Transatlantic relations since World War II have followed a familiar, and often toxic, pattern: one side pushes, while the other insists it wanted to be pushed all along. As Europe recovered after 1945, its leaders, particularly in France, periodically declared their plans and wishes for greater autonomy, while American presidents urged Europe to take on more responsibility. Yet in practice, this dynamic has resembled an unhealthy family relationship: a parent demanding independence from a child, but resisting it when it happens, and a child that ultimately returns when faced with real life constraints. While this struggle has repeated about once a decade since the 1960s, it is time for Europe to grow up, and move out of the American nuclear umbrella and into its own stable shelter against catastrophe.
Donald Trump began 2026 straining US relations with Europe. His stated desire for a US annexation of Greenland, often dismissed as a meme on the campaign trail, suddenly became a stark possibility, rather than just an attention-grabbing remark. In response, European decision-makers presented a strong and united front and said, “absolutely not”.
France led the conversation, from Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses in Davos to his “for sure” speech and even private messages leaked by Trump. Close behind was the UK’s Keir Starmer, who, alongside the wave of TikToks, shared an AI-generated meme of himself and Macron as Top Gun characters. Germany joined in as well, with Foreign Minister Wadephul and official institutions posting a nihilist penguin edit to showcase European unity. Sunglasses sales soared, memes circulated, and political popularity followed, drawing even younger audiences, however briefly, into conversations on European unity and strategic autonomy.
This unity was not only shown through social media, but also through military deployments to Greenland from Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, UK, Finland and Netherlands. While this deployment was framed as a joint exercise against Russian and Chinese threats, diplomats and analysts also concluded that it was meant to show an example of NATO defence without the US. Furthermore, at the Brussels’ ambassadors summit on January 19, European officials planned an anti-tariff retaliation, while the ratification of the US trade deal was paused. This has led to Trump taking a step back from the Greenland idea, at least for now, and to Europe catching a glimpse of what coordinated messaging and unity can achieve.
All of this was followed by foreign relations enthusiasts’ favourite holiday: the Munich Security Conference. In the shadow of last year’s J. D. Vance’s speech, the more polished one delivered by Marco Rubio still sent the same message: the US would pursue its own interests, and Europe needed to get on board. France, under Macron, placed the European project at the centre of the debate, urging Europeans to take pride in their values, noting that “a stronger Europe would be a better friend to its allies.” He also moved beyond Charles de Gaulle’s traditional anti-Anglosaxon and go-it-alone approach, instead emphasizing the indivisibility of European and British security and calling for greater coordination and spending. While Keir Starmer reaffirmed the importance of the US alliance, he also supported reducing dependence on it, pointing toward deeper UK–EU defence integration and a more European NATO, which certainly is a turn in their foreign policy, which previously relied upon being the closest American partner in Europe, at the cost of their relations with fellow Europeans. Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz struck a more cautious tone. Although he acknowledged the breakdown of the international order and supported greater European cooperation, he ultimately prioritized Germany’s role as a reliable partner to the United States, suggesting that European strategic autonomy should not come at the expense of alignment with Washington.
The Umbrella of Île Longue
On March 2, Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech in Brittany, one that is perhaps the most significant speech on nuclear policy by any Western leader since the end of the Cold War. Speaking at Île Longue, the base for France’s nuclear submarines, Macron outlined a strategic shift. Notably, the original French nuclear deterrence, force de frappe, was never meant to be able to defeat Russia (USSR at the time) in a nuclear stand-off, but rather to be able to inflict enough damage and guarantee that the United States would have no choice but to come to European’s defence, with full force. Charles de Gaulle never trusted Americans to defend Europe as they would their own country, no matter who was in the office. Force de frappe was created as a symbol of national pride and independence, part of de Gaulle’s bigger plan to restore French grandeur after World War II. Through the Cold War and beyond it evolved pragmatically: de Gaulle pulled France from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966; Mitterrand in the 1990s and post-Soviet collapse cut costs by scrapping land missiles and reducing subs, but kept the core – no first use, defensive only, and total control in Paris. Hollande and earlier presidents reaffirmed this amid terrorism and new threats without big shifts. While Macron continues to uphold Gaullist independence and the policy of no-first strikes, since 2020 he has introduced a response to multi-domain threats that go beyond state borders, such as cyberattacks, into the French nuclear doctrine. Alongside this, he has announced arsenal growth, for the first time since 1992.
What Macron is offering is broadly familiar: the shelter of a French nuclear umbrella for Europe is the offer that has been on the table since the 1960s. What is new this time is that Europeans seem more inclined to accept it. The UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark have agreed to participate in a new “advanced deterrence” strategy. Macron set to increase the size of the French nuclear arsenal, and to no longer share with the world what that arsenal contains. This is another example of him breaking away from the past French doctrine, that has since 2008 meant a self chosen obligation to have less than 300 warheads. Unfortunately, this opacity aligns with the lapse of bilateral arms control agreements like New START (expired in February 2026), mirroring US and Russian trends toward reduced disclosures. France frames it as enhancing “strict sufficiency” deterrence without proliferation risks, maintaining its NPT commitments and abstention from stockpile growth races. Macron has declared that the reduced transparency is just a dynamic update to the previous doctrine, now needed in order to keep scaring away the enemies, but without entering into an arms race. He has also emphasized that the new goal of the arsenal is that “no State, however powerful, could shield itself from it; and no State, however vast, could recover”, in case of France’s red lines being crossed. Notably, the concept of red lines has been kept deliberately vague, except saying that they do go beyond France’s national borders, in contrast to being strictly defined during the de Gaulle era.
