The foreign and defense ministers of 23 EU ministers signed a protocol in Brussels on Monday, which is considered as the first step towards establishing a European defense union. The signing of this document, which sets forth the increase of defense spending, forming joint armament projects, and setting up a joint military force to employ for intervention in crises when necessary, seems to have caused an excitement among various circles within the EU.

In fact, such a development was already expected considering German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that Europeans must take care of themselves from now on after a number of unsuccessful meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump, and French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for reforming the EU in a way to encompass an increase in defense cooperation.

However, the primary question that needs to be answered here is whether the will of Germany and France will be enough to form a defense union in the EU. As similar attempts in the past have failed, it seems that establishing a defense alliance independent from NATO will be a challenging task for the EU.

As similar attempts in the past have failed, it seems that establishing a defense union independent from NATO will be a challenging task for the EU.

A year after the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ESCS) in 1951, which laid the foundation of the EU, the treaty establishing the European Defense Community, which was led by France with the motivation of controlling Germany and excluding the U.S., failed to obtain ratification in the French parliament and thus did not enter into force. Since the French government failed to convince its own parliament into a European defense force, Western countries, including France, spent the Cold War period under the umbrella of NATO, which has always been dominated by the U.S.

With the end of the Cold War, a group of EU countries, again led by France, attempted to form a defense unit under the umbrella of the European Union in order to liberate the EU from U.S. influence. However, they were impeded by the “pro-Atlantic” group led by the UK. They discerned their military shortcomings when they wanted to intervene in Serbia in order to end the refugee flow during the civil war in Yugoslavia, while the U.S. was reluctant to provide support for a long time. Even this realization did not bring success to Europe in terms of implementing its own policies to create a pan-European military force.

Due to pressures within the Union, during the St. Malo Summit in 1998, Britain showed a green light to the formation of a European army, which would not be considered as an alternative to NATO. The task of establishing a “European army” and “European police force” by 2003, which would perform the task of “intervening in crises” was determined in the Cologne and Helsinki summits in 1999. The transmission of the military institutions of Western Europe to the EU in the Laeken Summit held in 2001 was a considerable step in terms of creating a defense force in Europe. In the meantime, the efforts initiated for a “European Union Constitution” comprised the political leg of a possible military cooperation and signified a gradual approach to the federal unit ambition of the “Europeanists.”

The “European Defense Union” initiative is a manifestation of the campaign kicked off by Germany and France in order to create excitement within the Union and to take an effective step against the Eurosceptics.

Soon after these initiatives, Europe confronted a series of catastrophic incidents and crises for the integration of the continent. During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, while some EU member states supported the U.S., others strongly opposed. Due to this, the idea of a “European Army” was suspended. Subsequently, the ideas of a common constitution and federalism suffered a major blow after people in the Netherlands and France voted against the EU Constitution in the referendums held in 2005.

The last couple of years have been marked as a period of crises for the EU due to the evolution of the 2008-2009 global economic crisis, the refugee challenge, the rise of xenophobia and Euroscepticism, the crisis of separatism, Brexit, the crisis in Transatlantic relations, and the increase of terror attacks. The “European Defense Union” initiative is a manifestation of the campaign kicked off by Germany and France in order to create excitement within the Union and to take an effective step against the Eurosceptics. However, the failure of past attempts cast serious doubts on the prospects of this initiative since the EU is going through one of its weakest periods.

Last week during the WWI commemoration ceremonies, U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron had a quarrel over how to sustain European security. President Trump has been pressing very heavily on European leaders to increase their share in NATO, forcing them to follow the U.S. sanctions leveled against Iran and Russia, threatening to enforce additional tariffs on European products, mainly those pertain to the automobile industry. Germany and France, the two pillars of the emerging European super-state, have grown uneasy about unilateralism and the peremptory attitude of Trump’s foreign policy. However, they have showed no sign of aversion.

This has changed with Macron’s recent call for building up a European army to protect Europe in the face of growing Russian, Chinese and also the U.S. threat. This implied a new security framework for Europe outside of NATO. Macron’s call for an independent security framework was hastily backed by Germany. This snap has, of course, drawn Trump’s fury that he did not miss the opportunity to ridicule France by expressing that the U.S. saved France from Germany’s hand in WWI. Trump was obviously implying that if the U.S. gave up its role of European balancer, history would repeat itself. That is, Germany might invade the neighboring countries and establish its hegemony over the whole of Europe once again. Besides, he reiterated that the U.S. did not have an intention to renounce its role of European balancer or dissolve NATO but the U.S. needed the European countries to take more responsibility for maintaining security of the Western world.

U.S. President Trump didn’t miss the opportunity to ridicule France after Macron’s call for an independent security framework within the EU and said that the U.S. saved France from Germany’s hand in WWI.

Does this fray over European security between the U.S. and the European central powers demonstrate another challenge against the existing unipolar international order? And does it amount to a return of Europe to great power politics?

Indeed, Europe lost its central place in international politics with the rise of the U.S. as a regional hegemon in its region during the 19th century. Before the rise of the U.S., international politics was exclusively determined by equal relations among European states in the European continent and their colonial or rather hierarchical relations with the rest of the world. The rise of the U.S. at the end of the 19th century put an end to this dual order and shifted the gravity of international politics towards North America.

Does the fray over European security between the U.S. and the EU demonstrate a return of Europe to great power politics?

In the new format, international politics was determined by the U.S.’s perpetual attempts to prevent an emergence of another regional hegemon in other regions by following a strategy of offshore balancing. This strategy mainly comprises taking the side of the lesser power(s) in a region and thus to forestall integration of a region under a hegemon. This was clearly observed in WWI and WWII. In the former the U.S. attempted to prevent German hegemony in Europe whereas in the latter it sought to preclude German hegemony in Europe and Japanese hegemony in East Asia. The U.S. succeeded in both of those systemic wars.

However, the U.S.’s success backfired. It led to a power vacuum in Eurasia and gave way to the rise of another regional hegemon, the USSR. The Cold War witnessed an international system with two hegemons with their own spheres of influence. Europe was split between the U.S. and the USSR and became a dominated region. The end of the Cold War has not changed the status of Europe so much. But it has furthered European unification, which had started in the mid-1950s with the American support.

European leaders see Trump’s unilateral and domineering foreign policy as an opportunity to upgrade Europe’s status in international politics to a higher level.

Now we are at another stage in European integration and its return to international politics as a great power. No power in international politics desires to leave its national security to the hands of another state unless it has no other choice. Thus, French President Macron’s call for a European army and Germany’s backing cannot be thought as a bluff against the U.S. Nor can it be understood from a scapegoat approach, that states tend to start or escalate conflicts in outside their borders to sustain unity within the country. It seems that European leaders see Trump’s unilateral and domineering foreign policy as an opportunity to upgrade Europe’s status in international politics to a higher level. It is completely a different matter that whether they can achieve that goal or not, the intention is clear – Europe is on its way to smash another brick in existing unipolar international order, alongside Chinese and Russian challenges to the U.S.