Decisions related to war and military intervention abroad carry a strong emotional and political weight in public discourse, and they often reveal strong fault lines along and within ideological groupings in democratic countries. France and Italy provide an interesting case study, as the two countries are of similar size, share many cultural traits, developed comparable political systems in the wake of the end of the second world war, embarked in the construction of a united European political community together, and the main political families of the two countries and their related newspapers that can be easily identified and associated (the PCI and l’Unità, the PCF and l’Humanité, l’avvenire and la Croix for the catholics, and so forth). For all those similarities, the two countries also present some interesting point of divergences, chief among them for our purposes the identity of France as a victorious nation that defended its democratic system during the second world war, notwithstanding some degree of historical ambiguity around collaboration, and Italy’s identity as a formerly fascist and defeated country, now to rebuild its institutions and its international standing on completely new grounds, with Article 9 of the constitution explicitly renouncing military intervention. This distinction carried substantial policy differences for the duration of the cold war and up to today, with France openly and fiercely defending its colonial holdings in Algeria, Vietnam, and participating in various military operations in the Middle East and Africa, in some theaters as the main foreign military force. Italy, conversely, maintained a much lower profile, participating in military operations abroad only as a small part of larger multilateral operations, with possibly one exception, and even so putting scarce emphasis on its military role in the international stage.

This paper thus aims to provide a sample of the content of variously politically aligned newspapers in the two countries in correspondence with important dates related to military conflicts and public discourse around the possibility of French or Italian intervention in recent history, and then compare the similarities and differences in tone and language present in this selection, with the aim of tracing a historical trajectory to individuate the origin points of those differences; thus allowing the reader to better understand the historical context in which present-day conceptions of military intervention abroad originated in France and in Italy.

The European security architecture that emerged after World War II was built largely around Western institutions—especially NATO and, eventually, the EU. Although the European security order was founded on a US-led framework and has remained US-centric, it evolved through extensive East–West arrangements, shaped in part by negotiated agreements and cooperative frameworks with the Soviet Union during the late Cold War, and later continued with Russia, contributing to the broader European security environment. However, there is a subtle, important detail in these East–West arrangements: despite ongoing cooperation and negotiations, Russia continued to challenge the security order by violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of neighboring countries—actions that were to some extent normalized for the sake of sustaining the existing arrangements and due to Western pragmatism. Consequently, Russia’s efforts were arguably not perceived as geopolitical revisionism, as post-Soviet countries were tacitly regarded as being within Russia’s sphere of influence—states managed through the Kremlin’s curator system and possessing limited agency due to Moscow’s influence over their domestic politics. The axis of arrangements initially seemed acceptable to both sides, but it gradually began to erode and ultimately collapsed in 2022. The negotiated framework had a progressively exclusionary impact on the Kremlin, which came to understand that the post-Soviet countries had reached a point of no return regarding any reintegration into Russia’s orbit. The states of the Eastern Neighbourhood had increasingly moved beyond the “post-Soviet” label by distancing themselves politically, economically, and—most painfully for Russia—culturally. They embraced Western modernization projects and elements of the normative principles underpinning the Western modus operandi. For the Kremlin, it therefore became existentially important to reshape the normative and institutional foundations of Europe’s security architecture. The year 2022 became a watershed moment in EU–Russia relations, placing the EU at a crossroads as it redefines its identity through the enlagement process and shifts from a geopolitical coordinator to a geopolitical actor.

This paper explores the general forces and challenges shaping what constitutes a new era in transatlantic relations, and then focuses on the ways in which they have fed into the forming and re-forming of perceptions in EU-US relations since 2008. It examines the strategies produced by the Obama, Trump and Biden Administrations, together with EU responses, and relates these generalised expressions of EU and US perceptions to the development of EU and US policies towards European order. The broad agreement – despite recurring disputes – characteristic of the Obama years was challenged during the first Trump Administration (2017-2021) by a series of US initiatives in which the EU was designated a ‘foe’ and a target for rhetorical and material confrontation. Whereas at the end of the Biden Administration in January 2025 there appeared to be a renewed underlying consensus on transatlantic issues, in particular the challenges posed by Russian policy towards Ukraine and eastern Europe, the second Trump Administration in its first year mounted an unpredictable and often brutal assault on many of the underlying assumptions on which the transatlantic relationship had been based. The paper concludes by discussing the extent to which there is a transatlantic (EU-US) consensus on challenges to European order, the impact of contestation in the framing and adjustment of perceptions, and the implications for EU-US relations of continuing challenges to the framing of perceptions by leaderships on both sides of the Atlantic.

Of the many ideal-type conceptions of EU actorhood, civilian power has been among the more prominent. Whereas most debates have centered on whether the EU conforms to such a description, this paper argues that the concept ought to be embraced as an ambition to strive for, as this is where the EU can make the greatest contribution to European security, and, indeed, to achieving its much-vaunted ‘strategic autonomy’.

The purpose is not to argue against the development of European military forces, nor to dismiss the limited extent that the EU has developed expeditionary capabilities. These developments will continue, even as NATO (hopefully) remains the primary organization for military security. Rather, the argument is that building civilian capacity will play to the EU’s strengths, not least its economic muscle and broad range of soft security policies.

Debates over an ’EU military’ tend to fizzle fast and often cause no end of confusion as to what is meant. The EU initiatives that have contributed the most to European security in recent years have been civilian, whether by achieving energy independence, helping political stabilization in the Western Balkans, holding out the prospect of membership to applicants, sanctioning Russia, supporting Ukraine’s wartime economy, developing Europe’s military-industrial base and countering US tariffs. These are the building blocks of true strategic autonomy. Yet, even in its civilian roles, the EU often remains hamstrung and indecisive.

The civilian power concept never precluded purposeful or self-interested action. Yet, the EU still has far to go before it is a fully effective civilian power. Rather than undertaking lengthy discussions of military integration – which remains controversial for most members – the EU must focus on fully developing its civilian roles. Achieving greater cohesion as a civilian power not only contributes greatly to European security but also aids the quest for strategic autonomy.