- This piece on the EU contribution to Red Sea defense is a nice pairing to the War on the Rocks piece I wrote on Operation Prosperity Guardian earlier this month. The author takes the EU perspective well and notes (with fairness) that many analyses (including mine, I'd add) are quite US-focused.
- NATO Naval Power Week - A Post-Mortem of the Red Sea Crisis: NATO versus the European Union Anna Matilde Bassoli discusses how a coherent NATO strategy for the Red Sea will require the US and Europe to align postures, without the EU as the third wheel. cimsec.org/a-post-morte...
- The argument is valid that the EU desire for strategic autonomy had a necessary impact on the nature of the US-led effort. This is not a first. Expeditionary naval activities have historically been a politically favorable means for the EU to (attempt to) flex a military muscle.Apr 25, 2025 18:09
- We saw this in the late 2000s with Operation Atalanta to counter Somali piracy. Then, coordination via the SHADE protocol alleviated the divide between US, EU, and NATO missions. Today, the nature and level of mission coordination between Prosperity Guardian and Aspides is not yet clear.
- My only reclama is that we keep the scale of the two efforts in mind. The US under OPG downed ~400 projectiles prior to the latest round of shooting. Nearest I can tell, EU Naval Forces claim around two dozen, which U.S. and UK forces did on some individual days in the thick of the fighting.
