The Sovereignty Illusion: Europe’s Independence Still Runs on American Power

In a hangar in Born, drones hum under fluorescent light — while in Brussels, officials call it sovereignty. Across the continent, factories, datacenters, and defence hubs are being reborn under a single promise: that Europe will never again depend on anyone else to stand tall. But peel away the branding, and the continent’s new independence still runs on someone else’s current — American.

Borrowed Power, Rented Autonomy

In Brussels, strategic autonomy rolls off every podium. It promises a Europe that can defend itself, power its own industries, and lead the digital age. Reality hums differently: much of that independence is leased from across the Atlantic.

A clear majority of EU cloud services run on Amazon, Microsoft, or Google infrastructure (Synergy Research Group, 2025). The once-celebrated Gaia-X “sovereign cloud” remains stuck in committee rooms (Politico Europe, June 2025). And even the Netherlands’ bold takeover of Nexperia — reclaiming a chipmaker from Chinese ownership — still depends on U.S. export licenses and IP frameworks (EU Chips Act Brief, BIS 2024).

Defence Autonomy, Still Under the Umbrella

Europe’s rearmament looks impressive on paper: collective defence spending exceeded €300 billion in 2024, the highest since the Cold War (SIPRI / European Defence Agency). Yet nearly every command line still runs through NATO’s U.S. systems.

Born’s new VDL defence plant, building drones and unmanned vehicles, operates under NATO-standard architectures originally shaped with American partners (Dutch MoD Release, Oct 2025). Europe is welding its own armour — to a blueprint drafted elsewhere. When Russia invaded Ukraine, roughly 60 percent of Western aid came from the United States (Kiel Institute Tracker, mid-2025). Europe pledged resolve; Washington delivered reach.

Energy, Finance, and the New Dependence

After cutting off Russian gas, Europe turned west. By early 2025, U.S. LNG supplied nearly half of EU imports (IEA / EC Energy Dashboard), all priced in dollars. Even the green transition leans American: European climate funds rely on U.S. private equity, grid analytics run on Californian cloud software, and Tesla batteries dominate the supply chain. We left Gazprom; we joined Nasdaq.

The Mental Dependency

The deepest reliance isn’t material — it’s mental. Europe’s post-war stability rests on the assumption that, whatever happens, America will show up. But as U.S. politics swings toward isolation, that comfort feels fragile. We crave distance from Washington’s drama, yet panic when the umbrella trembles.

Critics Say: Partnership, Not Submission

Not everyone calls this an illusion. European Commission officials argue that strategic autonomy was never meant as secession but as “interdependence among allies.” As one defence economist in Paris notes, “Europe borrows U.S. power while it rebuilds its own — that’s sequencing, not submission.”

Analysts at the German Council on Foreign Relations stress that transatlantic security was built for shared dependence, not rivalry. Industry advocates point to the Chips Act, EDIP, and the Net Zero Industry Act, which are already channeling billions into European capacity. They warn that chasing purity over partnership risks replacing cooperation with protectionism. The real test, they say, is not whether Europe can stand apart from America — but whether it can stand beside it as an equal.