Europe at a crossroads: anatomy of an existential challenge

War has returned to the European continent. This is not a metaphor, nor a working hypothesis for military planners: it is a reality that our intelligence services now translate into concrete aggression scenarios against EU and NATO member states. The question is no longer whether Europe must rearm. It is whether Europe is still capable of doing so — and how fast.

MEETING WITH ANDRIUS KUBILIUS, EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR DEFENCE AND SPACE. INTERVIEW BY MÉLANIE BÉNARD-CROZAT AND CAMILLE LÉVEILLÉ

©European Union, 2026

A three-way strategic squeeze

Three pressures are converging simultaneously, and their combination is unprecedented. The first is the Russian threat. A Russia on a war economy that now outpaces us in production across every segment — cruise missiles, artillery shells, armoured vehicles. Not a temporary lag: a systemic gap, and a widening one. The second pressure comes from the United States, and it is perhaps the most structurally significant over the long term. Both the US National Defence Strategy and the so-called NATO 3.0 doctrine now explicitly demand that Europeans take primary responsibility for their own defence. The Indo-Pacific pivot is no longer a slogan: it is being backed by a concrete reallocation of military resources. Washington claims that it will remain in a supporting role, but will no longer serve as the guarantor of first resort. The third pressure flows directly from the war in Iran: American stockpiles have been massively depleted. For several years to come, US defence industry output will be absorbed by restocking those reserves or fulfilling orders from Gulf states. Yet Europe has until now sourced roughly 40% of its defence equipment from the United States. That supply chain is closing de facto, at the very moment when the urgency to rearm is greatest.

Four capability gaps, plainly stated

The weaknesses are known. What is less understood is how deep they run. First, deep precision-strike and very long range: Europe does not produce enough of these systems and remains entirely dependent on American HIMARS. Second, drones: the war in Ukraine has shown that autonomous systems are now measured in the millions; we are starting from a very low base. Third, air and missile defence — Mark Rutte put a number to it himself: according to NATO capability targets, Europe must increase its air defence capacity by 400%. That figure is not in dispute. It should nonetheless send shockwaves through every European capital.

Fragmentation: a chronic institutional disease

The 2024 Draghi Report had the merit of naming the problem clearly: Europe's defence industry is fragmented along national borders to the point of paralysis. This fragmentation is not accidental — it is written into the legal DNA of the European project since the Treaty of Rome, which made defence an exclusively national prerogative. The result: 27 defence priorities, 27 defence budgets, 27 armies, 27 industries. This multiplication generates neither economies of scale nor the capacity to scale up rapidly. The instruments recently put in place — SAFE loans, the EDIP programme — represent genuine progress. But without real political unity, without a strategic centre of gravity capable of speaking with one voice, they will fall short. This is why a European Security Council is not optional — not as yet another institutional layer, but as the precondition for everything else. The proposal builds on the formalisation of the informal E5+ platform into a permanent body of ten to twelve members — permanent and rotating — including the presidents of the Commission and the European Council. Its mandate would not be advisory: it would exist to prepare and accelerate the decisions that current EU treaties make impossible. And its first priority would be Ukraine — because maintaining support for Kyiv without a strengthened decision-making mechanism means risking letting Putin win.

A rapid reaction force: the answer to the question no one is asking yet

The 80,000 to 100,000 American troops stationed in Europe are not merely a political symbol. They form a permanent, interoperable force capable of moving rapidly from one flank of the continent to another. Should the United States begin reducing its troop presence — and all signs point in that direction as evidenced by Donald Trump's announcement to withdraw at least 5,000 of the 36,000 troops stationed in Germany — simply adding up 27 national contingents, with one joint exercise per year, will not replicate that operational quality. An integrated European rapid reaction force is not a federalist ambition: it is a potential functional response to a gap that is already opening. It would not replace national armies — it might fill the space that the Americans might leave behind. Public opinion, for its part, has already decided: 70% of European citizens, particularly in Germany, Spain and Belgium, say they support a common force. They are waiting for their leaders to catch up.

A European defence union: bringing the UK, Norway and Ukraine inside the tent

The institutional question cannot be reduced to EU membership alone. A genuine European Defence Union must extend beyond the Union's borders — to the United Kingdom, to Norway, and ultimately to Ukraine. These are not peripheral partners: they bring battle-tested military and industrial capabilities that few EU member states can match. Excluding them from the core framework in the name of institutional purity would be strategically self-defeating. This vision cuts through the sterile debate between the "NATO camp" and "strategic autonomy" — a false choice that has consumed too much political energy for too long. What matters is not the institutional label, but the operational reality: who can contribute, what they can field, and how quickly. Capability must drive architecture, not the other way around.

IRIS2 and space sovereignty: the short-term emergency

IRIS2 is a major strategic project. Operational from 2029, it will provide Europe with a sovereign satellite communications constellation. But until then, dependence on the United States remains total — space intelligence, tactical communications, AWACS systems, air-to-air refuelling, strategic airlift: capabilities we do not control. GOVSATCOM, which pools existing national systems into a shared network, offers a useful transitional solution — limited in scale and performance, but real. It will need to be extended, including through additional commercial services.

The moment of truth has come

Europe can no longer think of itself as a supplement or a complement to American power. Over the next five to ten years, it must build an autonomous defence architecture — industrial, institutional, operational. The objective is clear: outpace Russia in production, without shifting to a war economy, but by removing every bureaucratic obstacle that still holds back our industry's ramp-up. The path is known. The political will of each member state has yet to be demonstrated.