EU Strategic Autonomy after the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Only a few concepts in the debate on the European Union's (EU's) foreign and security policy manage to evoke as many passionate reactions as the notion of strategic autonomy. For some, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, it represents a futile and ill-guided ambition of the EU to follow a third way, independent of the United States, in an emerging multipolar order – futile because the EU is missing by a long shot the military capacities to deter aggression without US support and ill-guided because the strength of the EU in global affairs is the close partnership with the United States. For others, such as France and with reservations Germany, strategic autonomy is a necessary agenda for the EU to develop its own voice in international affairs and to hedge its bets in an international environment of growing uncertainty. Since 24 February 2022, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine provides a new turn in the debate on strategic autonomy. Lingering questions on US commitment to European security are – at least for the time being – muted, as the United States considerably stepped up its deterrence efforts on European soil and provided essential military and intelligence support to Ukraine. On military questions, the war showcases the gulf between ambitions and realities of European strategic autonomy. It also confirms and elevates critical voices that have been sceptical of the French-led aspirations to make the EU an independent power centre. Whether one leans more towards Europeanism or Atlanticism, the concept of strategic autonomy remains relevant as both a frame in the policy debates and a prism to study the EU's capacity and role in international relations (Helwig and Sinkkonen, 2022). The reason for the persistence of the term is not only that one can always rely on the French President Emmanuel Macron to stir up the debate on strategic autonomy once more after everyone thought that it was settled. 1 The concept of strategic autonomy remains central because it has managed to 'travel' and 'stretch' (Csernatoni, 2023) in ways that it now covers a broad scope of the security and economic policy debate, from the EU's industrial strategy (Tagliapietra, 2023) to health (Bayerlein, 2023) and cyber (Calderaro and Blumfelde, 2023). The term is also 'ambiguous' enough that it can serve as a rhetorical device for calls for a more value-oriented, security focused or economically resilient EU (Helwig, 2022). The debate on strategic autonomy can be conceptionally divided into separate dimensions based on Isaiah Berlin's (1969) two concepts of liberty. His concept of 'negative liberty' describes a state in which a person frees itself from external constraints. The idea of freedom as the absence of obstacles can be detected in the strategic autonomy from debate with calls for decoupling from the United States or China. However, the debate often hits a dead end, as sceptics are quick to point out that the United States is an "indispensable" (Morawiecki, 2023) military partner and that the EU relies on China to sustain its economic model (Seaman et al., 2022). An interpretation of freedom as the absence of interference is widely seen as too simplistic (Taylor, 1985). A positive account of liberty also considers the agency of the individual and its ability to act within the constraints of its environment. This idea is captured in the debate on strategic autonomy to, which focuses on the various capacities of the EU to act in a competitive global arena and to manage its interdependencies. Rather than focusing on the competitive elements in the interaction between actors, the focus is on the mutually supportive elements of relationships (Ojanen, 2021). In other words, the EU gains strategic autonomy on global issues not necessarily by reducing dependencies on the United States or China, but primarily through investments in the transatlantic partnership and the effective management of the risks of economic ties. This article argues that the focus of the EU's activities is on this positive agenda of strategic autonomy, which has emerged in three dimensions – with regard to the capacities to protect the EU from foreign aggression or influence, to provide the economic basis amidst a more competitive environment and to project norms and values in global co-operation (Helwig, 2021). The remainder of the article will analyse to what extent the EU's capacities for joint and autonomous action have lived up to the challenges of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the first year of the war. Capacities here are not understood as material factors, such as defence spending or economic indicators. The focus is on the EU's ability for collective and impactful decision-making. Laffan (2023) recently argued that through past crises, such as Brexit and COVID, 'the EU has gained the capacity to mobilize resources and get things done – in other words to display "collective power"'. However, the question remains how this collective power is used and to what extent it enables the EU to influence global developments based on its own preferences. In the following, the focus will be on co-ordinative, political and legislative capacities of the EU to generate strategic autonomy. Co-ordinative capacity refers to the ability and resources to align the activities horizontally between various EU actors and vertically between the EU and member-state governments. Political capacity is conceptualised here as the ability to collectively take decisions that guide and predetermine the further strategies and choices of EU actors on certain policies. Finally, the EU's ability to legislate refers to the appropriate regulatory and budgetary framework to address challenges and support global activities. The invasion of Ukraine and Europe's initially sluggish military response raised questions in the expert community whether European strategic autonomy is over (Dempsey, 2023). Indeed, the war underlines the dependence on