces in frontline states – the 

so-called “tripwire” model to deter Moscow (Ratti and Leonardi 2019). These token deployments 

occurred in the context of the European Reassurance/Deterrence initiative, which the Alliance 

launched in 2014 with the aim of reassuring its East European members. However, Russia’s invasion 

of Ukraine made this approach no longer sufficient, leading NATO to significantly strengthen its 

posture and increase the number of forces on its eastern flank (Bond and Scazzieri 2022). Washington 

and its European allies committed significant resources, agreeing on unprecedented steps to reinforce 

deterrence, establishing four additional multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, 

and Slovakia. This measure effectively doubled the number of battlegroups deployed on the 

Alliance’s eastern flank.  



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NATO’s strengthened posture on the eastern flank was also reflected in the evolution of the Alliance’s 

official strategy. Almost half a year into the conflict, the Madrid Summit of the Alliance in June 2022 

approved a New Strategic Concept. While the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997—though 

effectively torn to pieces—was not formally revoked at the Summit (Pszczel 2022), the New Strategic 

Concept describes Russia as the most significant threat to allied security. In the NSC, the allies 

affirmed their commitment to “defend every inch of Allied territory” (NATO 2022a, 6), agreeing to 

strengthen NATO’s “deterrence and defence posture to deny any potential adversary any possible 

opportunities for aggression” (NATO 2022a, 6). They also agreed to “deter and defend forward with 

robust in-place, multi-domain, combat-ready forces” and to increase their operational readiness, 

including by pre-positioning ammunition and equipment, reaching an agreement to expand the 

number of troops in NATO’s rapid response force from 40,000 to 300,000 (NATO 2022b). Although 

the details of this reinforced posture still need to be fully worked out, this enlarged force is supposed 

to have a higher level of readiness than the current response force (Bond and Scazzieri 2022). Some 

allies have already agreed to commit more troops. The US will set up a permanent army corps 

headquarters in Poland and send more troops to Romania and the Baltic states. Canada, the UK, and 

Germany have committed to strengthening their existing deployments in the Baltic states, while Italy 

and France will increase their forces in the Balkans. The allies also agreed to upgrade the strength of 

the forces deployed on the eastern flank from battalions to brigades. 

These joint commitments will lead to a major increase in NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) 

in future years. Currently, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) has 

operational command authority over some 42,000 combat troops, 60 plus warships and hundreds of 

combat aircraft now in Eastern Europe as part of NATO’s new posture of Forward Defence (FD). 

The new NATO Force Model is planned to be completed by the end of 2023 and envisions a mainly 

European force of some 300,000 troops maintained at high alert, with roughly 100,000 troops to be 

deployable within ten days (NATO 2022b). For the first time, all rapid reaction forces under NATO 

command will be committed to playing both a deterrence and defence role. All such forces will be 

consolidated within one command framework. Whilst the new force will be held at 24 hours “notice 

to act,” the bulk of the NATO Force Structure will be held at 15 days “notice to move.” This would 

be a marked improvement over previous arrangements in which some forces were held at 180 days’ 

“notice to move” (Lindley-French 2022). 

New Defence Investments  

At their Madrid summit, the allies agreed to ensure a substantial and persistent presence on land, at 

sea and in the air, including through strengthened integrated air and missile defence, while 

committing to increased defence spending and investing in major equipment through the creation of 

a new NATO innovation fund. As of 2022, there have been eight consecutive years of increased 

defence spending, with the European allies’ and Canada’s cumulative investment of almost 350 

billion US dollars (USD) since 2014 (NATO 2022a). Nonetheless, the availability of troops at high 

readiness will require concrete pledges of national contributions (Pszczel 2022). The European 

members of the Alliance now need to quickly implement their pledges and plan for the scenario of 

protracted high-intensity conflict in Europe.  

Thus far, Russian leaders have had no incentive to test the credibility of NATO’s Article 5. The 

alliance’s response has offered a sufficient degree of dissuasion. NATO has balanced incremental 

support to Ukraine with a reluctance to risk open conflict with Russia, implementing a form of 

deterrence by denial rather than punishment and devising a new beefed-up forward defence strategy. 

