The Spectre of a Westphalian Europe?

Luis Simón is a Research Professor of International Security at the Institute for European Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Director of the Brussels Office of the Elcano Royal Institute. He is also an associate fellow at RUSI and the Baltic Defence College, and a member of the editorial board of Parameters: The US Army War College Quarterly. Professor Simón has been a visiting research and fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University (2012–13), RUSI (2009–10), the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University (2008), and the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (2008). In 2008–09, he was a fellow of the European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Programme of the VolkswagenStiftung, Germany, the Compagnia di San Paolo, Turin, and the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Stockholm. He holds degrees from Royal Holloway College (University of London) and the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). He is the author of Geopolitical Change, Grand Strategy and European Security: The EU-NATO Conundrum in Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). His articles have appeared in leading journals such as Security Studies, International Affairs, Journal of Strategic Studies, Survival, Geopolitics, Orbis, Parameters: The US Army War College Quarterly, RUSI Journal, Comparative Strategy, and International Spectator.

Introduction

I Balance and Order in Europe

Europe’s Framers: Britain, the US and the Changing of the Guard

The Role of Institutions in Managing the European Balance

The End of the Cold War: Whither the European Balance?

Influence vs. Control: Anglo–American, Russian and German

Perspectives on the European Balance

Back to Square One? Europe and the Looming Shadow of US Retrenchment

II Legitimacy and Order: The US, Germany and Russia

US Strategy and European Security: Light Footprint, Heavy Burden

Russia’s Comeback: Strength from Weakness

Germany as a Reluctant Leader: Weakness in Strength

The Evolving US–German–Russian Triangle

III. Restoring Balance

How to Restore the European Balance

Keeping Europe United in Diversity, Open and Atlantic-Oriented

Re-Centring the EU?

Germany, Russia and the Space Between

Conclusions