After Ankara, it’s time for a European Security Council

America’s commitment to European security is increasingly fragile. In June, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced a review of US force posture and basing in Europe, setting the stage for a further reduction in US troop numbers following the announcement in May that 5,000 would be withdrawn from Germany. President Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly qualified America’s commitment to Article 5 and has also raised the possibility of withdrawing from NATO outright. At the recent NATO summit in Ankara, his rapid oscillation between attacking and praising allies only reinforced the picture of unpredictability that has unsettled European capitals.

The need for a stronger European pillar within NATO is no longer theoretical – it is real, necessary, and urgent. NATO, in its current form, exists to entrench American security leadership in Europe. If that leadership is no longer forthcoming, then the architecture of European security is built on sand. The answer is not to abandon NATO but to reimagine it for a post-American Europe, built on balance between its North American and European pillars. To achieve this, new architecture must emerge: the missing piece of European security.

A European Security Council

That missing piece is a European Security Council. It would not be a military headquarters or a political union, but a forum for consultation, deliberation, and coordination on matters related to European security, with the aim of establishing common political positions and catalysing collective action. At present, a patchwork of formal and informal forums sit across the gap a European Security Council would fill: the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council, the E3, Weimar+, the E5, the Nordic-Baltic Eight, and the Bucharest Nine, among others. Each performs a valuable role, but none combines permanent strategic coordination, political agility, and pan-European membership.

A European Security Council, consisting of all European states who wish to join, would enable inclusion of three powers that are at the forefront of European security but sit outside of the European Union: the UK, Ukraine, and Norway. It could avoid the grinding pace of EU institutions unshackled from a large bureaucracy, the need for unanimity, or the wider political baggage that comes with EU initiatives. And it would have the pan-European legitimacy that smaller forums lack. 

Variable geometry

Designing the ESC on the principle of variable geometry will be critical for its success. This means recognising that Europe is a mesh of differing threat perceptions, military capabilities, interests, and priorities, and baking that into the design rather than fighting it. This will be even more important in a post-American Europe, as differences will likely sharpen absent an external arbiter. It also reflects the serious likelihood that some of Europe’s major powers will, in the coming years, elect nationalist and populist governments disinterested in or hostile to European cooperation.

In practice, this means using qualified majority voting to reach joint decisions. A two-thirds supermajority of both members and population should be sufficient to ensure decisions command legitimacy and cannot be blocked by spoiler governments. Members on the losing side of a votewould not be bound by decisions and could even attachdissenting statements to declarations, allowing for disagreement while preserving the legitimacy of collective action.

It also means situating a European Security Council within a wider decentralised security architecture. It should not try to be the nucleus of a political-security union, sitting on top of European security and providing strategic leadership from above, as envisaged by the European Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, in his version of this idea. Rather, it should sit below regional coalitions, thematic clusters, and other groupings, conferring political legitimacy and enabling better coordination between them.

One area well-suited for this model is Europe’s response to the Russian shadow fleet. A European Security Council could provide political legitimacy, a common legal position, and logistical coordination for more assertive and systematic interdiction of shadow tankers in European waters, even if only a small group of countries with the necessary capabilities and geographic proximity carry out the operations through a coalition such as the Joint Expeditionary Force.

The UK’s role

A European Security Council is a considerable opportunity for the UK, and for Andy Burnham as he looks to strengthen ties with Europe after entering Number 10. Burnham has explicitly ruled out rejoining the EU in the near term, but the alternatives – closer economic ties through alignment with the single market or a customs union – could be a tough sell both to a domestic audience and to Europe itself.Defence is different. Closer cooperation would be welcomed on both sides, as the UK still has serious military weight relative to many other European countries. As a European Security Council would sit outside of EU structures, it’s alsoless likely to attract reflexive hostility amongst Leave supporters.

A European Security Council would be a welcome upgrade to the regular UK-EU dialogue envisaged in the 2025 Security and Defence Partnership, giving London equal and permanent member status in a common institution. It would be an opportunity for leadership within Europe, not just participation.

A new Europe and a new NATO

There is a legitimate argument, made amongst others by the European Council on Foreign Relations, that new security architecture is best constructed from existing foundations inside of NATO. This would be quicker and less politically challenging than a European Security Council, but it leaves Europe exposed to the same mode of failure that has produced the need for new architecture in the first place: the American veto.

NATO is built around American leadership. Its military headquarters, SHAPE, is led by a US commander. America provides many of NATO’s critical enabling capabilities. Its defence planning rests on the assumption of transatlantic unity and a combined, integrated response by Europe and North America. Article 5 itself requires unanimous consent to be activated. If America withholds support, or even just hesitates, the result will be paralysis. Even a regionalised model, as the European Council on Foreign Relations proposes, will fall into the same trap if the glue holding it together remains American.

A European Security Council would provide this glue and a European centre of gravity. A Europe-led security architecture would allow the continent to build its own strategic capacity in a way that is not possible from within NATO. Europe would change for the better, and so would NATO. Instead of being the primary vehicle for European defence, it would become the primary vehicle of the transatlantic security alliance, balanced between two equal poles rather than continuing in the same lopsided fashion that serves neither side well. If European security had been designed like this from the beginning, one suspects Europe would feel more secure, and America less resentful.

Andrew Noakes is the founder of Future Statecraft, a project focused on rethinking statecraft after the rules-based order.

Photo credit: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation via Flickr.