Substantial and persistent military presence, backed by the prepositioning of equipment and strategic 

pre-assigning of combat forces, has now become part of the new NATO Force Model (Pszczel 2022). 

Furthermore, NATO has opened its doors to two additional members—Sweden and Finland—which, 

as a result of the war, formalized their application for membership. While in April 2023, Finland 

became NATO’s 31st member, Sweden’s application awaits ratification from Turkey and Hungary. 

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russia-and-nato-how-did-we-get-here-and-how-should-we-respond


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Once finalized, their membership will bolster security on the Alliance’s northern flank, allowing 

NATO to establish a robust deterrence-by-denial posture in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions 

(Alberque and Schreer 2022). Both countries can make a significant contribution to burden-sharing 

and enhance NATO’s ability to modernize its defence planning and capability development.  

In the NSC, the allies have also made no ambiguity on the continued role played by nuclear weapons 

as the ultimate guarantee of their security, stressing that “the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, 

particularly those of the United States, are the supreme guarantee of the security” of its members 

(NATO 2022a, 8). Nonetheless, they will also need to invest significant sums to increase their 

conventional forces, particularly military deployments and pre-positioned stocks on NATO’s eastern 

flank, and to improve their readiness and ability to operate together. These measures might be 

particularly needed also in the context of the crisis of the global and European arms control regimes 

following the collapse of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces in Europe Treaty (INF) and Russia’s 

announcements in 2023 of its withdrawal from the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the 

Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE). In order to put flesh on the bones of these plans, NATO 

has recently launched two initiatives to foster defence investment and innovation: the NATO 

Innovation Fund (worth 1 billion euros) to invest in start-ups and technology, and the Defence 

Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), which is designed to harness emerging and 

disruptive technologies by bringing together civilian and defence experts. Finally, the NSC has 

acknowledged the need to strengthen the Alliance’s 360-degree approach to security (NATO 2022a, 

8). This is particularly important to ensure that the strengthened posture along NATO’s eastern flank 

will not undermine security in other parts of the Euro-Atlantic region. The NSC did not overlook 

NATO’s southern neighbourhood, particularly the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel, 

emphasizing the ongoing interconnectedness between NATO’s eastern and southern flanks (NATO 

2022a, 3-4).  

 

The Impact of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on the CSDP 

The CSDP before Russia’s Invasion 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a reinvigoration of NATO, confirming the Alliance’s role as 

the primary framework for collective military planning in Europe. However, what are the implications 

of the conflict on the EU and the CSDP? Technically, the EU has had a common foreign and security 

policy since the establishment of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) with the Treaty 

of Maastricht in 1992. During the 1990s, European military cooperation was conducted mostly 

through the Western European Union (WEU). However, at the 1998 St. Malo Summit, the UK and 

France called for the development of an EU “capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible 

military forces…in order to respond to international crises” (UK Parliament 1998). The Anglo-French 

initiative paved the way for the creation of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) at the 

Cologne European Council meeting in 1999. In 2001, the signing of the Treaty of Nice transferred 

the WEU’s competencies in peacekeeping, peacemaking, and crisis management—the revised 

Petersberg Tasks—to the European Union. The EU’s acquisition of these competencies was followed 

by the publication of the first EU Security Strategy in 2003, which called for the EU to be more active 

in the pursuit of its strategic interests (Council of the EU 2009).  

Nonetheless, in the following years, most EU members continued to rely on the Alliance for concrete 

military protection and to regard the ESDP mostly as an enhancement of NATO. As a result, its 

capabilities remained limited and never exceeded the range of the Petersberg Tasks. Furthermore, in 

2002, the Berlin Plus set of agreements between the EU and NATO left the ESDP heavily dependent 

on the Alliance for key strategic assets and resources, such as intelligence, planning, and logistic 

facilities. This dependence proved to be a major obstacle to the development of a capacity for 

autonomous military action. Berlin Plus made use of NATO’s assets subject to a right of refusal by 

the Alliance and conditional upon the consensus of all NATO members, including Turkey, thus 



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constraining the EU’s ability to act as an autonomous crisis manager (Howorth 2017). The signing of 

the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 and, more specifically, the provisions enshrined in the new Article 42(7) 

further expanded the EU’s security competencies, transferring the common defence clause of Article 

V of the WEU to the European Union. The shift from Article V of the WEU to Article 42(7) of the 

Treaty of Lisbon marked the formal establishment of the Common Security and Defence Policy 

(CSDP), leading to the WEU’s effective termination in 2011. Nonetheless, in the following years, 

despite including the word “defence” in its title, the CSDP did not live up to the promise of its name, 

remaining more of a foreign policy and crisis management tool than a defence policy (Simón 2022). 

