“I believe the time has come to bring Europe’s mutual defense clause to life,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared at the 2026 Munich Security Conference. Her words captured the mood in European capitals. As Washington continues its strategic pivot toward the Indo-Pacific and signals that Europe must take primary responsibility for its own defense, calls for a European army have returned with renewed urgency.

The anxiety is understandable. Europe has the population, economic weight, and industrial base to defend itself. Yet the obstacle to a European army is not resources — it is political structure and democratic reality.

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Sovereignty and political control

Military force is the ultimate expression of national sovereignty. The authority to deploy soldiers into combat cannot easily be transferred to a supranational institution without fundamentally reshaping the nation-state. For many European Union members, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, this remains a red line.

Any EU defense policy would also be subordinate to EU foreign policy, which is already disjointed and frequently dysfunctional. It is shaped by consensus rules, competing geopolitical priorities, and national caveats. Defense strategy cannot be stronger than the political authority directing it. If foreign policy remains fragmented, defense policy will reflect that fragmentation. An army without unified political direction becomes a........

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