Common areas of transatlantic interest in security and defence

Experts encourage the Biden administration to ‘welcome EU efforts to develop greater capabilities … to remove a needless thorn’ in the relationship. While The Economist predicts a receptive administration as regards EU defence activities, it anticipates resistance to strategic autonomy ‘if seen as undermining NATO’. Although the US administration is likely ‘to view a well-coordinated and well-executed European defense policy as contributing to a European pillar in NATO’, others highlight that concerns about protectionism and duplication will persist. As China’s rise is shifting the US focus from the Europe to the Indo-Pacific the EU’s ability to carry out a greater number of security tasks independently from the USA has gained in urgency