European security is the Neo Institute Europa’s densest area of coverage. Our analysts examine how Europe organises its defence, where its strategic autonomy is real and where it is rhetorical, and how the geography of competition is widening from the Atlantic to the Arctic, cyberspace and outer space. This page collects that work and sets out the arguments running through it.

What is Europe’s security gap?

The shorthand “security gap” usually means a shortfall of equipment and spending. Our analysis argues the more binding constraint is executive: who decides, how quickly, and with what authority. Budgets can be raised in a single political cycle. Decision-making structures, procurement authority and the ability to act coherently under pressure cannot.

Read: Named by the Adversary: Europe’s Security Gap and the Defence Executive

Can NATO become more European?

The question of European burden-shifting inside NATO has moved from theory to planning. Germany’s Gesamtkonzeption is the most developed attempt yet to set out what a more European alliance would actually require — of Berlin first, and then of its allies. Our analysis works through the concept and what it would cost politically to deliver.

Read: The Gesamtkonzeption: Germany’s blueprint for a more European NATO

Is European strategic autonomy real?

Strategic autonomy is invoked constantly and defined rarely. Our work separates the parts of Europe’s defence-technological base where genuine self-reliance exists from the parts where dependence on foreign suppliers remains structural — and asks what closing that distance would demand in funding, industrial policy and political will.

Read: Strategic autonomy or strategic illusion? Europe’s path to defence technological self-reliance

Where are the new theatres of European competition?

Three domains have moved from the margins of European security planning to its centre within a decade.

The Arctic. Retreating ice is opening maritime corridors and resource access, turning the High North into something closer to a northern Mediterranean: a contested sea of trade routes and adjacent powers. Read: A New Mediterranean in the North

Outer space. European space policy has stopped being a technical and scientific portfolio and become a geopolitical one, with Copernicus, launch capability and orbital security now defence questions. Read: Beyond Two Dimensions: Europe’s Geopolitical Future in Outer Space

Cyberspace. Grey-zone cyber operations let adversaries apply sustained pressure below the threshold of open conflict, exploiting the slowness of collective attribution and response. Read: Inside the Grey Zone: Russia’s Cyber Operations in Europe

How do smaller European states manage alliance pressure?

Alliance politics is usually written from the perspective of its largest members. Our analysis of Portugal’s handling of the Lajes air base during the war in Iran looks at the opposite case: how a small state meets its obligations to a much larger ally while managing domestic political constraints, and what pragmatism of that kind costs and buys.

Read: Diplomatic pragmatism between Portugal and the US during the War in Iran

All security and defence analysis

Browse the full Security & Defence archive, or the related Technology, Cyber & Digital Policy and European Affairs & EU Policy archives.

The Neo Institute Europa is a Luxembourg-registered non-profit (ASBL no. F15340). Our analysis is written by early-career researchers across Europe. To commission work, collaborate or contribute, see Contact.