By Sophie Heine

19/05/2026

Version française ci-dessous

The current international context is marked by the return of war in various parts of the world, as well as by the collapse of international balances that were partly based on law and international organizations. The United Nations are more marginalized than ever, and the declarations underpinning international law are as well.

As for the European Union’s “soft power”[1] approach, it too now appears outdated in a world where force and power once again seem to be the norm.

This new context seems to contradict the balances that had allowed Western states to avoid war. According to the dominant narrative, this relative peace in the Western world (despite distant and proxy conflicts) was achieved thanks to international law and the organizations promoting it, as well as through a shift in mindsets toward norms, principles, and human rights at the global level.

This went hand in hand with a limitation of state sovereignty and its potential excesses. In other words, the development of a Kantian approach [2]—based on law, negotiation, democracy, freedoms, and international and global organizations—had pushed back a more Hegelian vision emphasizing the importance of state sovereignty, war, and conflicts between powers[3]. This idealist approach is now collapsing with the return of hardline realism.

There is no doubt that international relations are more than ever dominated by raw power dynamics and conflicts between major powers. However, claiming that these had disappeared would be naive. If law and international organizations have played an important role in recent decades, it is also—and above all—because major powers allowed it, not solely due to the persuasive force of the principles on which these organizations are based. The tension between law and power has always existed beneath the surface. That said, the balances that once contained it are now being profoundly challenged.

In particular, the European Union’s position as a “soft power,” relying primarily on negotiation, trade tools, and liberal principles to make itself heard, could only exist because the bloc was not under threat and was protected by the United States. The organization ensuring this protection, NATO, has always operated according to highly realist principles.

In a context where power dynamics are once again being expressed intensely on the global stage, idealist discourses have no chance of prevailing. However, this does not mean accepting the Hegelian idea that war is inevitable and peace impossible. The Kantian goal of “perpetual peace” is more relevant than ever, and historically, it is precisely when war returns that pacifist perspectives tend to flourish again. Nevertheless, while we must maintain the objective of peace, the means adopted must be partly realist. No “soft power” can truly function without the means of enforcement provided by “hard power.”

For Europeans, this means that integration toward a sovereign defense policy is essential. It is necessary to move beyond intergovernmentalism and take a qualitative leap ensuring a unified defense for all Europeans. This European defense policy should be anchored in full European sovereignty, ultimately implying the disappearance of national sovereignties[4]. Even if decentralization of certain competences is possible, the sovereign function of defense can in practice exist only at a single level.

Drawing on the arguments developed in my books Défense européenne pour les citoyens : souveraineté, démocratie, État de droit and For a sovereign Europe (see below), the return of realism in international relations should not be interpreted as a call to abandon liberal and democratic principles, but rather as an invitation to embed them within structures capable of sustaining them through power. From this perspective, the current weakness of the European Union lies not in its attachment to norms, but in its inability to defend them effectively and autonomously.

A credible European defence must be designed for citizens. This implies a fundamental shift: security policy can no longer remain the exclusive domain of intergovernmental negotiations or technocratic decision-making. On the contrary, it must be rooted in democratic legitimacy, transparency, and political accountability. Without this, any strengthening of “hard power” risks reproducing precisely the logic of domination and competition among sovereignties described by realism.

In the current geopolitical context, the European Union faces a paradox. On the one hand, it must respond to an increasingly Hobbesian environment in which military capabilities and strategic autonomy are indispensable. On the other hand, if it merely imitates traditional power politics, it risks undermining its own normative foundations. The solution lies in reconciling power with democracy and the rule of law, rather than opposing them.

This entails several major implications:

First, European defence must be supranational rather than intergovernmental. A fragmented system of weakly coordinated national armies can guarantee neither efficiency nor democratic oversight. A unified European defence structure, placed under the authority of democratically elected institutions, would ensure both strategic coherence and political legitimacy.

Second, sovereignty must be redefined rather than abolished in practice. I am not advocating the disappearance of democratic control, but its transfer to the European level. True sovereignty presupposes the capacity of citizens to collectively determine their security through democratic institutions. In a globalised world shaped by conflict, this capacity can no longer be exercised effectively at the national level and must therefore be transposed to the supranational level.

Third, a European defence policy must remain framed by liberal and democratic norms and principles. Its objective is not the projection of power for its own sake, but the protection of citizens and the preservation of peace. This implies strict conditions governing the use of force, strong judicial oversight, and alignment with the principles of the rule of law. This also means that a European military force could only be used purely defensively, in other words, if the EU was directly attacked.

Finally, in order to avoid reproducing the excesses of state sovereignties, a European defence policy — anchored in this sovereign and democratic government — should not only detach itself from any form of Euro-nationalism, but also serve as a first step toward perpetual world peace. This would require a radical refoundation of existing institutions at the global level so as to make them genuinely global rather than merely international, and to democratise them. It would also require equipping them with sovereign enforcement mechanisms in cases of non-compliance with international norms. The ultimate step toward world peace would therefore consist in establishing sovereignty at this same global scale.

Ultimately, we must reformulate the debate between realism and idealism. Rather than treating them as mutually exclusive, we should recognise that realist instruments are necessary to protect idealist objectives.

In this sense, the return of realism does not mark the end of the European project, but a critical turning point in its evolution. A democratic and sovereign European defence could enable the Union to remain faithful to its founding values while adapting to a more hostile international environment.

The issue, therefore, is not whether Europe should become a power, but what kind of power it chooses to be: a traditional geopolitical actor driven by competition, or a democratic entity capable of combining strength with the rule of law.

Within this project, sovereignty must be restored at the European level and, potentially in the long term, defended at the global level.

Sophie Heine is a writer, research associate to Egmont Institute – Royal Institute for International Relations (https://egmontinstitute.be/staff/sophie-heine/) and work for Oxford University (Bodleian Libraries)

References:

[1]
                        [1] Concept developed by Joseph Nye in his book Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (1990)

[2]
                        [2] Emmanuel Kant, de la Paix perpétuelle, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015 (first edition 1795)

[3]
                        [3] See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, T. M. Knox (Editor), Stephen Houlgate (Contributor),  Outlines of the Philosophy of Right (first published in 1821), 2008, Oxford University Press, USA

Le retour du réalisme en relations internationales : quelles conséquences pour l’Union européenne ?