About this book:

"Common Defense? NATO, EU Security and the Future of European Military Cooperation" offers a comprehensive examination of Europe's multifaceted security landscape, delving into the intricate relationship between NATO and EU security frameworks, the challenges of defense integration, burden-sharing, and the pursuit of European strategic autonomy. The book argues that strengthening European deterrence and crisis response requires optimizing existing structures rather than duplicating efforts or eroding transatlantic ties. It maps the institutional overlaps between NATO's Defence Planning Process and the EU's Capability Development Cycle, highlighting both synergies and persistent friction points, often exacerbated by national preferences and historical grievances like the Turkey-Cyprus dispute.

A core theme is the chronic fragmentation of Europe's defense industrial base and procurement processes. The book details how this fragmentation leads to higher costs, interoperability challenges, and insufficient munitions stockpiles, starkly exposed by recent geopolitical events. Initiatives like PESCO and the European Defence Fund (EDF) are analyzed as attempts to foster collaboration and scale, yet their effectiveness is often hampered by national industrial policies, political hurdles, and delivery gaps. The author advocates for moving beyond the "2 percent of GDP" burden-sharing metric, proposing a more comprehensive scorecard that emphasizes deployable forces, readiness, interoperability, and sustainment capacity as true indicators of military contribution.

The analysis extends to geographical and conceptual challenges, including the demanding "deterrence by denial" strategy on NATO's Eastern Flank and the multifaceted crisis management needs in the Southern Neighbourhood, encompassing irregular migration, terrorism, and stabilization. Emerging domains like cyber, space, and hybrid threats are also explored, underscoring the necessity of whole-of-society responses and seamless civil-military cooperation. The book also considers the pivotal role of military mobility, aiming for a "Schengen of Defence," and the complex "nuclear question" involving the US extended deterrent, France's independent arsenal, and NATO's sharing arrangements.

Concluding with scenarios for 2030-2040, the book offers a "Practical Playbook" for deeper integration. It recommends harmonizing planning cycles, establishing binding ammunition reserve compacts, streamlining military mobility through infrastructure upgrades and a "One-Stop-Shop" for clearances, and implementing secure, federated intelligence-sharing architectures. It also stresses the importance of democratic resilience, energy security, and societal preparedness as foundational elements of defense, advocating for a "Deterrence Ecosystem" where European autonomy strengthens the transatlantic alliance rather than undermining it.