Furthermore, EU member states remained reluctant to pursue institutional integration, preferring to 

establish bilateral and mini-lateral arrangements, such as the 2010 Anglo-French Lancaster House 

agreement, the Nordic defence cooperation, and the Visegrad Battlegroup, rather than endeavouring 

to take steps towards supranational centralization. 

The sluggishness of the institutional process tampered with the EU’s ambitions and also impacted 

relations between the CSDP and the Alliance. The EU-NATO Declarations of 2016 and 2018 

acknowledged that European security and defence instruments were inadequate to address the new 

security challenges and set out to create greater synergies, setting into motion unprecedented 

cooperative dynamics between the two organizations (Schuette 2022). In 2016, however, the result 

of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump raised the prospect of a transatlantic drift 

and triggered a plethora of new proposals to spur EU defence, rekindling hopes that the EU would be 

able to claim a larger role and take steps, such as the creation of military headquarters (Biscop 2016; 

Tocci 2017). In 2016, EU’s Global Strategy called for the EU to develop “strategic autonomy” (EEAS 

2016), while in 2017, Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) was activated among 25 EU 

members, with only Denmark, the UK, and Malta declining participation at the time. While the 

narrative of strategic autonomy fuelled US fears of functional overlap with the Alliance, it also proved 

a largely rhetorical and amorphous concept, exposing a dangerous gap between rhetoric and delivery. 

This debate failed to promote a dramatic U-turn in European defence or usher in an effective 

empowerment of European institutions, confirming the EU’s persisting dependence on the US and 

NATO. Furthermore, UK’s withdrawal in 2020 deprived the EU of its member with the largest 

military budget and one of only two members possessing “full-spectrum” military capabilities—

including a nuclear deterrent—as well as removing the automatic security guarantee, which the UK 

government had provided since the 1948 Brussels Treaty. In 2018, French President Emmanuel 

Macron first proposed the creation of a European Intervention Initiative (EII) as a forum for 

preserving cooperation between the EU and the UK after Brexit, while in 2022, the French President 

launched the project for a European Political Community (EPC) as a platform for political 

coordination across the entire European continent and as a forum for engaging countries, such as the 

UK itself, that do not have formal frameworks for dialogue with the EU. Nonetheless, both the EII 

and the EPC have no resources, staff, or budget of their own. As such, they might function as 

additional forums for political dialogue but are unlikely to turn into catalysts for increased European 

security cooperation. 
 

The CSDP’s Response to Russia’s Invasion 

Despite CSDP’s weaknesses, like NATO, the European Union responded swiftly and decisively to 

Russia’s invasion, helping coordinate the initiatives of member states. However, the CSDP was never 

conceived to face the prospect of high-intensity warfare on European soil but rather as a crisis 

response or management tool. As a result, the EU’s initiatives have been mostly confined to the realm 

of economic and financial measures. More specifically, the EU imposed eleven sanction packages on 

Russia and adopted a wide array of measures to support Ukraine, sanctioning hundreds of individuals 

as well as Russia’s central bank, its aviation, finance, energy, media, transport, and technology 

sectors. The EU also banned imports of Russian coal and oil and plans to do the same with gas by 

2027. More significantly, in an unprecedented step, through the newly created European Peace 



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Facility (EPF), the EU also gave Kyiv substantial military support to help finance the transfer of 

weapons from member states to Ukraine. As a reaction to the war, member states also took measures 

to develop the EU's Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB). In July 2022, the 

Commission presented the European Defence Industrial Reinforcement Procurement Act (EDIRPA), 

aimed at supporting procurement cooperation among members. In March 2023, the European Council 

agreed on a three-track approach calling members to jointly procure ammunition and, if requested, 

missiles to refill their stocks while enabling the continuation of support to Ukraine. In this context, 

the Defence Joint Procurement Task Force—made up of the European Commission, the European 

