Russia's aggression of Ukraine has exposed the limited military capabilities of the European Union (EU) and its member states, and confirmed their ongoing reliance on the United States (US) through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for their security. This equilibrium, however, is increasingly unstable: while a Trump victory in the US Presidential elections may instantly doom NATO, US interests are increasingly pivoting away from Europe, towards the Asia-Pacific. This creates an urgent need for the EU to take ownership of its defense and acquire autonomous military capabilities. The purpose of this talk is to map EU policy developments that have occurred since the start of the war in Ukraine, and to propose bolder legally permissible options to deepen defense integration in Europe, including through a revival of the European Defense Community Treaty.

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Organized by the Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society, co-sponsored by the EU Program at Princeton and The Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, with the support of The Paul S. Sarbanes ’54 Fund for Hellenism and Public Service