This proposal ultimately reinforces a return to power politics and spheres of influence. And while Macron presents it as a path to peace, Ronald Reagan’s warning still holds: “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. Moreover, the concept of the nuclear umbrella relies on enemies fearing it, and allies trusting their guarantor. In a context where great powers are increasingly moving away from transparency, as Emmanuel Macron calls on middle powers to unite in response to the dominance of the United States and China, and as Europe seeks to reassert its role on the global stage, France, together with its partners, would be better served by setting a stronger precedent of transparency and cooperation, and by upholding and reinforcing the non-proliferation community, rather than following in the footsteps of the prevailing hegemons.
A few days before Macron’s speech, Germany officials stated they would not be footing the bill for an arsenal that is only French, and recent issues with the Franco-German-Spanish project FCAS (Future Combat Air System) go to show they mean it. FCAS is a joint €100 billion project, launched in 2017 to build a 6th-generation fighter jet by 2040, as well as drones and a “combat cloud” network. At the beginning of the year German officials stated that they would not pay equal share for a fighter customized to French needs: nuclear-armed and carrier-launched. Macron himself stated that the usage of the nuclear arsenal remains solely at France’s discretion, more precisely, the President’s – hence, his. One of the main reasons why this concept has never come to fruition before certainly is because Europeans trusted the external ally, the US, more than they trusted each other. And even if they have overcome this, France is set to hold presidential elections in 2027, and Macron cannot run. So, what happens when someone new is in his office? While most French presidents have ridden the de Gaulle wave of foreign policy, no one more than Macron, there is no guarantee that his successor will be of the same beliefs. The umbrella could contract as easily as it was unfurled.
Many have urged the UK to act as a second guarantor, the only other European country with a nuclear arsenal. Yet while France’s force de frappe has always been independent, the British arsenal was built for NATO use, with sovereign UK authority limited to cases of “immediate grave danger”, a term never fully defined. Still, London has noticeably shifted away from the US and closer to continental Europe. Case in point: their backing of Macron’s nuclear umbrella project and the cooperation agreement signed with France last July, which has created an Anglo-French “oversight committee”. Germany, meanwhile, published a joint statement on March 2, showing alignment with France, but the very next day while Merz was in Washington, Trump used this occasion to publicly berate Spain, as their prime minister strongly refused the possibility of the US using Spanish military bases for attacks on Iran. The German chancellor stayed quiet and did not defend its European ally at all – although he later claimed he did so in private. When Merz visited the UK only a day after Macron last July, it was seen as the return of the E3 group, as the driving force of European security. If we take the history lessons into consideration, it would most likely be Germany to back away from any real European autonomy and go right back to the US. After all, if European countries do go through with it, the place of the American closest ally within Europe will be available, and Trump has already favored Merz in comparison to other European leaders.
Strait Talk
The beginning of March also brought the US and Israeli war against Iran, a true test of Europe’s united front and its seriousness about independence from Washington. Remarkably, European leaders have stood firm: this is not their war, and they will neither participate nor allow the US use of their bases. True to form, Trump expressed disappointment, warning that their choices could imperil NATO, a body he has long treated as little more than a burden. Yet even if Europe stays out of the fighting, the consequences ripple across the continent: soaring oil and gas prices, and a missile striking Cyprus in early March. While it starkly resembles 2003 and European discontent with the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, this moment will reveal whether European unity is performative theater or the first steps toward genuine strategic autonomy.
The central question remains: is Europe’s new push for sovereignty real, or merely an illusion crafted to capture Washington’s attention? The answer will emerge in the coming months, but policy must act now. Recommendations for the European Commission, as it develops a new European Security Strategy (ESS), are clear:
- Draft a concise, independent ESS that sets Europe’s priorities rather than reacting to the US.
- Develop contingency plans to support and protect Ukraine if US backing falters.
- Define a coherent Middle East strategy based on European interests, not American imperatives.
- Coordinate with France and the UK to outline the scope, obligations, and operational rules of a potential joint nuclear umbrella, with an emphasis on No First Use in keeping with best deescalatory practice.
- Ensure that smaller European powers are protected and not overshadowed by leadership from stronger states in the bloc.
What emerges from this analysis is that a more militarily autonomous Europe has the potential to act not as a destabilizing force, but as a moderating one. Moving beyond its longstanding role as a deferential ally, Europe must begin to trust in its own collective strength and in the reliability of its partners within the continent, rather than defaulting to external guarantees. For too long, both European foreign policy and, at times, internal political dynamics have been shaped by electoral cycles in the United States, with each new one bringing a recalibration of priorities. Strategic autonomy would allow Europe to break from this pattern and act with greater consistency and confidence, engaging the United States as an ally when interests align and as a competitor when they do not. Freed from automatic alignment with Washington’s strategic choices, Europe could position itself as a more cautious and deliberative actor on the global stage, one less inclined toward interventionism and more committed to diplomacy, multilateralism, and restraint. Unlike in past decades, where European support often enabled US-led wars of choice, a truly independent Europe could instead serve as a counterweight, slowing escalation rather than facilitating it. In doing so, Europe would move from being a geopolitical battleground for great powers to an actor in its own right, contributing to a more balanced, stable, and predictable international order.
Tijana Bauer (Tijana Bauer | LinkedIn) is a researcher and writer working on European security, transatlantic relations, and nuclear deterrence, with a Master’s degree in Comparative International Relations from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her work combines primary-source research, OSINT, and policy analysis, and has appeared in academic and research publications on European autonomy, Balkan security, and intelligence cooperation.
