Europe is spending more on defense than at any point in its modern history. NATO’s European members have raised budgets, launched new procurement programs, and accelerated rearmament.
But the real question isn’t how much money is being spent, it’s whether that money is building real capability. Defense readiness does not come from budget execution alone; it comes from direction, speed, and technological superiority.
The geopolitical reality is sobering: The United States remains an indispensable ally, but it is no longer the automatic backbone of European security. Washington’s strategic focus is shifting, to put it mildly. The US defense industrial base is stretched, and some might say buckling.
Europeans must be able to secure their own continent to reinforce and reshape NATO. That requires European-owned intelligence, command‑and‑control and communications systems, a European air and missile defense architecture, resilient European cyber and space capabilities, and shared logistics, as well as ammunition production. Without these strategic enablers, Europe remains dependent, vulnerable, and politically exposed.
This is why Europeans in NATO must spend their money in a way that makes them strategically autonomous, industrially capable, and technologically leading. The goal of Europe First is a European pillar strong enough to carry its share of the burden and to do so with confidence.
The moment is unusually favorable: Europe can build a counterweight to US military power with American investors and American capital, because the demand for defense innovation, dual‑use technologies, and resilient supply chains is transatlantic. Strategic necessity and market logic point in the same direction.
Technology is the decisive factor. Modern warfare is software‑driven, networked, and brutally fast. The side that equips its frontline forces more rapidly with drones, AI, sensors, robotics, and digital communications wins.
Europe has the talent, the companies, and the research networks; what it lacks is a mechanism to turn innovation into deployable capability at speed. Today, procurement cycles often last longer than a full technology cycle. That is strategically reckless and economically wasteful.
Europe needs an Innovation and Enabler Quota, starting now. At least 10% of all European defense procurement spending should be dedicated to disruptive technologies and to the strategic enablers that underpin European sovereignty. This quota should grow annually, reaching 30% by 2030.
These funds must support both sides of the equation: drones and autonomous systems, AI‑enabled command systems, hypersonic and deep‑strike capabilities, and, equally, satellite‑based intelligence and secure digital communications, integrated air defense, and shared European logistics and ammunition systems. Technology and enablers are inseparable. Together, they form the backbone of a sovereign European defense economy.
But innovation requires speed. That is why the Innovation and Enabler Quota must be executed through a fast‑track lane, a dedicated mechanism with its own agency, budget, and personnel.
It must operate outside the slow, traditional procurement rules that delay even basic acquisitions. Fast track means months instead of years, prototypes instead of PowerPoint, spiral development instead of monolithic mega‑projects, and close cooperation with start‑ups, scale‑ups, and civilian tech companies.
Europe can only lead technologically if it brings the pace of the civilian tech world into its defense sector.
A modern defense economy cannot be built by government ministries and bureaucracies alone; it requires a “Team Europe” approach, a strategic alliance of governments, armed forces, industry, finance, and research.
This approach lowers investment barriers, strengthens public acceptance of the defense sector, and keeps industrial value creation in Europe. Europeans must act as anchor investors in their own security, not as bystanders.
Europe will not become defense‑ready simply because it spends more money. It will become defense‑ready when it spends strategically on sovereignty, on technology, and on speed.
Nico Lange is the founder and director of IRIS (Institute for Risk-Analysis and International Security) and a Senior Fellow at CEPA.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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