Think strategy: why Europe needs its own tradition of strategic studies

A genuinely European grand strategy seems more than overdue in a time when Europe is facing a threat from Russia, a rising — or even risen — China, a reconfiguration of power in international affairs, increasingly important middle powers, and a profound questioning of its core strategic anchor point, namely the transatlantic relationship. Whether it’s the idea to launch a European Security Council, the process of working on new European Security Strategy, new agreements or the revision of national strategies and doctrines: European states have taken different steps to adapt to this new reality. But so far, Europe has no such a thing as a grand strategy, and those in charge often lack the time andresources to engage in structured thinking for such an effort.

The two exceptions where strategic thinking is slightly more advanced in Europe are France and the UK. France’s long-standing tradition of strategic autonomy has also led to France-centred (and often Europe-centred, as Europe has always been perceived as a power multiplier for Paris) thinking about the country’s place in the world, often linked to bigger conceptual thinking about international politics. The UK has the perhaps most long-standing tradition of security, strategic, and military studies in Europe, with the arguably most extensive education ecosystem teaching and researching these subjects, and a comparatively higher number of think tanks with programmes explicitly dedicated to these questions. Many other European countries never perceived the need to genuinely reflect on global order, their position in it, and the necessary action to take since the end of World War II and, even more importantly, since the end of the Cold War. The transatlantic alliance was the framework through which European policymakers saw the world, strategic thinking from Washington and top US universities and research institutes shaped the way European thinkers addressed these problems, and there was little interest (or even open antagonism, as it was the case in Germany) to allocate public funding for European research on strategic or military questions.

European scholars in strategic studies, security studies, or military studies have clearly seen growing interest in their work especially since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, Europe is far from a distinctlyEuropean tradition of strategic studies.

Why strategic studies matters

Strategic studies can be understood as the link between military studies, meaning the combination of tactics, technology, and military organisation with the objective of winning battles or wars, and security studies, a broad discipline examining all aspects “relevant to the safety of a policy”. Strategic studies therefore bridge the political level and the military level: they combine an understanding of decision-making, politics, and political orientation on the one hand, and the understanding of the conduct of war in practical terms on the other hand. In other words, strategic studies focus on “how political ends and military ends interact under social, economic, and other constraints”. Strategic studies therefore build the intellectual backbone to what grand strategy is in practice: the discipline assesses the linkage between (political) ends, ways, and means.

As many academic disciplines, strategic studies could perfectly remains in an academic ivory tower. Yet, many scholars of strategic studies have been remarkably successful in communicating their ideas outside pure academia, for example through journals which are widely read in policy circles or direct policy engagement. And it’s here that strategic studies can really matter: policymakers usually have very little time. They are often absorbed by handling day-to-day bureaucratic processes or managing current crises, and rarely have the time to take a step back to look at the big picture of global politics. Targeted policy engagement between policymakers and strategic studies scholars can help close these gaps, bridge the conceptual and very practical level, challenge existing ideas, and bring new ideas into the system.

Europe’s strategic studies problem

Strategic studies as it is mostly applied in Europe today — if it is, which could not be taken for granted today — is heavily based on US strategic thinking and models. Although the arguably most influential works on strategic studies, and the very basis for the way we think about politics and war today, was written by the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (On War), the overwhelming majority of widely cited research and tone-setting articles was published by US scholars and thinkers. Over the past decades, strategic studies scholars in the US have produced a remarkable amount of scholarship and developed important frameworks to conceptualise global order, statecraft, power, grand strategy; up until today, many of these frameworks are still helpful as intellectual frameworks for European strategy.

In addition, an increasing body of academic literature in Europe focuses on strategic adaptation of European states or the EU; especially with the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, these topics have gained traction on research agendas. The problem here, however, is that most of these works are looking back rather than forward: they analyse what has happened and identify the drivers of strategic adaptation, but most academic works today fall short on transferring this knowledge to the policy level through providing concrete recommendations what should be done next.

