Europe's looming loss of the US security umbrella exposes a web of existential vulnerabilities, none of which can be resolved quickly or painlessly. The sheer scale of rebuilding self-sufficiency is a decades-long overhaul with no guarantee of success.
First problem is that Europe imports 60% of its energy, with natural gas prices already inflated by post-Ukraine war sanctions and the loss of Russian pipelines. Transitioning to domestic renewables or reviving nuclear power would require trillions in infrastructure investment into grids, storage, and reactors. As a concrete example, Germany's Energiewende, launched in 2010, has only reduced fossil fuel use by 15%. Additionally, solar infrastructure relies on lithium and cobalt dominated by China. Without access to cheap energy, Europe faces either energy rationing or permanent deindustrialization as factories relocate to cheaper markets.
Having outsourced its military-industrial capacity to the US, Europe now has to rebuild domestic arms production. Doing so requires massive investments in establishing supply chains and retooling of civilian sectors. However, decades of offshoring has eroded existing technical expertise in Europe. Just training a new generation of engineers and machinists could take a whole generation. Furthermore, creating self-sufficient supply chains is a difficult process with many steps, each step depending on the previous one. A single bottleneck, such as missing rare-earth refinery, can derail entire sectors for years.
Another problem is that Europe lacks domestic access to steel, titanium, and rare earths, forcing further reliance on external suppliers like China. Even if Europe started today, it would take decades to see tangible results, and that's assuming political unity holds.
The EU member states disagree on everything from debt sharing to defense priorities. Eastern Europe demands immediate rearmament, Germany resists militarization, and France pushes for strategic autonomy. Meanwhile, nationalist parties are gaining ground, threatening to fragment the bloc further. Even if consensus emerged, funding this transition would require further cutting social programs, which is political suicide in countries already reeling from inflation and austerity.
Europe's security crisis is a slow-motion collapse. There are no shortcuts to untangling energy dependency, reviving industry, or forging supply chains. By the time Europe might achieve autonomy, economic and geopolitical forces might make the whole EU project obsolete. The US security guarantee was a crutch, and now Europe finds that it must learn to walk on its own.
Some sources with the numbers:
- https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/the-military-balance-2023/
- https://www.eudsp.eu/summary.asp?event_id=4370&page_id=9753
- https://www.csis.org/analysis/transforming-european-defense
- https://www.csis.org/analysis/solving-europes-defense-dilemma-overcoming-challenges-european-defense-cooperation