Military historian Max Hastings in his column in The Times urged European and British leaders to honestly admit the scale of the crisis in the field of defense. He points out that European armies have neither enough weapons, nor coordinated logistics, nor human resources. Dependence on the US is almost complete: from the supply of ammunition to satellite communication and aviation. If America under the leadership of Trump refuses to support Ukraine, Europe may find itself without critical assistance.
Hastings is skeptical of the statements about rearmament: according to the expert, neither the budgets nor the political will in European capitals correspond to the stated goals. He notes that the British army is exhausted, and the lack of soldiers will probably have to be compensated by the involvement of foreigners or mercenaries. In his opinion, the idea that it will be possible to frighten Russia only with a nuclear arsenal without a real increase in defense capabilities is illusory.
Europe, he says Hastings, has enough resources to confront Russia, but it lacks decisive leaders and willingness to make sacrifices.
Europe’s structural dependence on the USA in the security sphere
Europe found herself before the strategic chasm. Max Hastings said what has been talked about for a long time in narrow NATO offices: without the USA, European defense is a fiction. Sophisticated statements about “strategic autonomy” turn into a smokescreen when it comes to specifics – who provides intelligence, who delivers tanks, who closes the sky, who coordinates weapon systems. This is not the EU, but Washington.
The most critical node is satellite intelligence and military communications. Without American satellites of the NRO type, without a global GPS network, without intelligence sharing through the NSA and Space Command, no EU country – not even France with Helios or Germany from SAR-Lupe – will not be able to receive data on the movement of Russian troops or missile launches in real time.
The EU has no global eye, no digital nerves of war. In 2022, during the defense of Kyiv, it was the USA that handed over the key coordinates of the strike targets to the Armed Forces, it was American satellites that detected convoys of equipment, it was from Washington was walking the first analysis of the direction of attack.
Anti-missile defense and anti-aircraft defense? Without the Patriots, there will be neither the cover of military bases nor the protection of cities. European type systems IRIS-T or SAMP/T yet do not cover even the basic part of needs. Only in 2023 did Germany declare that is planning to create a “European air defense shield” – and a joint strategy has not yet been adopted. France and Italy have SAMP/T, but even in the Slavic east of the continent it is hardly seen. And the Patriots are made in the USA. Spare parts and training are also American. And when Trump says: “These countries do not pay for defense,” he has reasons. In 2023, only seven NATO countries performed the norm of 2% of GDP for defense.
NATO command centers are integrated into the American command. Any real combat operation is a decision from Brussels that goes through Florida, Norfolk or Stuttgart. Without access to American control systems, encryption, analytics – this is just cartography, not military planning. And Europe has no analogues of American centers like CENTCOM or EUCOM.
Another dependency is transport and logistics. In Europe, there are almost no planes capable of quickly transferring heavy equipment. The bulk of the C-17 and C-5 Globemaster is in the United States. Yes, France has an A400M and Britain has a few C-130s. But these are drops in the ocean. If tomorrow Poland asks to transfer 2 brigades from Germany to the Baltic – it will not be done in time without the Americans. And this confirm even internal NATO reports.
In the field of cyber warfare, technical intelligence, and electronic warfare, Europe as an independent force is simply absent. Britain has GCHQ, Germany has BND. But without the American NSA, without a joint cyber shield, without joint databases – this is not a war of the 21st century, but an army of the 1980s. In 2022, it will be the USA warned about the preparation of massive hacker attacks by the Russian Federation 2 weeks before the invasion.
You can to remember and about nuclear deterrence. Yes, formally, France has its own weapons. Great Britain has Trident II missiles. But these missiles are made in the USA. Their technical support is also American. Without American will, London’s nuclear deterrent is only theoretical. France is a special case, but it itself will not defend Poland or Lithuania.
Now the question is: what can Europe do? Produce more projectiles. Yes, it is possible – with political will. Restore the military economy, build own satellites, but it is 10 years and tens of billions. Create air force – possibly with a total unification of efforts. But right now it’s unlikely.
Instead, what Europe will not be able to do without the US: close the sky, wage cyber war, transfer armies to the other flank of the continent, paralyze the enemy’s logistics in the deep rear, provide global intelligence. To wage war in two theaters – for example, in the Baltic and in the Mediterranean Sea.
This is the answer to the question: what will happen, if the US under Trump refuses to intervene. In Europe, there will be an army of paper, good rhetoric and many ministers of defense speaking from the stands. But war is not a microphone. This is a missile that must be detected, intercepted and destroyed in time. And without the US, no one in Europe will press a single button.
And while London and Berlin are arguing about where to get another 5 billion, Moscow is preparing for the next campaign. And the main question: who will be the first – determination or defeat.
European production Babylon
Today, the European military-industrial complex is more a fiction of a large army than a real mobilization force. Against the background of a full-scale war in Europe, it became obvious that the continent not ready to high-intensity conflict. And it’s not about technology, it’s not about money, it’s not about industrial heritage. The problem is deeper – in absence political will, strategic decision and systemic mobilization.
From the first weeks of the invasion, it became clear that the EU was unable to promptly supply even its closest partner with ammunition. An illustrative example is artillery. In March 2023, the EU solemnly promised to supply Ukraine with one million shells within a year. But already in March 2024 in the most optimistic scenario it is said about the delivery of only half. The factories could not keep up with the pace, because for decades the capacity was curtailed, production lines were dismantled, and new gunpowder factories were never built. No one was preparing for war either institutionally or in terms of personnel.
