Europe will likely need until the early 2030s to develop some of the critical defense enablers needed to deter or defeat Russia without the United States, according to security researchers and experts surveyed by Defense News. Establishing robust air and missile defenses, a priority for both NATO and the European Union, may still take five to 10 years, according to the analysts. Europe is better positioned in areas such as strategic airlift and aerial refueling, where it has sufficient capability to stand alone or can close the gap within a few years, based on the assessments. The U.S., through NATO, provides high-end capabilities critical for effective combat operations, such as command and control (C2), satellite intelligence and deep strike, which European allies either lack or field only in a limited capacity. With American security guarantees seen uncertain amid deteriorating trans-Atlantic ties, Europe faces a multiyear effort to address its dependencies. “There are areas in which the Europeans have zero meaningful capability, there are a few areas in which the Europeans own an arguably adequate capability today but for which the issue is one of replacement, and there some areas in which scale, not quality, is the issue,” said François Heisbourg, special adviser at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research. Beyond transport and tanker aircraft, the areas where Europe is closest to having sufficient capability are military satellite communications, battlefield C2, unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and long-range strike, based on the assessment of 16 experts from European think tanks and institutions. Those capabilities can be in place within five years, a majority said.

...

“We need to invest, obviously, in our air defense capabilities and all that, but the notion that you can deter a country like Russia with only defensive capabilities strikes me as a bit naive,” said Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank. “So you really have to have offensive capabilities and that means, at the end of the day, deep strike capabilities.”

It’s a view shared by countries including Denmark and Norway, with the former saying in September it needs long-range strike to bolster its deterrence posture, and the latter in January announcing the purchase of Hanwha’s Chunmoo rocket artillery system, including munitions with a range of up to 500 kilometers. France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom said in February some projects within their joint European Long-range Strike Approach, or ELSA, are at a “high level of maturity,” including an air-launched long-range strike capability. The U.K. and Germany announced in May last year they would work on a new long-range strike capability with a range of over 2,000 km. Europe doesn’t have a lot of systems that can shoot beyond 500 kilometers, said Chris Kremidas-Courtney, a senior visiting fellow at the Brussels-based European Policy Center and NATO advisor. Central Moscow is around 585 kilometers from the eastern-most point of Latvia. “If we can’t reach out and touch Moscow, then there’s not a lot to give Mr. Putin and his friends a lot of pause,” said Kremidas-Courtney, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “In a multi-polar world, if you can’t touch the other poles, you’re not really a pole. The sooner we have our own deep strike capability, the better.” Europe needs its own intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and has the know-how to produce them through French rocket maker ArianeGroup, according to Kremidas-Courtney. “There’s not a lot of people making this stuff, at least no one that is friendly to us,” the researcher said. “I’m pretty sure we could figure this out. It’s just a gigantic price tag.” The surveyed analysts were relatively optimistic about Europe’s long-range strike timeline, with six considering it will take less than two years to have adequate capability, while another six assess it will take between two and five years.

Space-based ISR and integrated air and missile defense are the areas of greatest pessimism, with half of the survey respondents considering Europe will need more than five years to get those enablers in place at a sufficient level. European air-defense readiness “depends on what we’re taking about,” said Héloïse Fayet, research fellow at the French Institute of International Relations and head of its deterrence and proliferation program. Full strategic integrated air and missile defense for the whole European territory would be “totally impossible to put in place,” she said. What’s unclear is whether the U.S. recalibrating its presence in Europe would mean withdrawing Aegis Ashore air-defense sites and other systems, according to Fayet. She noted recent progress on the French-Italian SAMP/T system, and said Europe could get more Patriot systems, at the cost of reinforcing dependency on the United States. Europe will be able to field sufficient air-defense capability within two years to defeat threats such as cruise missiles and Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal missile, but western systems for now are unable to stop ballistic missiles such as the Oreshnik, said Frédéric Mauro, an associate research fellow at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs. European countries have started to address some of the air-defense gaps, ordering $18 billion worth of short- and very-short-range air defense systems since 2022, compared to $7.5 billion spent on all types of ground-based air defense in the preceding four years, the according to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies published Feb. 24.