US security guarantees and drives EU members to go on a buying spree for 'off the shelf' (often American) military technology. Politically, Europe tied itself consciously to the United States, as shown by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz' decision in early 2023 to deliver 'Leopard' battle tanks only if the Biden administration promises equivalent US-made 'Abrahams' tanks. Given the EU's military dependence, it is hard to reject that strategic autonomy from the United States is anything but a 'perennial pipe dream' (Cameron, 2022). At the same time, one cannot deny the growing capacity – in some respects even a potential 'quantum leap' (Koenig, 2022) – of the EU on defence issues. A growing political capacity to deal with the crisis of this magnitude could be witnessed from day 1 of the invasion. The declaration by the heads of state and government on 24 February placed the full responsibility on Russia, declared solidarity with Ukraine and underlined the historic proportion of the aggression (European Council, 2022). This triad predetermined the building blocks of the EU's future strategy, which was further developed in subsequent leader summits. In the Versailles declaration, leaders acknowledged Ukraine's EU membership aspirations for the first time and tasked the European Commission to form a respective opinion (European Union, 2022). The summit also underlined the need to 'substantially' and 'in a collaborative way' invest in defence capabilities. This line was echoed in the hastily rewritten 'Strategic Compass', which underlined defence capability-related commitments and counter-hybrid warfare policies in response to the crisis. However, preparations were too far along to make any bigger changes to the strategic document, and the strong focus on external crisis management activities remained (Koenig, 2022). The challenge for the EU's response to the crisis is that its authority in the field of security and defence is limited (Costa and Barbé, 2023). On the legislative side, the EU has no option to amend its budget to provide military aid, given that the treaties exclude EU budget expenditures with military or defence implications [Art. 41 (2) TEU]. The EU had to geopolitically repurpose its existing instruments and deploy the off-budget European Peace Facility (EPF). Created a year earlier to streamline financing of joint crisis management operations and to allow, for the first time, lethal support to third parties, the EPF provided a ready framework to finance member states' military support to Ukraine (Karjalainen and Mustasilta, 2023). The use of the EPF would once have tested the political capacities to align diverse national security cultures. However, Austria, Ireland and Malta, all militarily neutral countries, applied the rarely used treaty option of 'constructive abstention' and cleared the way for lethal military aid. The EU also started to contribute to the training of Ukrainian military with the first military training mission on its own territory. From the perspective of the EU defence integration process, The EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine) can be interpreted as a qualitative change in the EU's military role, as it prepares soldiers for ongoing warfighting with the largest country in its neighbourhood. Despite disbelief in how much the EU can adapt in a crisis, strategic autonomy is only useful to evaluate in relation to how it meets the challenges of its environment. Given the seismic shifts in Europe's security architecture, 'the goal-posts themselves of what is required for the EU to retain its actorness are moving' (Costa and Barbé, 2023, p. 442). After all, it is not only the EU but also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that undergoes a sizable transformation. NATO significantly enhanced its deterrence efforts on Europe's eastern flank with additional battalions in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia and upgrades in size and readiness of existing forces. Finland's NATO membership and Sweden's imminent application (at the time of writing) bring consequential changes to alliance politics and reduce organisational fragmentation in the Nordic-Baltic region (Pesu and Iso-Markku, 2022). As Denmark decided to abolish the opt-out from the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), all eight Baltic EU member states belong now to NATO and take part in EU defence co-operation. Given the increasing membership overlap and lingering questions of the extent of future military support to Europe, EU-NATO relations could become a decisive factor for EU strategic autonomy. Whilst the January 2023 EU-NATO declaration did not provide a new momentum in the co-operation, the joint work intensified on practical level to the extent possible given the remaining tensions between Turkey and Cyprus, which block any deepening of formal relations (Clapp, 2023). The declaration underlined once more in clear terms that 'NATO remains the foundation of collective defence for its allies and essential for Euro Atlantic security' (EU-NATO, 2023), giving tailwind to arguments for a stricter division of labour in which the EU should focus on 'soft' security issues, capability development and crisis management. Thardy (2021, p. 4) argues that the division would 'not imply that the EU would no longer aspire to become strategically autonomous', albeit he concedes that the agency would rather rest with member states that operate freely in both organisations and in coalitions of the willing. Others disagree with the idea of downgrading EU ambition (Ojanen, 2022). According to this view, the list of functional overlaps between the two organisations is long – ranging from defence planning and hybrid threats to questions of military mobility – making calls for a strict division of labour unrealistic. Strategic autonomy of the EU will unlikely be developed independently from NATO, but by contributing and shaping the course of the alliance. Despite the political capacity to formulate a strong response in the first phase of