Has Riker Found His Way Back to Brussels?

The paper aims to test the Riker’s theory in Europe in time of war. A crucial feature of Riker’s theory postulates that, facing external and internal threats, unions of states having a confederal nature are incentivized to strengthen the capacities of the centre, according to a federalist logic. Yet, in the EU, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the correspondent threat towards EU member states (particularly those on the eastern border) have not generated a transformation along a federalist logic. The EU has continued to remain without a common defence system, relying on the security provided by Nato and the US military power. War-based theories of power centralization seem not to function in the EU, where external threats may more easily be faced with an already existing organization, although externally dominated, such as Nato. This paper will try to elaborate a post-Riker theory on the two-level system of European security, international (Nato) and national (each member state), showing its strength (immediate use) but also its weakness (dependence on an actor who is far from the threat).