Mutual Reinforcement: CSDP and NATO in the Face of Rising Challenges
Over the past five years, several political and security developments have made it increasingly necessary to look at European Union (EU) / North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) relations through a different lens.
The renewed emphasis on European strategic autonomy, a concept that lends itself to multiple and sometimes diverging interpretations, has been a cause for rising concern among NATO member states. While some of those concerns appear legitimate, there are many ways to increase Europe’s strategic autonomy without undermining the Alliance. As the EU and NATO have taken new steps to strengthen their cooperation over the past years, it appears more important than ever to reject false dichotomies when prioritizing efforts to strengthen European security, to look at opportunities to better coordinate EU and NATO capability development processes, and to identify which types of military capabilities European countries should invest in to make burden-sharing with the Alliance more effective.
This publication contains chapters written by Sven BISCOP, Corentin BRUSTLEIN, Luis SIMÓN and Dick ZANDEE.
Download the full analysis
This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.
Mutual Reinforcement: CSDP and NATO in the Face of Rising Challenges
Author(s)
Corentin BRUSTLEIN
Research fellow, coordinator of the Security Studies Center and head of the Deterrence and Proliferation program
Related centers and programs
Discover our other research centers and programs
Security Studies Center
Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.
Find out more
Discover all our analyses
French Forward Deterrence: What Is in It for the Baltic States?
For what may be its most significant stress test since the end of the Cold War, European deterrence is under strain. Russia’s war against Ukraine has demonstrated Moscow’s willingness to use force and its ability to combine conventional operations with nuclear signalling, coercive rhetoric, and hybrid actions. At the same time, the gradual deterioration of transatlantic relations has revived concerns about the reliability of extended deterrence.
Europe at the Crossroads of DefTech: Rethinking the European Defense Innovation Ecosystem
“The way I look at Iron Dome is as the ultimate manifestation of the future of the United States’ role in future conflicts, which is not to be the world police, but to be the world gun store,” said Palmer Luckey in November 2023. Luckey is the founder of Anduril, one of the most prominent DefTech companies. The ambition is clear: to participate in global rearmament by capitalizing on the quality of American innovations and to dominate the arms market—at least in the West—through technological mastery.
Taking the Pulse: Is France’s New Nuclear Doctrine Ambitious Enough?
French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his country’s new nuclear doctrine. Are the changes he has made enough to reassure France’s European partners in the current geopolitical context?
Macron Offers a Promising Vision for Nuclear Deterrence in Europe
Macron’s concept of ‘forward deterrence’ offers a distinctly European approach to nuclear deterrence.