Genschel, PhilippPhilippGenschel2023-09-012023-09-012022-11-041350-1763https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/713110.26092/elib/2452Kelemen and McNamara claim that the imbalance between the EU’s strong regulatory authority and weak capacity in core state powers reflects its peaceful origins: the EU lacks coercive force, fiscal autonomy and administrative grip because it never had to confront a serious military threat. Will the emergence of such a threat suffice to correct the imbalance? As I argue theoretically, military threats have ambiguous effects on integration. They can fuel center-formation and capacity-building, as Kelemen and McNamara suggest, but also block it. As I show empirically, the military threat posed by the Russian attack of Ukraine in February 2022 has triggered very little EU capacity-building so far. I observe almost no centralization of core state powers but rather a strengthening of national powers with the support of EU institutions: ‘bellicist integration’ rather than ‘bellicist state-building’.enCC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Core state powersEuropean UnionIntegration theoryState-buildingUkraineWar320Artikel/Aufsatzurn:nbn:de:gbv:46-elib71312