For space-based ISR, the assessment is less stark than a year ago, when a clear majority of respondents expected sufficient capability to be more than five years away. In the latest survey, half of the analysts expect it will take less time. ... The U.S. halting intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March 2025 brought home the risk to European allies of relying on American space data, prompting a flurry of investment in proprietary capabilities. Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany and France all announced plans to acquire satellite-based intelligence in the past year, much of it focused on space-based radar. Getting systems into orbit isn’t enough, with Europe short of trained personnel with expertise in exploiting signals intelligence, according to Kremidas-Courtney. “We have to train people in analysis and exploitation of this stuff to convert intelligence into targeting data, something you can make decisions with,” Kremidas-Courtney said. “We’re still failing to recruit enough of the people we need to be trained to run all these things.” Europe also needs to start coordinating in space-based intelligence if it wants to stop relying on the U.S., according to the EPC researcher. With space-based ISR among the most sovereign capabilities of member states, “that will remain fragmented, but it doesn’t mean we have to be blind.”

Several analysts noted battlefield command and control as another priority. The terms refers to the processes through which commanders coordinate and monitor resources and actions on the battlefield ... . The European need to build up battlefield command and control “depends on whether NATO operational structures stay once the U.S. is gone, or not willing to intervene,” said Fayet at IFRI. “France has some C2 capabilities when operating in small coalitions, but it might be difficult on a bigger scale.” Without American command and control, Europe would struggle with things such as coordinated fires and distributed fires through distributed operations, according to Kremidas-Courtney. “Between the French and the German systems, I think we could cobble together a system to conduct land warfare, defend European territory,” Kremidas-Courtney said. “We would eventually get it right, but from the beginning, it would be a struggle.” The jury is out on airborne C2 and early warning, with some analysts estimating that NATO’s existing pool of airborne warning and control systems, combined with deliveries of Saab’s GlobalEye, means capacity is sufficient or can be built up rapidly. Others see that taking more than five years.

*Opinions also diverged on suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses, or SEAD/DEAD, with three analysts considering Europe may need more than 10 years to put that in place, and others saying it will take less than two years. “After speaking with air force officers from several European countries, it appears that this is a domain Europeans have quite simply abandoned and must now rebuild from scratch, something that is particularly critical and concerning in the current context,” said Alain de Neve, a researcher at Belgium’s Royal Higher Institute for Defence. Missile early warning is another critical capability Europe lacks, according to Heisbourg at the FRS, who considers that will take two to five years to put in place. France and Germany are working on a project called Joint Early Warning for a European Lookout project, combining satellites to detect missile launches with ground-based radars to track ballistic and cruise missiles. The project is pitched as a European capability to complement U.S. assets, with an initial operating capability by the early 2030s.

The country will also buy fewer Lockheed Martin F-35 jets than initially planned after unit costs of the fighter increased, with the government unwilling to provide the additional budget to maintain to the original number of 36 ordered aircraft, Martin Pfister, the federal councillor for defense, said in a press conference. The U.S. last year reprioritized delivery of Patriot systems amid European support for Ukraine, and Switzerland’s national armaments director was informed in February about possible delays and additional costs, according to Pfister. Based on current information, the delivery schedule will slip four to five years, while the impact of the Middle East conflict on the delay remains unclear for now, Pfister said. Swiss leaders have calculated that the price of the initial 2019 order of Patriot, with a price tag of 2 billion francs, could increase by up to 50% when factoring in the latest delay.

While Switzerland is sticking to Patriot as the central component of its longer-range air defenses, the government has ordered the Federal Department of Defence to “immediately” examine procurement of a second longer-range ground-based air defense system to close existing capability gaps as quickly as possible, according to Pfister. “This second system should preferably be produced in Europe,” Pfister said. “Concretely, this means that it must be a European system or a non-European system manufactured in Europe. That way we will no longer be dependent on a single supply chain or a single country, and will be better able to ensure availability.” The French-Italian SAMP/T system is the only European alternative to Patriot. Denmark in September picked the system developed by Eurosam, a joint venture between Thales and the French and Italian branches of missile maker MBDA. The purchase of a second air-defense system would be submitted to parliament for approval, and would be financed from the regular armed forces budget, according to Pfister.