External Action Service, and the European Defence Agency—coordinated the most urgent and 

critical needs of EU member states and produced a mapping of the supply capacities of the European 

defence industry to meet the identified demand. In May, the Commission adopted the Act in Support 

of Ammunition Production (ASAP) with the aim of ramping up the EU's production capacity and 

addressing the current shortage of ammunition and missiles as well as their components. The EU also 

granted candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, despite the skepticism of many of its member states 

(Biscop 2023a). 

Nonetheless, the EU’s reaction to the war continued to highlight the absence of centralization in EU 

security and defence policy. Initiatives were taken by member states informally rather than through 

the use of existing treaties. Rather, treaty mechanisms for differentiated cooperation among members, 

such as the execution of a task by a group of member states and enhanced cooperation, were not 

activated. Consequently, member states were rarely subject to EU central guidance, while in the first 

months of the war, there was no centre at the EU level to coordinate increases in defence spending 

and bilateral provision of military aid to Ukraine (Amadio Viceré 2022). This caused friction between 

Ukraine and some member states. In February 2023, for example, Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia 

Meloni openly criticized France’s President Emmanuel Macron’s invitation to Ukraine’s President 

Volodymyr Zelensky to meet in Paris with him and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz ahead of the 

EU summit in Brussels. Furthermore, although Russian armed forces’ performance in Ukraine 

showed that earlier assessments of Russian military capabilities might have been largely exaggerated 

and looking ahead, the conventional threat from Russia seems less daunting than previously thought 

(Dalsjö, Jonsson, and Norberg 2022), the war also made it clear that without NATO’s involvement, 

the CSDP cannot counter hard security threats.  

Rather, the lack of centralized strategic guidance and a shortage of military capabilities have made it 

clear that NATO remains more essential than ever to preserve European security. Already in 2016, 

the joint EU-NATO declaration adopted at the end of the Alliance’s Warsaw summit had reaffirmed 

that collective defence is mainly NATO’s responsibility and that there will be no European 

duplication of the Alliance’s command structures, thus confirming a willingness on both sides not to 

allow heated rhetorical debates to drive a wedge between the two organizations (Schuette 2022). The 

current conflict in Ukraine has revitalized the commitment of NATO’s members to invest 

economically and militarily within the alliance. It has also prompted two new EU member states, 

Finland and Sweden, to seek NATO membership. The reality is that NATO, and the protection and 

assets it provides through its association with the US, continues to be the most attractive option for 

most European states. For instance, in the event of an attack on Finland or Sweden before their formal 

admission into the Alliance, under the current CSDP framework, there would have been little that the 

EU could do without NATO’s involvement and support (Lowings 2022). As a result of the war, calls 

for a truly autonomous EU military policy have become a moot point in the present security 

environment, while the debate on strategic autonomy has become partly redundant (Lowings 2022). 

Rather, the war has quenched this debate, making it clear that, through its extended deterrence and 

unique capabilities, NATO remains the indisputable bedrock of European security. Nonetheless, the 

war also highlighted once more the risk of European overreliance on American strength. More 

specifically, Russia’s campaign confirmed that the European Union neither has the institutional 

capacity to independently plan and conduct military operations across the full spectrum of conflict—



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including high-intensity military operations, such as expeditionary warfare and territorial defence 

missions—nor to autonomously develop and produce the related defences capabilities with minimal 

or no assistance from the United States. It is, therefore, likely that in future years, the prospect of 

closer European security cooperation will remain firmly anchored within the boundaries of 

transatlantic solidarity. Rather, uncertainty about the duration of the war has revitalized the notion of 

a European pillar within the Alliance to be embedded in nodal defence, in increasing European 

defence budgets, and in contributions to missions (Ringsmose and Webber 2020).   