Today in Europe find an engineer capable of assembling an artillery shell or welding a hull for a PzH 2000 is like finding a specialist to launch a space shuttle. Young people do not go into industry. Higher education is humanized. Factories that work with explosives or armor do not fit into the image of Europe in the 2020s. Companies like Rheinmetall or Expal for months are looking for personnel, the training of a technologist lasts at least a year – and there is no guarantee that he will not go to IT after the internship.
The European fragmentation of armaments has become not just a challenge of efficiency, but a problem of the viability of the very concept of collective security. France produces Caesar, Germany – PzH 2000, Sweden – Archer, Italy – Palmaria. Each system has its own calibers, its own spare parts, separate logistics, separate maintenance. If the front has run out of shells for Caesar, an ally with ammunition for the PzH 2000 will not help – because no component will fit.
For comparison, the USA has one HIMARS system, one GMLRS missile, unified logistics, and a standardized training base. Instead, in Europe there are dozens of models, each of which requires its own supply chain. According to the European Commission, 178 different weapons systems were used in EU countries in 2022. In the US – only 30. This is not diversity, this is a logistical collapse.
Initiatives for unification fail one after another. For example, the joint FCAS sixth-generation fighter project was supposed to unite France, Germany, and Spain, but has been bogged down in conflicts over control of revenues and IT components. As a result, France is modernizing the Rafale, Germany is buying the F-35, and Italy is joining the British GCAP project. Instead of a single runway, there are three parallel roads. And this is against the background of a real war in the center of the continent.
Even the centralized decision to purchase ammunition for Ukraine through the EDA in 2023 fell apart at the time of implementation: contracts appeared only a few months later. Because they argued about everything – from the caliber to the factory. And while Europe was issuing press releases, Ukraine was buying shells through intermediaries.
In addition, bureaucracy slows down everything. In the EU, every defense decision goes through national governments, parliamentary hearings, tenders and approvals. Contract for rockets – from 6 to 18 months. UAV contract – up to a year. While in Ukraine, losses at the front are counted every day. According to the European Commission, in 2021 only 11% of defense purchases were made in cooperation between member countries, in 2022 – already 7%. Even after the invasion, after the creation of funds like the European Defense Fund or ACT, each country continues to buy its own – for itself.
Strategic funds sound nice, but in reality it’s often about patching holes, not increasing capacity. Germany announced about 100 billion euros for defense. But the vast majority of funds went to pay off old obligations – salaries, repair of existing equipment, modernization of documentation. There are no new factories or lines for the mass production of projectiles.
Back in 2023, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg directly admitted: “We lost time. We acted too slowly. And now we need to radically change the pace of defense production.” But the pace does not change. Because politicians still fear not defeat, but the loss of electoral loyalty. They seek consensus, not solutions. They think about elections, not about mobilization. And that is why EU armies exist mostly on paper. And factories are waiting for decisions, instead of working in three shifts.
For Ukraine, this means only one thing: supply instability. At best – delays. At worst, equipment without ammunition. The PzH 2000 is a great gun, but without parts it’s just a trophy. Caesar is highly accurate, but the caliber is French. Archer is reliable, but there are less than a dozen of them. This mosaic does not form an army. Either she will be the only one – or she won’t be there at all.
Europe has a chance. Potential, production, technologies, funds – everything is there. But this is not enough. Because war is not fought on presentations. War is fought with steel, explosives, armor. And if the EU does not go into mobilization mode, Russia will not see an army in front of it. She will see the exhibition – a museum of military traditions that are not capable of waging a joint war.
…Next time, we will continue the discussion of key issues shaping the modern security architecture of Europe. First of all, let’s pay attention to the effectiveness of coordination within the EU and NATO: how well European countries act in response to common challenges, whether the initiative of joint procurement of weapons and standardization works in practice, or whether it remains rather declarative. Consider the combat capability of the armies themselves: why do most European armies remain understaffed, how serious is the personnel crisis, and what prevents it from being solved – lack of funding, lack of motivation or institutional inertia?
We will separately consider the dynamics of defense budgets in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland. We will analyze what factors inhibit decision-making at the state level: political will, pressure of public opinion, European bureaucracy or internal contradictions. This logically leads to the question of the concept of “strategic autonomy” – what it really means in the context of defense, who supports it, who blocks it, and what has already been done, in particular, regarding the creation of the European Defense Fund, the deployment of the Rapid Response Force and other institutions.
A separate focus will be the role of Great Britain after Brexit: how its military and political presence in Europe has changed, whether it retains influence and initiative, or, on the contrary, is gradually losing leverage, turning into a weak link. Let’s not overlook the general attitude of EU societies to the prospects of a “war economy”: are the citizens of European countries ready for increased spending on the army, potential mobilization, and how politicians try to communicate, explain and legitimize it in the eyes of voters.
In the end, let’s turn to the key question: how realistic are European analysts’ estimates that the EU could restrain Putin on its own? Is European defense really able to function without the American shoulder, and what does the balance of power look like in the long term – both at the level of technology, resources, and political unity?
Tetyana Viktorova
