The story of the European integration process is one of peace among the Member States, in juxtaposition to the cruelty of two World Wars, yet it happened against the backdrop of the Cold War and, more recently, of ongoing tensions in the wider region. It is a union of states or a confederation, else, a layer of bureaucracy on top of nation states, which has some competences (“sovereignty”) but which nevertheless lacks democratic accountability commensurate with that generally found at the Member State level. A European Defence Union provides a credible deterrent to aspiring overlords that seek to exploit Europeans.