The Case for EU Defense A New Way Forward for Trans-Atlantic Security Relations June 1, 2021, 7:45 pm Getty/Carl De Souza/AFP The Dutch warship used by the EU Naval Force is pictured at the French military base in Djibouti in May 2015. Sam Hananel The state of European defense is not strong. The level of Europe’s defense spending and the size of its collective forces in uniform should make it a global power with one of the strongest militaries in the world. But Europe does not act as one on defense, even though it formed a political union almost 30 years ago. Europe’s military strength today is far weaker than the sum of its parts. This is not just a European failure; it is also fundamentally a failure of America’s post-Cold War strategy toward Europe—a strategy that remains virtually unchanged since the 1990s.