The US Asia pivot and shift towards a multipolar international system has highly-significant implications for European security. Crucially, the US will be less willing to underpin European security, creating the necessity for EU states to develop the networked precision-strike capabilities which will permit autonomous operations within their geopolitical neighbourhood at the higher-end of the conflict spectrum. The impact of the Asia pivot has been magnified by implications of austerity measures on European defence budgets which have accelerated the military decline of the West European great powers (Britain, France and Germany). Hence the article argues that an imperative for stronger European defence cooperation under the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) exists. However, the article highlights that despite the limitations on cooperation imposed by the principle of state sovereignty that dominates defence policy, European nations are missing key opportunities to coordinate defence reforms and pool and share capabilities and forces under the EU’s Ghent Framework.