war, questions linger with regard to the long-term alignment of visions of European security across the EU. For Baltic and Central and Eastern European countries, the prospect of agency of the EU on security and defence other than supporting national and NATO efforts remains very limited. For them, the risk of decoupling from the United States – and with that from the only security guarantor that they trust – is too high that they would willingly sign up for an aspirational French-led agenda. On the other hand, France appears to have a limited understanding of why a more self-reliant defence planning and industrial policy is difficult to square with the deep security ties that most other European NATO member have built with the United States. Consequently, the lingering Europeanism-Atlanticism divide remains the main obstacle for a more proactive European security and defence policy that would be able to set – at least in parts – the transatlantic agenda. On the one hand, the EU's vast competences over the single market and trade policy, as well as sizeable financial instruments, put it in an excellent position to initiate a bold agenda in support for the EU's economy. The EU's response to the economic fallout of COVID-19 represented an active approach of the EU in applying its economic firepower. On the other hand, the EU's general neoliberal economic orientation as a 'market power' (Damro, 2012) means that more proactive industrial policies or protectionist trade measures do not come easily to the Brussels policy machinery and to market-oriented member states such as the Nordics, Germany or Netherlands. The conflicting pressures led the EU to adopt a new doctrine of 'qualified openness' (Schmitz and Seidl, 2022) in recent years. The EU is focusing increasingly on the risks of its global economic entanglement and is more willing to use economic and technological policies in promotion of its geopolitical agenda (Broeders et al., 2023). One of the key questions in international trade has been for centuries whether economic interdependence is beneficial or risky (Gehrke, 2022). Do tight connections increase wealth and lower the risk of violent conflict, or can they become a powerful weapon if the economic relationship turns asymmetric? The Russian invasion of Ukraine seemingly delivered the clearest answer to this question in recent history. The German-led idea of preventing war by deepening economic interdependence through energy imports did not stop Russia from invading Ukraine. On the contrary, Russia halted its gas supplies in September 2022 in response to EU sanctions and to put pressure on member states that already faced high energy prices. The Russian invasion of Ukraine highlights the risks of economic interdependence, not its promises. Whether the same risks exist regarding the more complex economic interdependence with China is hotly debated (Seaman et al., 2022). The EU's sanctions policy is its most prominent way of actively engaging economic ties for political objectives. In normal times, the decision-making procedure is a very slow bottom-up deliberation process between member states, working its way steadily through the hierarchy of the Council of the EU. The 2014 Ukraine crisis showed that the process tends to highlight veto-positions, is prone to leaks that expose and amplify EU internal divisions and fails to generate the political momentum needed for swift action (Portela et al., 2021). In reaction to the Russian invasion, the EU showed its ability to adjust its political and co-ordinative capacities, and the European Commission took over the lead in the sanctions process. Through a new system of 'confessionals', the president's Cabinet hammers out details of the sanction packages in confidential meetings with groups of member-state ambassadors (Politico, 2022). The measures are regularly announced before adoption in the Council, which increases the political pressure on possible defectors. This way the EU managed to decide on 11 sanction packages by May 2023. The EU's sanctions policy benefitted from close international co-ordination, for example, within the G7. Whilst the United States displayed strong leadership on this matter, the EU forged a regional leadership role for itself on sanction amongst non-EU states (Cardwell and Moret, 2023) and crucially influenced at times the global economic response to the war. Based on the need to find solutions that work EU-internally and do not wreak havoc to Europe's economies, the EU repeatedly helped fine-tune Western restrictions, whether it concerned financial sanctions, the price-cap on crude oil or the sectorial technological export restrictions. For example, European G7 members, Germany, France and Italy, successfully pushed back against an US proposal to ban nearly all exports to Russia in spring 2023, as a reopening of the sanction regime would have been an internally painful political process (Financial Times, 2023). However, the current sector-by-sector approach is not flawless, and the EU is now facing the challenge to gear up its co-ordinative capacities to avoid sanctions circumvention by EU or third state entities. The war also highlighted the EU's dependence on energy imports. Pre-invasion, the EU's energy transition was motivated by the goal to with The war a geopolitical to the energy transition 2023). Russian crude oil and imports were out over the course of 2022 and its gas to The EU with the that more for energy and energy measures and of gas imports. a the war the political capacity to approach on the of Europe's energy However, the on the EU's strategic autonomy can be seen as imports from the United States or potential imports from and come with own and political The of the energy transition ties the EU to imports of critical and elements and 2023). the dependence on Russian energy imports being by a growing dependence on Given the to pressure or Russia for its invasion of the EU's of China as a economic and is increasingly and seen as too German Chancellor Olaf is for a approach to that and have on 2023). However, the