Transatlantic cooperation in flux: Europe’s small and cautious steps towards “strategic autonomy”

The existing, liberal world order is under pressure and transatlantic cooperation on security is challenged. The paper raises the question, why have the European steps and policy initiatives towards addressing the new international threats and challenges to Europe been so limited and cautious. The first argument states it is because the European decision-makers were unable to agree when it came to implementing salient and concrete policies addressing new security threats and building strategic autonomy. The second argument states that the European decision-makers were only able to reach agreement on diffuse and symbolic policy ideas like building “strategic autonomy” for the European Union. The third argument states that the Europeans were able to address some of the new security challenges if it took place within NATO. The analysis shows that the European responses and reactions to the increasing tensions in the Indo-Pacific were subdued. The Europeans were unable to launch any concrete reactions to the American unilateral abrogation of the Iranian nuclear deal, to the unilateral American policy initiatives in the Israel-Palestine conflict or to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, the Europeans increased the level of their defense spending and they also cooperated closely with their transatlantic partner to counter the assertive Russian foreign policy behavior.