The two most controversial issues confronting the EU-NATO relationship from the American perspective are, first, the degree of EU autonomy compatible with a NATO at the top of the institutional hierarchy of European security, and second, judging the point at which the development of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) would interfere with the functioning of NATO and thus with American leadership of the Alliance. The Europeans, meanwhile, have faced the paradox of reconciling their desire to sustain NATO’s viability as a transatlantic alliance with the equally strong desire to create a defence and security capability independent of NATO able to act where European interests diverge from those of the United States. This tension between the American and European preferences for the EU-NATO relationship has been played out in at least one arena—the potential ramifications of the EU’s ambitious defence industrial policy designed to ensure procurement and operational autonomy from the US—which constitutes the focus of this paper.