At the same time, however, the military threat from Russia and strategic concerns about China from 

the US have highlighted the urgency to deepen institutional cooperation within the EU. While most 

European initiatives have been confined to the non-military realm, Europeans have had little choice 

but to take on a larger share of the burden of their own defence. Since Russia’s invasion in February 

2022, EU countries have announced an extra 200 billion euros (EUR) in defence spending. For the 

first time, the bloc also funded the delivery of weapons and military support to the tune of EUR 2.5 

billion under the newly created European Peace Facility. EU countries were quick to tear down old 

taboos: Germany decided to spend more on defence, providing military assistance to a country at war; 

most notably, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged that Germany would finally meet its NATO 

commitment to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defence, establishing a EUR 100 billion ad-hoc fund 

to help reach that target. As a result, in 2022, Germany’s military budget became the seventh largest 

in the world, with further increases planned. Germany also established an extra-budgetary fund to 

increase its armed forces’ military capabilities. Defence spending in Western and Central Europe has 

now surpassed that of the last year of the Cold War (SIPRI 2023). Denmark reversed its 30-year opt-

out from the CSDP, while Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership. Finland’s accession 

in April 2023 brought an additional EU member into the alliance, strengthening NATO’s European 

pillar and serving as an additional bridge-builder between NATO and the EU. Once Sweden’s 

accession process is complete, 23 members of the EU will be members of the Alliance, while only 

four EU members—Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, and Austria—will formally retain a neutral status, further 

easing coordination between the two organizations.  

The EU’s Strategic Compass, which was approved by the European Council in March 2022, leaves 

no doubt about European dependence on NATO and, specifically, US defence capabilities. 

Rhetorically at least, the EU’s Strategic Compass sets a high level of ambition for the EU’s security 

and defence role. However, it also makes it clear that “NATO…remains the foundation of collective 

defence for its members. The transatlantic relationship and EU-NATO co-operation...are key to our 

overall security” (Council of the EU 2022, 15). The EU will not take on a major role in the defence 

of European territory – at least not in the short term. The Compass sets out plans for the EU to improve 

its ability to carry out medium-sized military operations by building a flexible force of 5,000 that 

could be deployed in a range of circumstances entitled the “Rapid Deployment Capacity” (RDC). 

However, these numbers mark a significant reduction in the EU’s level of ambition. In 1999, the EU 

committed to deploying 60,000 troops at short notice, but in the following years, it never came close 

to achieving this target. The Compass acknowledges that NATO is the pre-eminent organization when 

it comes to collective defence and explains how a stronger EU is complementary to NATO, thus 

making European strategic autonomy consistent with the strengthening of the transatlantic link. While 

the RDC would be a significant upgrade to the EU’s two existing battlegroups (both of which are 

only 1,500 strong and have never been used), being able to deploy a force of 5,000 will take years, 

as member states will need to acquire the military capabilities for which they currently depend on the 

US, including a full-scale command structure, intelligence, reconnaissance, air-to-air refuelling, and 

strategic airlift (Bond and Scazzieri 2022). These shortages were made patently clear with NATO’s 

operation against Libya in 2011, which highlighted Europe’s difficulties in sustaining a relatively 

small military operation over an extended period of time.  

There are also some additional issues. On the surface, the war seems to have wiped out strategic 

undercurrents among EU members. However, some nuances have not been transcended. Hence, some 



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EU members may be unwilling to assign troops to the RDC, or the HQ needed to command it, given 

competing demands from NATO structures. East European members, for example, have been 

traditionally lukewarm about assigning forces to the EU, fearing a weakening of the Alliance. 

Furthermore, even if the RDC became fully operational, all member states—especially those 

providing it with essential assets—would have to agree before it could actually be deployed (Bond 

and Scazzieri 2022). Members who want to use military force might continue to find it more practical 

to do so through NATO if there is consensus in the Alliance or in ad-hoc coalitions. In order to turn 

the EU into a more effective agency, member states will require a willingness to pursue forms of 

supranational integration in security and defence but current dynamics and post-Cold War history 

indicate that this is highly unlikely to happen. As long as unanimity formally remains the rule in EU 

foreign and security policy, the EU’s contribution to European security is, therefore, bound to remain 

ephemeral and inherently vulnerable to the contingent preferences of member states (Amadio Viceré 

2022).  

