President Joe Biden, left, is seen with French President Emmanuel Macron at a working session during the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, on June 12, 2021. In Western European governments, some still expect the bloc’s economic prowess and mere proclamations about Europe’s own defense ambitions to insulate them from Russian aggression. In Romania, for example, any military measures to protect the eastern front are perceived as having limited value unless they involve American boots on the ground, ideally stationed there forever. There is a widening gap now between Eastern and Western European countries along those lines. While there is a shared understanding that a new beefiness in defense matters is vital, the degree of continued reliance on the United States - with its atomic weapons and troop deployments across Europe - as the ultimate security guarantor is where opinions collide. The problem, according to analysts, is strategic autonomy means different things to different governments in Europe, and there’s no defined end state of when it might be realized. Without it, Macron said, Europe risks becoming a “vassal” to other powers, including the United States, which could be on a collision course with China over Taiwan’s independence. Strategic autonomy - the ability to provide for one’s own security, he told journalists aboard the plane flying him home from a visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April - must become Europe’s organizing principle.

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