Given that Europeans do not get to vote in US federal elections, and European governments are having less and less influence over the direction of strategy in Washington, they need to reset their strategic mentality. Along with the long-standing military dependency on the US has come, for many Europeans, an intellectual dependency on Washington. The cost of Europe’s outsourcing of its defence to America, apart from the industrial damage it has caused, is a laziness and cautiousness in strategic affairs. Those US officials and commentators who are tired of Europe’s dependency are right, even if they find the prospect of losing defence contracts to European competitors worrying. It will take time for Europeans to develop their own strategic awareness, but the early signs are that Europe is heading in this direction. There are grounds for optimism, with defence industries boosting manufacturing, more capabilities filling military inventories and defence investment at a new high.
This article is part of the project launched by the Observatoire Europe, whose director is Bruno Dupré.
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