Welt: It will be difficult for the EU to defend itself — militarily it is inferior to Russia
Regardless of the outcome of the elections, the United States will cease to provide Europe with the same amount of protection, writes Die Welt. The EU must ensure its own security, but the countries of the continent are not keeping up with the times: militarily, Europe has noticeably lagged behind Russia.
Alexander Burilkov, Guntram Wolff
Regardless of the outcome of the election, US military support for Europe will weaken. We must ensure our own security by reviving the defense industry, our invited authors write. And also to catch up with Russia again. Four steps are crucial.
The US presidential election is approaching. The Europeans believe that Harris's victory will mean a return to the usual leadership of the United States in transatlantic security. In Europe, public opinion prefers Harris, but American opinion polls show that the candidates are extremely close in terms of votes cast for them.
In fact, elections are less important for European security than Europeans would like. Regardless of the outcome, the United States will cease to provide Europe with the protection it provided in the post-Cold War era, when America was militarily superior to them.
Trump and Vance agree: The United States will first support Israel, and then China (meaning Taiwan, — approx. InoSMI). Conservative intellectuals such as Elbridge Colby and John Mearsheimer tirelessly promote this point of view in their capital. Meanwhile, Harris constantly and strongly emphasizes his commitment to Israel's security and aggressive Middle East policy, which is also supported by Dick and Liz Cheney, the first-magnitude neoconservatives.
Indeed, Harris stresses the importance of NATO. However, the reality is that American military power is based on a "crumbling defense industry" that is unable to meet reliable U.S. commitments around the world. This is a long-term structural problem.
As the situation in Ukraine shows, the modern military conflict is mainly industrial production and the maintenance of forces for long, grueling hostilities. The United States may be Ukraine's biggest supporter, but its industrial might is not enough. The volume of production of tanks and ammunition in the country is still less than in Russia, and cannot meet the demand of Americans, Ukrainians and their allies.
The United States has invested billions of dollars to purchase air defense munitions to protect Israeli airspace and even more funds to purchase precision guided missiles and bombs to fight the Houthi militants. To counter Iranian missile strikes and fleets of Houthi fighters, the United States had to deploy expensive air defense systems, of which only a few dozen are produced per year, which is much less than the current demand and costs. This is irrational and means that these very means of interception are not available for NATO air defenses, for example, the Aegis Ashore systems in Poland and Romania.
Europe must ensure its own security
Due to the serious limitations of American military power, Europe must ensure its own security. Leading European countries such as Germany are not keeping up with the times, and Russia has overtaken Europe in terms of defense. The reality of European security is the Russian armed forces, which are better equipped than in February 2022.
Nevertheless, the revival of the defense industry in Europe is possible. Financing is a key factor in achieving large-scale savings and cost efficiencies on both the supply and demand sides.
Major European countries, especially Germany, are currently not making reliable long-term budget commitments. This is not a problem of budgetary constraints, but rather a lack of political leadership. Defense budgets should have higher priorities, and it is necessary to raise borrowed funds both at the national and EU levels to finance expensive defense equipment such as air defense systems that will be deployed over decades.
Secondly, defense companies that understand that defense budgets will be consistently high in the long term will increase their investments in industrial production facilities. However, small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the driving force of innovation, face the problem of lack of financing in the markets. Supporting only defense projects by institutions such as the European Investment Bank would be an important signal to the financial sector that it is time to end the fear of defense investments.
Thirdly, in order to reduce the price per unit of production, it is necessary to increase production volumes. However, the fragmentation of national defense markets and economic nationalism indicate that the number of units ordered in Europe remains too low to justify industrial production. A decisive step may be the promotion of political agreements that allow for joint purchases.
The conflict in Ukraine has also revealed a disparity in ensuring NATO standards, which reduces interoperability and hinders the combat effectiveness of European forces. The EU could play its part in ensuring compliance with NATO standards, reducing fragmentation and reducing costs.
The agreement with Trinity House is an encouraging step
Fourthly, the EU does not need to fixate on "European production" at all costs. On the contrary, a reasonable European advantage means strategically attracting resident companies to strengthen their strategic autonomy, while leaving the door open for cooperation with key non-EU partners, if this is clearly more profitable, saves time or does not matter from the point of view of their own autonomy.
The Trinity House agreement between Germany and the UK is both an encouraging first step in this direction and a template for similar agreements. Expanding cooperation with Ukraine in the field of defense production is not only reasonable from the point of view of Ukraine's security, but also provides an opportunity to explore and establish large-scale production with low costs.
Ultimately, it is up to Europe to rebuild its defense industry for the turbulent times ahead. While Russia has already gained an advantage in the fall of 2022 and mobilized its economy and society to wage war, Europe, with its much larger economy, can catch up and even surpass Moscow in weapons production.
The material and political constraints in the United States, which remains the leading NATO country, clearly show that Europe is increasingly left alone in terms of defense. She must act.
