Unsettled by President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine, Europe is in a rush to improve its armed forces. “Spend, spend, spend on defense and deterrence,� Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters earlier this month.
On the same day Frederiksen made her comments, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presented a plan that could—in theory, at least—unlock hundreds of billions of euros in defense spending. Most importantly, Germany’s next government is targeting a major military buildup that would exempt any defense spending above 1 percent of gross domestic product from the country’s constitutionally mandated debt brake. Hardly a day goes by without headlines of a new scheme for European defense spending.
The markets have taken notice. Great Britain’s BAE Systems, France’s Thales, Germany’s Rheinmetall, Sweden’s Saab—Europe’s major defense companies have been red hot in recent trading on European exchanges, significantly outperforming their American counterparts.
Earlier this month, Portuguese defense minister Nuno Melo captured the prevailing mood when he raised doubts about Lisbon’s plans to replace its F-16s with F-35s. “There are several options that must be considered, particularly in the context of European production,� he mused to local media.
You could practically hear the champagne corks popping in Paris. “Those who buy Patriot should be offered the new-generation Franco-Italian SAMP/T. Those who buy the F-35, should be offered the Rafale,� French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters last week.
It is encouraging to see European leaders adopt a new tone on defense. Rather than heed the siren song of strategic autonomy, however, Europe should prioritize strengthening its defenses now. This will require tightening, rather than weakening, Europe’s defense industrial ties with the United States. The reasons why this is necessary are myriad.
Buying European is Not an Option
For starters, Europe’s defense industrial base is ill-equipped to provide the continent with the capabilities that strategic autonomy would require. A look at the systems President Macron touted illustrates why.
Take the SAMP/T. Until very recently, it took up to forty months to produce just one missile for the system’s principal interceptor, the Aster. Although Paris aims to cut that time to eighteen months by 2026, it is unlikely to accomplish that goal without new orders. As of the time of writing, Singapore was the last country to place a significant SAMP/T order, and that was in 2013.
Even with more investments, the SAMP/T can hardly compare to the U.S.-made Patriot, which is demonstrating its prowess by shooting down aeroballistic and ballistic missiles over the skies of Ukraine. Little wonder that Ukraine’s military leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, regularly praise the Patriot system as unrivaled—and request more.
The story is the same as that of the French Rafale. It is a commendable platform, but its technology falls short of the F-35, which is a true fifth-generation fighter. The Rafale lacks the stealth features that allow the F-35 to operate in non-permissive airspace. Moreover, it does not possess the F-35’s data fusion capacities, crucial for conducting large-scale coalition warfare and achieving information superiority in the early stages of a conflict.
The F-35 has a first mover advantage, too. By 2035, there may be upwards of 600 F-35s flying over European skies, with the possibility of even more if Turkey rejoins the program in the coming years. For its part, the Rafale’s manufacturer, Dassault, is committed to delivering 188 platforms between 2026 and 2033. While this is a sizable number, thanks to a hike in orders, it is still impossible for Dassault to ramp up production for additional Rafales while keeping its existing delivery schedules.
To be sure, Europe has other options for fighter aircraft—the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Swedish Gripen, primarily—but these platforms contain U.S.-made components that subject them to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Notably, the Gripen’s engines are made by none other than General Electric.
They Cannot Fight Alone
The second reason Europe is poorly equipped to pursue strategic autonomy is that it lacks strategic enablers, particularly in the air domain. These enablers are vital for executing sustained large-scale combat operations. European countries possess few aircraft capable of collecting signals intelligence (SIGINT) and electronic intelligence (ELINT); most of their aircraft that have these capabilities are American-made. Moreover, the countries that operate the largest proportion of these platforms—Turkey and the United Kingdom—are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but not of the European Union (EU).
Europe also lacks high-end kinetic combat and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) drones. Currently, the European drone market is dominated by General Atomics, a U.S. company, while Turkey is the continent’s newest major drone supplier. NATO is also heavily dependent on the United States for space assets. At the same time, Washington provides the alliance with the majority of its large tanker and transport fleets for aerial refueling and strategic air mobility. These deficiencies in strategic enablers leave Europe with a dearth of sovereign military action capabilities. There is no European alternative on offer anytime soon, even with large-scale European investments.
Europe also lacks long-range precision strike capabilities. The Taurus air-launched cruise missile, produced jointly by Germany and Sweden, illustrates this weakness. MBDA Germany and Sweden’s SAAB can produce between forty and sixty Taurus missiles annually, an arsenal that would quickly face depletion in a potential showdown with any serious adversary. In contrast, Lockheed Martin produces more than 700 JASSM air-launched cruise missiles, and it plans to increase production to 1,100 units per year.
Additionally, over the last four years, NATO’s European member states imported roughly 65 percent of their weapons systems from American manufacturers, up from 52 percent from 2015 to 2019. Only two European countries, France and Germany, supply Europe’s NATO member states with any significant share�6.5 and 4.7 percent, respectively—of their collective arsenal. Two non-European arms suppliers, Israel and South Korea, supply 3.9 and 6.5 percent of alliance weaponry. And while Europe is not relying on the United States in designing and producing main battle tanks and attack submarines, it rates a virtual zero in other critical segments. European militaries� arsenals of multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), for example, are filled mainly with American HIMARS and M-270 solutions.
European artillery shell production is lagging behind as well. While the European Union aims to boost its annual artillery production to two million rounds in 2025, Russia and North Korea each currently outproduce Europe in this category. Europe also depends on the United States for most of its strategic defensive weapons systems due to production capacity bottlenecks. Among the twenty-seven European Union member states, twelve do not field any main battle tanks, and fourteen operate no fighter aircraft. This hampers Europe’s ability to engage in high-intensity mechanized warfare.
Time is Not Europe's Friend
These deficiencies limit the possibilities of European strategic autonomy, rendering it an interesting concept for further development at the moment but lacking any practical applicability in the short-to-medium term. Of course, Europe recognizes its deficiencies. The European Commission’s most recent defense assessment, the Joint White Paper for European Defense Readiness 2030, lists seven capability gaps it must close: space assets, air and missile defense, cyber and electronic warfare, drones and anti-drone systems, military mobility, artillery systems, and strategic enablers. However, even under the most optimistic scenarios, Europe would need decades to improve its deficiencies in these areas.
And time is not on Brussels� side. Denmark’s defense intelligence agencies assess that Russia may opt for war in Europe within five years. Estonia’s foreign intelligence agencies have reached similar conclusions, observing that Russian forces assembled near Eastern Europe are too big merely for the war in Ukraine.
Europe must boost its hard power capabilities now, not later. The only feasible way to do this is to work with the United States. Strategic autonomy is built over decades, not declared in a day.