Europe's Overlooked Hard Power

Exploring how reductions in European development cooperation affect security, stability and geopolitical influence, with a focus on EU institutions, Member States and crisis affected regions.

Recent cuts to USAID, alongside reductions in European aid expenditure and wider fragmentation in multilateral governance, mark a significant shift in the international environment for humanitarian, diplomatic, peacebuilding and security engagement. Reduced support for emergency response and long-term development work risks deepening instability in fragile and conflict affected settings, with direct implications for European security interests.

At the same time, the donor landscape is becoming more fragmented and competitive, with actors such as Russia, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar exercising growing influence in ways that may both complement and challenge European priorities and values. In this context, there is a pressing need to understand what these shifts mean for Europe’s strategic interests, political influence and external action.

This RUSI Europe project examines how reductions in development cooperation affect European security, and why development should be understood not as a secondary policy tool, but as a strategic instrument of hard power. With a particular focus on EU institutions and Member States, the project will generate research, stakeholder engagement and policy facing analysis to help reposition development cooperation within mainstream European security debates.

Aims and objectives

The aim of this project is to better understand the relationship between European development cooperation and security, and to examine how potential cuts to aid spending would affect conflict prevention, political stability, migration pressures, transnational threats and geopolitical influence.

The project also seeks to explore how development cooperation can be more effectively integrated into the security thinking of EU institutions and Member States, particularly in the context of wider debates on external action, defence, and fiscal priorities.

Through research, workshops, private briefings and public commentary, it will engage policymakers, practitioners and analysts across the Brussels policy community and beyond.

Project team

This project is a RUSI Europe project implemented by the Terrorism and Conflict Research Group, with support from RUSI Europe’s external relations and communications team.