Faced with the revisionist powers of Trump’s United States and Putin’s Russia, the European Union is seeking to strengthen its strategic autonomy. Plans are being put on the table, and summits are multiplying, but the 27 member states are still far from sharing a common vision on military matters, as evidenced, among other things, by their difficulty in agreeing on joint arms purchases.

The surreal scene that pitted Donald Trump against Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office of the White House on February 28, 2025, followed by the United States’ abrupt announcement that it was halting its military and intelligence support for Ukraine (before a new about-face suspending this “pause ” a few days later) sent a wave of fear through many European heads of state and government, as they marked a break with the EU’s conception of international relations since the establishment in 1945 of the UN system—based on the Charter of San Francisco—which places at its core the principles of territorial integrity, dialogue, and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Given the rapid evolution of the international order under the combined influence of revisionist powers, such as Russia and China, and the new U.S. stance since the start of Trump’s second term—which has seen Washington adopt a purely transactional approach to international relations— is Europe on the verge of fading into history? Can it continue to behave like a lamb in a world of carnivores?

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While announcements have multiplied since early March 2025 regarding the strengthening of the European level in defense matters, it is important—to clearly distinguish between publicity stunts and the limits of their practical impact—to recall the EU’s origins in terms of strategic thinking and the conception of power.

For the EU, a vision of “influence without power” that history has overtaken

Contrary to a widely held view, European integration has never been merely an internal economic project, a market, or a “space.” Enabling Europeans to participate in world affairs using their own capabilities and approaches has been a recurring and progressively refined objective, from the first communities of the 1950s to today’s 27-member EU.

The Schuman Declaration of May 9, 1950, already asserted that one of the key ambitions of an organized Europe was its “contribution to the world,” and emphasized its fundamental role in preserving peace and its mission to forge peaceful relations with other actors. Starting in the 1960s, the first cooperation and development aid policies—within the framework of the European Economic Community, established in 1957—wove a rich network of external relations with numerous states, initially primarily in Africa, and later becoming more diverse.

As early as the 1973 Copenhagen Declaration on European Identity, the Europe of the nine member states at that time articulated more precisely a specific European vision of the international order and the particular role that Europeans intended to play in it. In particular, it recognized the need—in a context of concentrated power—for Europe to “speak with one voice” and laid out the fundamental principles upon which this emerging international influence was to be built: the pursuit of cooperation and dialogue among international actors, and a commitment to the development and work of international institutions, as well as to law, justice, and development.

By laying the institutional foundations for a common foreign and security policy in the Treaty on European Union signed in Maastricht in February 1992, against a backdrop of post-Cold War transition and uncertainty, the Member States reaffirmed and further clarified these principles and values.

Finally, processes such as the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS), the 2016 Global Security Strategy, and the 2022 European “Strategic Compass” have further clarified, in a public manner, the elements of the “European worldview” underpinning the EU’s external relations. Despite their conceptual and diplomatic limitations, these documents reveal an EU international stance with identifiable characteristics:

• the rule of law and negotiation over the balance of power and the use of violence in the resolution of disputes;

• commitment to multilateralism, international cooperation, international law, and international institutions;

• recognition of the need to use military force in certain situations, if possible under a UN mandate;

• a collective desire to influence the international environment through a combination of soft power (or civil power) and, more recently, hard power.

These characteristics reflect an ambition characterized by a “desire to influence but a rejection of power” and draw heavily on a liberal interpretation of international relations, placing the principles of cooperation and democracy at its core and giving primacy to negotiation and the peaceful resolution of disputes over the use of force, whether military or rhetorical.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the worldview and diplomatic approach of the new U.S. administration since early 2025 run counter to this European vision and, in some cases, risk rendering it obsolete.

Since February 2025, the EU has therefore stepped up its announcements aimed at rearming and strengthening its strategic autonomy vis-à-vis a NATO in which Donald Trump regularly threatens to drastically limit U.S. involvement. But is there truly a collective strategic revolution underway in Brussels? Or will this “hour of Europe”—which has been regularly heralded since the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation in 1991—be postponed yet again?

Is there a real strategic revolution taking place in Brussels?

European defense and, more broadly, European integration are evolving in response to crises.

The current crisis is no exception, having led the European Commission to announce an 800-billion-euro plan (the “ReArm Europe” plan) to accelerate the EU’s military buildup. This plan joins the many tools created since 2022 to boost the European defense industry, including the European Regulation aimed at strengthening the European defense industry through joint procurement (EDIRPA), the plan to support ammunition production in Europe (ASAP), and the EDIS strategic plan, which aims to promote joint arms procurement within the EU.

These tools are in addition to the military aid provided to Kyiv through the European Peace Facility (6.1 billion between 2022 and 2024) and the initiative launched by the European Commission in March 2025 on the creation of a European fund that would make it possible to provide between 20 billion and 40 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine in the coming months.

Similarly, some EU countries are demonstrating strong activism aimed at promoting a genuine European defense, such as, among others, France—which is reviving the concept of European strategic autonomy that it has regularly championed for more than a decade— Poland, and more recently Germany, which has become concerned about the erosion of the transatlantic bond and, through its future chancellor Friedrich Merz, declared on the evening of the February 23, 2025, parliamentary elections that European defense must become independent.

However, all these tools and political and diplomatic initiatives cannot, on their own, constitute a policy, much less a strategic stance for the EU.

The White Paper on European Defense (titled “Readiness 2 0 30”) presented by the Commission on March 19, 2025, certainly lists all the tools and resources to be used… but continues to regard NATO as the cornerstone of European security.

Indeed, despite the urgency of the situation, the 27 member states seem far from sharing a unified collective vision of Europe’s collective power. In the area of armaments, for example, beyond the billions announced by the Commission, member states have failed to agree on criteria for the procurement of military equipment that would finally enshrine a necessary preference for European-made goods. While France advocates for this, its partners—who are heavily dependent on non-European military equipment—do not (or not yet) share this vision.

Similarly, summits between European countries are becoming more frequent—sometimes in Paris, sometimes in London—but always outside the framework of the EU, which effectively creates a “club-based” diplomacy that does little to advance collective European thinking on the EU’s global power.

Can the EU project itself and be perceived as a power?

Even though, with the announcement of the “ReArm Europe” plan and a future European defense white paper scheduled for May 2025, the EU seems more determined than ever to build a substantial defense capability, this does not yet make it a global power recognized by other international powers, as demonstrated by the bilateral negotiations between Washington and Moscow regarding a ceasefire in Ukraine, and the relocation of discussions on the subject to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), alongside the numerous meetings organized by the French and British heads of state and government.

Because power also depends on how other actors perceive it, and in this regard, if the EU seems to attract Canadian citizens In recent weeks, it has failed to win over all international powers, such as the United States, Russia, India, and China. In a world where the Power politics has made a major comeback in recent years And at a time when the most powerful countries are prioritizing bilateral negotiations at the expense of multilateralism, it is high time for European states to realize that the EU is not merely one possible way to exist on the international stage, but the only one if they hope to continue defending the values upon which the European project was built: peace and diplomatic dialogue, rather than force and the rule of the strongest.