Regarding Switzerland’s planned F-35 buy, the approved budget of 6 billion Swiss francs (US$7.6 billion) no longer covers the original plan for 36 aircraft, and the government won’t fork out an extra 1.1 billion francs to maintain the number of airframes. He said Switzerland now estimates that with a smaller top-up of roughly 400 million francs, it can buy around 30 jets, though the number isn’t final. Switzerland had been sparring with the U.S. over rising costs for the F-35, with the government’s margin of maneuver limited by the Alpine country’s model of participative democracy, which gives voters an immediate say on spending. The budget for the F-35 deal was only narrowly approved by Swiss voters in 2020, with 50.2% in favor of the purchase. The Federal Council previously diagnosed a current budget shortfall for defense and civilian security authorities to the tune of 31 billion francs. Pending lawmakers’ approval, the catch-up financing plan envisions a value added tax increase of 0.8% over ten years and the creation of a special fund to pay for urgently needed military equipment, officials said following their March 6 cabinet meeting.

The sinking of the Iranian navy frigate IRIS Dena by a US submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka has sparked controversy in the Indo-Pacific, as Australia and India grapple with the impacts of the attack that have dragged both countries into the fallout. AUKUS ally Australia has confirmed that three Australian sailors were on board the nuclear-powered attack submarine when it struck the Iranian frigate, though Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has denied that they took part in the action. The attack left 148 of the IRIS Dena crew dead or missing. “I can confirm also, though, that no Australian personnel have participated in any offensive action against Iran,” Albanese said in a television interview. “These are long-standing third country arrangements that have been in place for a long period of time, and what they do is ensure that Australian Defence Force personnel, where they’re embedded in third countries’ defence assets, they act in accordance with Australian law, with Australian policy, and that, of course, is taking place across the board.” Royal Australian Navy personnel have been rotationally stationed on board the US Navy’s Pearl Harbor-based submarines in preparation for Australia acquiring its own nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS agreement.

There has been criticism in Australia about the presence on Australians on board the submarines during hostilities, with Australian Greens Party Senator David Shoebridge arguing that their presence alone meant that they were involved in the war with Iran. Euan Graham, a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told Breaking Defense that these revelations were “embarrassing,” given that Australia did not consider itself to be involved in the conflict with Iran. And while he doubted if the Australians on board would have actively taken part in the attack without express permission from the Australian government, Graham added that “there is a question about how practically feasible it is for Australian crew to play passive roles given that a nuclear submarine has limited space and all crew members have important onboard functions, even if they are not directly involved in targeting or weapons release.”

Meanwhile, there has also been criticism of the attack from some quarters in India, as the Iranian ship had just taken part in a fleet review and multinational naval exercise in India before its sinking. Opposition Congress Party spokesperson Pawan Khera during a press conference accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of maintaining a “criminal silence” over the killing of its guests in its “front yard.” Graham said that the sinking of the frigate so soon after it had taken part at events in India would have likely irritated the South Asian country and believes that political and military ties between the US and India may be impacted for the duration of the war between the US and Iran. Collin Koh, senior fellow and coordinator of projects (Naval/Maritime Affairs) at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies agreed that domestic pressure could result in strains in the ties between the US and India, although it’s unlikely that it would result in the severing of security ties between both countries. He also told Breaking Defense that the Iranian ship was a legitimate target and did not enjoy immunity just because it had been a guest at a foreign event, and it was not sailing in a location where combat was forbidden under international laws on maritime conflict. “It doesn’t at all fall under any of the categories exempt from attack according to the San Remo Manual (on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea) and the ship is outside the territorial sea of Sri Lanka and nowhere in UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] are there provisions that forbid military actions from taking place,” he said.