Radical Innovation and Unorthodox Improvisation in the EU’s Defence of Ukraine and the European Security Order

Russia’s all-out aggression against Ukraine since February 2022, conjoined with the increasing geopolitical contestation in the region as well as globally, triggered a revolutionary conjuncture of radical uncertainty. While resorting to ‘traditional’ means of control power such as sanctions and humanitarian aid, the European Union (EU) proved capable of radically improvising and innovating its responses to help Ukraine and the European security order hedge against mounting Russian threats. This article seeks to further advance and empirically anatomize the protean power theory’s two crucial manifestations – improvisation and innovation – in the EU’s military responses since February 2022. The following three critical case studies shall help disentangle the protean nature, operation and effects of the EU’s unorthodox improvisation and radical innovation: (1) EU Military Assistance Mission to Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine), the EU’s first European Peace Facility (EPF)-financed military mission in its Eastern neighbourhood and the first one to be conducted on EU soil; (2) the design and operation of the cascading European Defence Industry Reinforcement through Common Procurement Act (EDIRPA), the Act in Support of Ammunition Production, and the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) — the EU’s first programmes of joint ammunition procurement and the hitherto unthinkable supranational defence-industrial regulation of ammunition production, as well as the EU’s first dedicated financing and investment programme for defence, respectively; and (3) the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030, the EU’s first defence spending scheme triggering what the High Representative has called ‘Europe’s biggest defence revolution’ yet.