Europe’s real deterrence capacity will not be judged by how much it spends on defence, but by whether its forces can fight together in a real crisis, argues an EUISS report.
The report, titled Defending Europe, Deterring Russia: Resources, Preparedness and Solutions, stresses that Europe’s deterrence capabilities do not depend on following a single EU solution, but on moving from parallel national armies to “truly integrated operational systems”.
The most obvious path is towards a more “Europeanized” NATO, since the alliance is already the established framework through which European collective defense is organized. But The authors emphasize the importance of deepening multinational military cooperation to generate a posture capable of replacing the US role.
For the EUISS, increased coordination is no longer enough, and European nations must deliberately expand bilateral and multilateral cooperation across the spectrum of military capabilities, ensuring that interoperability “becomes the default, not the exception.”
Collaboration must be tailored to work. For assets such as airborne early warning and control systems, intelligence platforms and satellites, pooling and joint ownership arrangements are considered the most efficient option, given their high cost and centralized utility.
On the other hand, front-line combat systems such as rocket artillery or armored formations are better suited to integration through joint logistics, joint training and coordinated operational planning than full structural integration, EUISS senior policy analyst Luigi Scazzieri underlined.
European countries can already see examples of this trend, from Belgian-Dutch naval cooperation in procurement, training and logistics to the pooling of air transport and air-to-air fuel through the European Air Transport Command (EATC).
At the more ambitious end, agreements such as the incorporation of Dutch mechanized soil forces in German structures and the increasing integration of Nordic air forces illustrate a deeper operational convergence. Therefore, the report calls for the scaling up of established and new cooperation models.
A key element will be greater stability in European command arrangements, allowing them to plan and conduct operations with far less US support. This process is already underway, where the most obvious examples are that transfer of command responsibility to Italy in Naples and to Great Britain in Norfolk.
The end point would be an alliance in which the Europeans provide the backbone, with the US no longer serving as the necessary framework nation.
The urgency of this agenda is underscored by Russia’s evolving military posture, the EUISS says. Despite significant battlefield losses in Ukraine, Moscow has adapted its armed forces, expanded its industrial mobilization, and refined a hybrid and lean fighting style.
(in, au)