that China can be an partner on various global challenges and is difficult to in the EU's the EU from a more competitive the concept of (European as a frame through which to approach China trade relations in a more way with a focus on trade In a sign of influence, the US administration started to the concept over its approach 2023). The on the global also protectionist in the United States. The US and other spending packages risk the EU at a competitive as it for US-made such as for US-made The debate on the EU response is divided between that the need for a European that would support the EU's in on and and that of a global in which the EU would be 2022). Whilst the EU to support its industrial in strategically started to work with US President Biden in early 2023 to find solutions in the that would not against European The that the EU is facing with China and the United States on trade that the time for into the of interdependence has However, the political capacities for strategic in the global are limited. states the goal of a more EU and – pressure – regarding the energy However, political within the EU a clear towards more strategic autonomy. Whilst France – and to some extent Germany – more in an active industrial strategy that to the industrial of the and more that and will be to the in a single The EU stepped up its efforts after the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the international community was to the war. On 2022, the the invasion of Ukraine and for Russia to its The was with an of with against and On of Russian war in and other Ukrainian the to Russia from the Council with a of with 24 against and two in the first of the war can be seen as of the challenge that the EU is On the one hand, the represented a for the EU The and of the European EU member state had been working hard with the United States and other to as many as possible to broad of with of a in the and a general neutral in the power the of in the the invasion. However, it to such as the from the were more for example, and et al., 2023). The reactions to the war of in the once more underlined the need for the EU to its political and co-ordinative by the EU to the system are not Since the of the EU with its member states had been focused on the of the co-operation in a more environment and 2023). The and the European Commission in a joint how the EU should the EU's collective by the EU's and member states' activities. After the Russian invasion, the EU's efforts benefitted from the that was already a momentum towards However, questions on the long-term approach towards in the to hedge bets in the global to sign up to a or of the global Whilst the EU has shown some to the of on a the 2023) neutral position as a to the of a From a strategically autonomous EU that not the of the but with its own voice be an However, a strong EU voice that Europe has more to for the than its on the need to Russia or on other issues, such as For example, the COVID-19 has shown that the EU can make an to global independent from the United States and China, as the EU was in up a global alliance on and its support for the Organization et al., 2023). The Russian invasion the potential strength of the EU's capacities in In organisations such as the and the the EU can its sizeable co-ordinative The EU's recent in the to However, in order to as a strategically autonomous in the current of growing strategic the EU is in need of more political capacity to become not only a of the but also its one can deny the of the international system that position the EU and its member states in the and a lead of the United States. The Russian war of aggression underlined that the EU and its member states need global and Strategic autonomy from the rest of the is even of an option than the question for the EU is whether it can display agency within the system of its US security alliance and global economic dependencies and strategic autonomy to its In other words, the EU have capacity to decisions set by others, or it have capacity to act based on its own and politics and the power to influence global politics on its own The EU of agency on some in the of the Russian war of The historic decisions in the first of the war to energy relations with Russia, to provide membership to Ukraine and to invest more in European defence had to be done the pressure of the crisis. However, they were not by the United States or on in NATO and showed the political capacity of the EU to act and the of the European In the response to the war the EU showed that it is more than a regional of policies set by the United States or the G7. The initially close economic ties between EU members with Russia and the sectorial competences of the European Commission put the EU in a position to actively the complex economic The EU also influenced the global response to Russia's war, because it benefitted from the diverse member-state ties and from the that it is not the United States, which has its own of military A influence over global policies can be in the debate on how to security challenges to China. The EU's economic security strategy from (European its approach to strategic autonomy, which is not focused on decoupling from global economic and a management of Whether this more approach to China will over the more decoupling strategy, which is by many in will also on policy choices regarding support for the Russian regime and military against a of strategic autonomy cannot the that the EU is facing in its defence The military support that the EU and its member states are to Ukraine is However, the war underlined the in Central and Eastern Europe against of strategic autonomy that go EU efforts in support of member-state and alliance policies. Whilst EU member states are increasing joint co-ordinative and political they also security more to the United States, as the decisions of and to NATO EU agency on security and defence remains an of a crisis in the transatlantic the EU's role on security and defence is set to become that of a partner to the United States and