  

The Impact of Russia’s Invasion on NATO-EU Cooperation 

NATO-EU Cooperation before the War 

How will cooperation between NATO and the EU adapt and respond to the new scenario and 

challenges created by the war? The formal establishment of the EU-NATO partnership dates back to 

the late 1990s and early 2000s. After the appointment of former NATO Secretary General Javier 

Solana to the post of High Representative for the CFSP at the 1999 Cologne European Council 

summit, it was formalized with the signing of the Berlin Plus arrangements in December 2002. In the 

same month, a NATO-EU declaration welcomed the strategic partnership established between the 

EU and NATO but also reaffirmed that the Alliance remains the foundation of the collective defence 

of its members (NATO 2002). These arrangements allowed the EU to borrow NATO’s facilities and 

structures to carry out crisis management operations, as was the case with the EU operation Concordia 

in North Macedonia and Althea in Bosnia-Herzegovina. More specifically, the EU’s Bosnian 

deployment has made extensive recourse to NATO’s assets and resources and has been headquartered 

in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). 

Strategic cooperation intensified in the following years, particularly after France’s reintegration into 

NATO’s military command in 2009. The EU and NATO attempted to coordinate their efforts and 

conducted operations in the same country or region, first in the Balkans and later in Afghanistan, Iraq, 

the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and off the Horn of Africa. The two joint declarations in 2016 and 

2018 set the agenda for additional cooperation, expanding it to such fields as cyber and hybrid threats, 

defence capabilities, countering terrorism, and military mobility. In 2016, the EU and NATO set up 

the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, held common 

exercises on responding to cyber threats, worked together in fighting disinformation, and intensified 

dialogue and contacts between officials and leaders. Additionally, each organization’s leaders began 

to attend the other’s ministerial-level meetings (Bond and Scazzieri 2022). In recent years, EU 

initiatives on defence have tended to complement NATO and draw on the particular strengths of the 

EU with the aim of strengthening the Alliance’s European pillar.   

EU-NATO Cooperation after the War 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further strengthened the need for closer coordination between the EU 

and NATO. While in the aftermath of the invasion, both organizations updated their key guiding 

strategic documents; in January 2023, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the President of 

the European Council Charles Michel, and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der 

Leyen signed the fourth Joint Declaration on NATO-European Union cooperation. The declaration 

highlighted “the value of a stronger and more capable European defence that contributes positively 

to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to, and interoperable with, NATO” (Council 

of the EU 2023).  



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By undermining the prospect of strategic autonomy in favour of European efforts within NATO itself, 

the war reinvigorated the notion of NATO’s “European pillar” but also strengthened the need for 

closer cooperation between the alliance and the CSDP. Nonetheless, there are still many question 

marks and grey areas. First, the CSDP continues to experience important shortcomings due to 

incomplete institutional reforms and severe capabilities shortfalls (Bergmann and Mueller 2021; 

Meijer and Brooks 2021). In total, since 2014, the United States has provided more than USD 39.7 

billion in security assistance for training and equipment to help Ukraine (Department of State 2023). 

In January 2023, the Biden administration agreed to supply Ukraine with a limited number of US 

battle tanks, and in May, it endorsed plans to train Ukrainian pilots on US-made F-16 fighter jets. 

However, while in August, the US approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and 

the Netherlands, the prospect of sending war planes to Kyiv remains a contentious issue for many EU 

member states, which fear that the sending of potentially offensive weapons could escalate hostilities. 

Second, despite an apparent show of unity in the aftermath of the invasion, the CSDP continues to be 

hampered by varying threat perceptions and strategic priorities (Meijer and Brooks 2021). Some 

European nations have clearly signalled their lack of appetite for a wider confrontation with Moscow 

or to risk an escalation. After failing to dissuade Putin in the run-up to the invasion, France and 

Germany slowly stepped up their support to Ukraine. Nonetheless, their attitude was long perceived 

as more cautious than those of other EU members, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, 

Romania, and the three Baltic states. Although German bilateral support to Ukraine since the 

beginning of the invasion has amounted to EUR 17 billion, making it the largest donor of military aid 

after the US, in early 2023, Germany hesitated before providing Ukraine with Leopard 2 Tanks or 

even allowing other European nations in possession of German military equipment to transfer it to 

