Image Source: Michaelversatile – CC BY 3.0

I keep hearing the phrase “strategic autonomy,” including in discussions about the latest joint declaration on Ukraine. The term also appears in speeches and policy papers, moving from Brussels to Paris like a chorus and a hook—always about Europe, always about its reliance on the United States. In technology, in defence, in global affairs. At a push, it feels less like a generational project than a five-year ambition with a zero-time plan. “We’ve got five years / My brain hurts a lot / Five years / That’s all we’ve got…”

Europe talks often about strength, and in some respects, as I have reported before, that strength is growing. Then something happens, such as Washington’s unilateral and dramatic intervention in Venezuela, and the gap between ambition and ability is stripped bare. The song, most abruptly, ends.

When a crisis erupts beyond Europe’s borders, especially one involving great-power shenanigans, Europe’s capacity to act independently is always haunted by its limitations. Painfully so.

Inside the European Union, “strategic autonomy” has become shorthand for a bundle of goals. In Baroque music, composers wrote only the bass line plus numbers. Maybe it’s like that: the outline is clear, but the performance is left to whoever turns up. In practice, autonomy seems to mean being able to act militarily if the United States chooses not to. It means reducing essential dependencies. It means gaining leverage, albeit with slippy hands, in a choppy transatlantic relationship. The player who sets the tempo here has influence even without playing louder.

What it does not mean, at least for now, is slashing ties with NATO, severing the alliance’s oxygen supply with Washington, or embracing geopolitical neutrality—the sort some strands of European Green politics increasingly flirt with.

France remains the most vocal champion of autonomy, the loudest voice in the yard, though both France and Germany have recently criticised elements of US foreign policy. Eastern Europe, with its still-visible historical scars and sharper fears, probably remains the most sceptical and least likely to bolt.

Still, something is shifting. Defence spending is rising across the beleaguered, often over-hounded continent. Germany’s €100 billion defence fund marked a genuine break with the past. Most EU countries now say they will meet NATO’s 2 percent-of-GDP target. Denmark, subject to the most recent American bullying, is a remarkable 3 percent. Put that in your pipe, Washington, and smoke it, you can almost feel the Danes say. Joint procurement of ammunition and air-defence systems is becoming more common. The change is no longer merely rhetorical. It is structural… Joint procurement of ammunition and air-defence systems is becoming more common. The change is no longer merely rhetorical. It is structural.

Industrial policy is shifting too. EU programmes now aim to steer procurement towards European suppliers. They say the process remains inefficient and slow. But everyone insists, with curious self-loving relief, that it is moving.

The appeal of the Saab Gripen over the F-35 is a case in point. An ex-military contact—“Europeans can fight,” he reminded me—argued that this type of preference is driven less by battlefield performance than by concerns over sovereignty, freedom of use, and long-term cost control, and the ability to deploy without external permission, despite the F-35’s acknowledged advantages.

Energy policy shows similar shifts. Europe has diversified rapidly away from Russian oil and gas, increased investment in renewables, and revived nuclear in some quarters. Strategic reserves have expanded and joint purchasing platforms emerged. Ironically, the short-term result has been deeper reliance on American liquefied natural gas, with volumes flowing into terminals in England, Wales, and France.

Yet Europe remains militarily weak and cannot fight a high-intensity conflict without the United States. The gaps are well known, with the partial exceptions of nuclear-armed France and the UK—though London still leans heavily on American support. Without the keystone, the arch weakens. This may be changing. German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier has just said European security policy needs rewritten.

Strategic autonomy sounds neat, but it requires sharp, fast, coordinated decision-making. The EU is a union of 27 governments with different histories, geographies, and fears. The Baltics do not see the world as Spain or Hungary do. Foreign policy gets bogged down in vetoes and internal division. Even as Europe begins to arm itself to the teeth, this may be the greatest obstacle.

Public opinion adds another constraint. Most Europeans want security, but not the bill. They reject conscription. And if America remains willing to provide the umbrella, they are largely content to stay beneath it. But Europe will likely see this as necessary oxygen for proper debate.

Russia’s war in Ukraine changed the mood, but not the fundamentals. Macron may have said that “multilateral institutions are functioning less and less effectively,’’ but European NATO has grown stronger. Okay, US weapons and intelligence became more essential, and if anything, the war made Eastern Europe more Atlanticist, but the drive for autonomy was also in the process of gaining momentum. Which brings us back to Venezuela.

When the United States moved decisively and largely unilaterally in Latin America, Europe hesitated. Responses were cautious, vague, often passive. Governments “monitored the situation.” Few offered alternatives. Official EU statements emphasised democracy and international law, while avoiding a clear stance. Some criticised Washington. Others tacitly approved or stayed neutral. One Eastern European leader welcomed the impact on energy markets. The fragmented response again exposed Europe’s fault lines.

In retrospect, many now see Venezuela not as a turning point but as a warning. It is a glimpse of a more transactional, unpredictable US foreign policy, and a reminder that reliance carries risk, especially when Washington moves unilaterally.

Greenland, too, underscores Europe’s dependence, though the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, is now preparing Europe’s response to any military action on Greenland. As part of the Kingdom of Denmark, yet embedded in American defence planning, it shows just how Europe’s sovereignty blurs at the frontiers of great-power rivalry.

Venezuela may not have changed European capabilities, but it sharpened the argument. It reinforced the case for more autonomous decision-making. This is not because Europe wants to abandon the US alliance, but because it may not always have the choice.

That point was reinforced again this week when US forces intercepted two oil tankers in moves that were swift and consequential, though not on the oil tanker sanctioned by the US in 2024 for distributing illicit Russian oil and sailing only this week through the Channel. When rules are broken and escalation risk is real, who acts? Once more, it is Washington, though the UK provided military support such as RAF surveillance aircraft and naval backing. By and large, though, Europe just watched, assessed, and coordinated its language. It was not a failure of diplomacy so much as a reminder of capability and who still calls the shots.

The joint declaration by several European states signalling readiness to contribute to a “multinational force” to uphold any future peace agreement in Ukraine fits neatly into this story. It is a meaningful political gesture. It is Europe signalling that it does not intend to outsource the post-war security order on its own continent. It feels like a manifestation of how Europe would prefer things to be.

Yet its limits are also revealing. The proposal sits outside EU structures, appears to rely on NATO frameworks, and assumes continued American cover, which everyone fears is a risky strategy these days. The force envisaged would stabilise but would it enforce? Strategic autonomy is no longer abstract, but it is not yet decisive. Watch, as Europe appears to be rising to its feet to say, this space.

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