However, there is a mismatch between the concepts developed by US strategic studies and European realities. The first and most central problem is collective action and centralisation of decision-making, including on military power. Europe — even if understood as NATO-Europe or the EU — does not have a collective command & control structure, and decisions require unanimity of all member states. Consequently, political agreement often follows the lowest common denominator rather than top-down leadership, and military action requires significant coordination between states, ministries, and, where required, actors on the national level. In other words, it is significantly more challenging for Europe than for a single state to display power and translate it into coherent action, including military action.

The second problem is related to Europe’s historic self-understanding in global order. As Europe outsourced its security and defence mostly to the US, and with it military power and capabilities, Europe often described itself as “normative power”. Consequently, the main source of European influence in the world was the promotion of European liberal values through a plethora of non-military instruments, such as trade agreements or support fordemocratic structures. As Europe now faces several new threats, ranging from Russian aggression to economic pressure from China and abandonment or coercion from the US, its established worldview does not work anymore. Europe needs to learn to reflect in terms of power and transform the sources of its power into leverage. While Europe has become collectively better at doing so over the past years, Europeans still lack the (collective) understanding of Europe as a power.

Towards European strategic studies

A distinctly European strand of strategic studies can help Europe address these challenges and support steps towards a distinctly European grand strategy. It is certainly easy to focus on the challenges of a distinctly European definition of political ends, ways, and means, and calling it delusional and unachievable. However, dismissing even the attempts to conceptualise the links between political ends and military means is also intellectually and politically lazy. Such calls deny the potential of authentically European strategic studies and cement an old mindset instead of supporting a change that European strategic thinking needs.

Several steps can promote the emergence of a distinctly European strand of strategic studies. A first and critical component of authentically European strategic studies is joint reflection — academically and politically — on the ends of European strategy. Europe does not lack studies about its military capability and its future capability needs in case of US withdrawal, but it lacks a joint understanding of the goals of European strategy other than deterring Russia. Pan-European groups of strategic studies scholars representing the diversity of European strategic thinking could kickstart such processes, ideally through dialogue with political and military officials. If these very fundamental questions remain unaddressed, European strategic studies remains at best strategic studies of European countries rather than a European-centred approach.

European strategic studies would also benefit from a series of concrete measures. The first one is an actual stocktake of research and scholarly reflection already underway in Europe that are linked to Europe-level strategic studies. Such a stocktake could promote better networking among scholars interested in the topic, and could allow conference organisers of respective academic organisations to feature strategic studies more prominently than is already the case. Directories making existing expertise visible, like NetSec — a network of European security scholars — are good starting points, but on the medium term, networking initiatives with clear leadership will be necessary to gear such efforts more clearly towards strategic studies.

Furthermore, the link between those defining the political ends (democratically elected politicians and policymakers in bureaucracies) and those implementing strategy mostly through military means should be systematically included in European strategic studies. Best practices are slowly emerging, but Europe can still learn a lot from the US in this context. This could include aligning academic strategic studies and military education or training programmes for officials more closely, for example through mid-career workshops or fellowships in top organisations for policy or military practitioners.

Strengthening European strategic studies would also require the financial support for scholars and experts to take the step back and engage in conceptual thinking. When budgets like ReArm Europe allocate funding to research and development, decision makers should consider allocating parts of these funds to financing chairs — for example Jean Monnet Chairs of Excellence — explicitly geared towards European strategic studies. Several universities and research centres in Europe already focus on these questions, but alleviating funding pressure could free scholars to focus on policy engagement rather than grant applications.

In the medium to long term, Europe has the opportunity to create a generation of truly European strategists. Many programmes in security studies or strategic studies from Europe’s top institutions already include exchange programmes or are structured as bi- or multinational programmes, often gathering students across Europe. However, authenticallyEuropean training and regular exchanges, for example through a one-year fellowship programme with participation of different institutions across Europe, could pool the existing knowledge more effectively and work on the emergence of a European-centred strategic thought.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, European strategic studies needs an out-of-the-ivory-tower mindset. While engaging in theoretical reflections on what European strategy could look like, analysing change in papers published in top journals, or deliberating on the challenges of linking ends, means, and ways at conference panels is clearly intellectually stimulating, it is debatable to what extent these activities help shape better European strategy. European strategic studies scholars should be willing to actively engage with policy makers and military professionals, and move from very abstract levels of reflection to concrete recommendations.