Ukraine. Furthermore, although in May 2023, the German government promised to double its 

commitment, the issue remains politically contentious in Germany. EU member states have also 

shown a different determination to reduce energy dependency on Russia. Only after months of 

wrangling and protracted negotiations in December 2022, EU members agreed on a full ban on 

Russian seaborne crude oil imports and a price cap for Russian gas. However, whereas Poland and 

the Baltic States have called for lowering the price of oil, Croatia and Bulgaria were granted 

temporary derogations, and Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Austria have argued that any 

overly aggressive market cap would destabilize global energy markets and called for conditions such 

as an automatic suspension of the cap in certain circumstances. These dynamics highlight the 

difficulties in coordinating policies among member states in the lack of centralized decision-making. 

In order to become truly effective, a European pillar within the Alliance should provide both more 

military capabilities and a coordinated policy.  

Third, the fragmentation of the European armaments market remains a problem. European nations 

are still working on developing two different next-generation fighter aircraft programs: the Franco-

German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS) and the British-Italian-Swedish Tempest. While 

there are political and technical obstacles to merging the two, doing so would allow greater economies 

of scale (Taylor and Antinozzi 2022). European industrial cooperation is barely advancing despite 

increased military budgets. The European defence industry remains fragmented along national lines, 

except for the aviation and missile sectors, while each country continues to prefer to buy from its own 

firms. More integration between European military forces would also lead to greater efficiencies. For 

example, the Belgian and Dutch navies have integrated training, logistic, and maintenance 

arrangements, allowing them to make substantial savings and, at the same time, keep military 

capabilities that they could not afford to maintain individually (Bond and Scazzieri 2022).  

Finally, China represents another potentially divisive challenge for the future of transatlantic unity 

and European security cooperation. Asian partners attended NATO’s 2022 Madrid summit and have 

been invited to attend the Alliance’s 2023 summit in Vilnius, while Europeans hardened their views 

on China in the last few years. However, unlike in the US, China is still perceived by many EU 

members as a potential economic partner rather than a strategic or military threat. Although there is 



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increasingly greater alignment between European and US positions, a further deterioration in 

relations between Washington and Beijing could raise questions as to how far the US-European allies 

will be willing to sign on to additional initiatives containing China (Gramer and Iyengar 2022). In 

April 2023, French President Macron’s statement about Europe’s need to avoid being sucked into a 

hypothetical US war with China caused unease within the Alliance but also highlighted the need to 

forge a clearer and more detailed common European approach on China (Biscop 2023b). Although 

China is currently unable to invade Taiwan in the short term, many observers believe that it will be 

capable of doing so as early as 2027 (Haroche and Brugier 2023). 

What is the way forward for NATO and the CSDP in the current systemic context? First, there are 

areas where the EU could contribute more efficiently to European security. More specifically, the EU 

has a crucial role to play in enabling defence investment and encouraging member states to cooperate 

more in defence research, development, and procurement. The EU’s EUR 8 billion European Defence 

Fund (EDF) finances both defence research (including disruptive technology) and the development 

of new capabilities. While European collaborative spending in 2021 accounted for 18 percent of total 

defence equipment procurement, bolstering European capabilities will also require other initiatives: 

additional adjustments to the EU’s fiscal rules to encourage member states to invest more in defence 

and incentives in the EDF and in PESCO to promote joint procurement and deeper cooperation 

between military forces. Second, the EU should be more ambitious: it should coordinate increased 

defence spending, support efforts to strengthen European military capabilities and push countries to 

cooperate more in developing and procuring military capabilities as well as joint maintenance and 

logistics. These steps would help achieve efficiency gains and support the scientific, technical, and 

industrial capabilities that Europe needs for its security. Some PESCO projects, such as the ones 

focusing on military mobility, help military forces better prepare for conflict by making it easier for 

them to move around in a crisis. This would be crucial, for example, to allow faster reinforcement to 

the Baltic States, which are currently poorly connected to other allies by land (Bond and Scazzieri 

2022). In November 2022, the United Kingdom joined the military mobility program led by the 

Netherlands, which the US, Canada, and Norway joined in 2021 and which has been a flagship of 

NATO-EU cooperation. Although the 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development 

and Foreign Policy identified China as the foremost threat to the UK’s long-term security interests 

(UK Cabinet Office 2021), Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reinforced the logic that the UK should 

concentrate its strength on bolstering the deterrent power of NATO within the Euro-Atlantic area 

(Magill and Rees 2022).  