Autonomy · Business · Economics · Economy · International trade · Political science · European Politics and Security · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics

• Strategic autonomy without strategic depth? European defence supply chains, military-industrial cooperation, and the central and eastern European constraint

  Open Access•Fatih TUNA•New Perspectives•2026

  Add to list

• Russia-Ukraine war and China’s diplomatic signaling to major European powers

  Open Access•Haixia Qi, Hao Qi et al.•Asia Europe Journal•2026

  Add to list

• Autonomía estratégica en un mundo multipolar

  Open Access•Paulina Astroza, Javier Sepúlveda Estrada•Estado & comunes•2025

  Add to list

• Legitimising the unprecedented

  Open Access•Simona Škríbová, Monika Brusenbauch Meislová•European Journal of Communication•2026

  Add to list

• Organizing European security through informal groups

  Open Access•Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré, Monika Sus•International Politics•2025

  Add to list

• The end of dissonance? France and central Europe’s newly converging strategic outlooks

  Open Access•David Cadier•International Politics•2024

  Add to list

• Grievable nations

  Haluk Ballı•Global Discourse•2025

  Add to list

• EU-Nato cooperation reloaded

  Open Access•Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters•Defence Studies•2025

  Add to list

• Strategic autonomy in Turkish foreign policy in an age of multipolarity

  Open Access•Senem Aydın-Düzgit, Mustafa Kutlay et al.•International Politics•2025

  Add to list

• Return to Europe? Institutional choice, outsider status, and Britain’s response to the Ukraine War

  Open Access•Benjamin Martill•The British Journal of Politics…•2024

  Add to list

• The EU's China Strategies

  Open Access•Øystein Tunsjø•JCMS Journal of Common Market…•2025

  Add to list

• The EU at Crossroads

  Open Access•Theofanis Exadaktylos, Emanuele Massetti•JCMS Journal of Common Market…•2023

  Add to list

• Navigating a conundrum

  Maria Martins, Kolja Raube et al.•European Politics and Society•2025

  Add to list

• Player and playground

  Open Access•Luis Simón, Daniel Fiott•Journal of European Integration•2025

  Add to list

• Between Cooperation and Rivalry

  Open Access•Henriette Müller, Ingeborg Tömmel•JCMS Journal of Common Market…•2024

  Add to list

• The illusion of convergence? Exploring the patterns of (de-) politicisation of Russia’s war against Ukraine in the European Parliament

  Open Access•Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka, Monika Sus•Journal of European Integration•2026

  Add to list

• EU external differentiated integration as a crisis response tool? Evidence from Ukraine

  Open Access•Maryna Rabinovych•West European Politics•2024

  Add to list

• What's wrong with negative liberty

  Charles Taylor•Philosophical Papers•2012

  Add to list

• Europe’s Energy Dilemma

  Marco Siddi•Current History•2023

  Add to list

• A moving target. EU actorness and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

  Open Access•Oriol Costa, Esther Barbé•Journal of European Integration•2023

  Add to list

• Consensus against all odds

  Open Access•Clara Portela, Paulina Pospieszna et al.•Journal of European Integration•2020

  Add to list

• Market power Europe

  Chad Damro•Journal of European Public Policy•2012

  Add to list

• In Search of Digital Sovereignty and Strategic Autonomy

  Open Access•Dennis Broeders, Fabio Cristiano et al.•JCMS Journal of Common Market…•2023

  Add to list

• As Open as Possible, as Autonomous as Necessary

  Open Access•Luuk Schmitz, T Seidl•JCMS Journal of Common Market…•2023

  Add to list

• The show must go on

  Open Access•Leonard Schütte, Hylke Dijkstra•JCMS Journal of Common Market…•2023

  Add to list