That means spending big, but wisely, on satellites, intelligence networks and the like, write Nico Lange and Fabrice Pothier
Illustration: Dan Williams
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E urope is running out of time. With the talks in Abu Dhabi between America, Russia and Ukraine taking place with minimal European input, the clock is ticking. During the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, European governments were trying to buy time to build out their own defences. The latest crisis over Greenland has changed that calculus dramatically.
America’s retreat from and hostility to the transatlantic security architecture mean the ground is shifting faster than European governments can adapt. They have helped Ukraine survive. Survival, however, is different from security. If the continent wants lasting stability in the decade ahead, it must confront an uncomfortable reality: Europe remains heavily dependent on America for the systems that make modern warfare work.
Europe has manpower, armour, aircraft and, increasingly, political will. What it lacks are the “strategic enablers” that bind these assets into a credible fighting force: satellites, intelligence networks, electronic warfare and long-range strike capabilities. These crucial elements remain overwhelmingly American.
This dependence matters now. European nato members are finally spending serious money on defence. But if new funds simply reinforce existing nato plans built on an American backbone, Europe will remain a security consumer rather than a provider.
That is why the surge in defence spending must be used largely to build a European backbone of strategic enablers, drawing on European technology, industry and co-ordination. Supporting Ukraine and building these capabilities are not competing objectives. They are the same project. The systems Europe needs for its own defence are those Ukraine needs to survive.
Consider space. Modern warfare depends on satellites for imagery, secure communications, navigation and early warning. America operates roughly 250 dedicated military satellites. Europe has around 50, many designed for narrow national missions rather than a shared purpose.
Satellites are the operating system of modern defence. They enable three essentials: seeing, connecting and timing. Ukraine’s experience underlines this. Without Western satellite support—mostly American—Ukraine would struggle to track Russian forces, co-ordinate units or defend its airspace. Europe faces the same constraint. Without sovereign space assets, it cannot act independently in a crisis.
Europe’s commercial space sector is thriving. But unless defence budgets are used to create a shared European space architecture, Europe will continue to operate with limited awareness and borrowed resilience. Providing Ukraine with European satellite data and communications should serve as a proving ground for systems Europe itself must ultimately rely on.
If space provides the strategic overview, isr (for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) delivers operational clarity. Satellites show what is happening; isr explains what it means. This includes drones, signal-intercept aircraft and electronic sensors. Increasingly, it also includes civilian infrastructure—from highway cameras to acoustic sensors—capable of detecting sabotage, troop movements or drone incursions. Open-source intelligence, from social media to ship-tracking data, now complements these tools by allowing real-time verification.
Electronic warfare (EW) adds another critical layer, and one Europe lacks at scale. It allows forces to jam communications, disrupt drones and protect their own systems from interference. In Ukraine it has become decisive.
Europe is not short of ideas. Across the continent, startups are developing sophisticated ew systems, from anti-drone jammers to mobile electronic-attack platforms. The weakness lies in integration. Defence ministries struggle to identify viable technologies, and procurement systems move too slowly to adopt them. Deploying these tools in Ukraine offers the fastest way to test, refine and scale them—while building Europe’s own ew ecosystem.
Debates about Europe’s security often focus on long-range missiles. Existing systems are highly capable, but mostly American and made in small numbers—and at great cost. Modern warfare, as Ukraine shows daily, is a contest of endurance. It requires strike systems that are accurate, cheap and simple enough to produce in huge quantities. Ukraine has improvised such capabilities with low-cost drones and missiles that reach behind enemy lines.
Europe has the industrial base to do the same. Carmakers, robotics firms and advanced manufacturers already produce high-precision components at scale and low cost. They know how to manufacture millions of units reliably—something traditional defence contractors find it hard to do. Linking these industries with Europe’s defence startups and missile designers could yield long-range strike systems in the quantities modern conflict demands.
Helping Ukraine develop and field these systems would accelerate learning, enable industrialisation and reduce Europe’s reliance on American cruise missiles and bombers. This agenda presents an opportunity. Europe has the money, the tech and the industrial capacity. What it lacks is urgency and co-ordination.
A Europe with its own space backbone, its own intelligence and EW capabilities and its own mass-produced long-range strike systems would shape events rather than just respond to them. It would be a stronger partner for America—not a dependent one—and better placed to deter threats before they reach its borders.
Helping Ukraine and strengthening Europe are the same task. Europe has shown solidarity. Now it needs to show spine. ■
Nico Lange is the founder of IRIS and a former German defence chief of staff. Fabrice Pothier is the chief executive of Rasmussen Global and a former NATO head of policy and planning.