Third, in the following years, the EU and NATO should continue to coordinate and find a division of 

labour that avoids the risks of duplication. NATO and the EU will both have roles to play. Unlike the 

Alliance, the EU is neither equipped to dissuade or deter Russia nor face the prospect of an escalation 

or expansion of the conflict. Close coordination and permanent dialogue between the EU and NATO 

should also support efforts in defence spending. It will be particularly important to make sure that 

levels of troop commitment and readiness are not mutually detrimental while avoiding waste and 

duplication, which hamper economic growth and fuel higher inflation in Europe. This coordination 

will be particularly important also to guarantee the security of other regions where the US might be 

less willing to counter threats or deploy forces, such as the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and North 

Africa. Endeavours to deepen military and technical cooperation represent an additional challenge 

for both NATO and the EU. European forces have limited stocks and are lacking in important 

capabilities, such as air and missile defence, modern tanks, artillery, and intelligence. Since Russia’s 

invasion, the number of US troops in Europe has increased by approximately 20,000, bringing the 

total number to over 100,000, and it is set to grow further. However, Europeans cannot expect 

Washington to continue to shoulder the lion’s share of their defence willingly. Even before Donald 

Trump’s presidency, US complaints about unfair burden-sharing were growing more frequent. 

Washington’s increased focus and posture on the Asia-Pacific region does not mean that it will stop 

underwriting European security, but resource constraints mean that the US contribution to Europe’s 



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conventional and nuclear defence might not be taken for granted in future years (Bond and Scazzieri 

2022). The potential redistribution of US efforts among theatres might leave Europe in a vulnerable 

position. Rather than taking US support for granted (Haroche and Brugier 2023), Europeans should 

acknowledge that the US attitude might be considerably affected both by dynamics in East Asia and 

the outcome of the 2024 presidential elections. Hence, Europe should not only continue to invest in 

capabilities but also make a quantum leap beyond the instruments in place and towards centralized 

forms of decision-making.  

 

Conclusion 

This paper has discussed the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on NATO and the CSDP. It has 

argued that the war has reinvigorated NATO and cast aside calls for European strategic autonomy, 

emphasizing the EU’s ongoing reliance on the US as a security supplier. The war has made it evident 

that when it comes to deterrence and defence, NATO is clearly the indispensable organization for 

European security. It is through NATO’s military structures that most European states organize their 

collective defence and allied armed forces get used to operating together effectively. While the EU is 

gradually stepping out of its previous role as a crisis manager, its contribution to Euro-Atlantic 

security continues to be hampered, however, by a number of shortcomings. All the evidence suggests, 

therefore, that future steps towards allowing the CSDP to make a credible and more effective 

contribution to European security will be primarily channelled through NATO. Nonetheless, as 

strategic competition between the US and China deepens, EU members cannot take it for granted that 

Washington will continue to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of transatlantic security. 

Rather, the US will likely call upon its European allies to do more. America’s long-term strategic 

priorities lie in the Indo-Pacific, and the outcome of the US presidential election in November 2024 

may well impact the US role in the Alliance. It is in the very interest of the EU itself to learn the right 

lessons and make the necessary changes. Even though both the Alliance’s New Strategic Concept 

and the EU’s Strategic Compass emphasize the importance of strengthening the EU-NATO 

partnership, the crisis in Ukraine has not only shown the need to strengthen European capabilities but 

also the dangers of overreliance on the United States. 

Rather than taking strong US support for granted, in order to be able to address current and future 

security challenges, EU members should strengthen their contribution to the Alliance but also 

endeavour to rekindle and deepen integration. While the European priority should remain to keep the 

US engaged in European security, in future years, the EU should direct its efforts towards achieving 

a degree of centralization in security and defence decision-making. This is an essential precondition 

if the EU wants to be able to define its own collective interests and objectives and acquire sufficient 

instruments to make an effective contribution to European and transatlantic security.  

 

  



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90             Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 73-89 

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