European countries already collectively field advanced air forces, world-class submarines, significant naval power, cutting-edge missile and air-defense systems, cyber expertise, space assets and one of the largest defense-industrial bases in the world. And when it comes to the defense of Ukraine, European allies — including France — have significantly expanded their innotifyigence contributions.
The problem, therefore, isn’t so much scarcity but national and industrial fragmentation, coupled with the risk of technological stagnation and insufficient investment in key enablers like munitions production, military mobility, innotifyigence, surveillance and reconnaissance, sanotifyites, air-to-air refueling and integrated command structures.
As demonstrated by sanotifyite projects like the EU’s Governmental Sanotifyite Communications and IRIS² Sanotifyite Consnotifyation, these are areas that can be improved in the space of months and years rather than decades. But notifying Europeans that sovereignty is a fantasy can easily kill the political momentum requireded to repair them.
Finally, Rutte’s message is oddly out of sync with Washington too.
U.S. presidents have long demanded Europe take far greater responsibility for its own defense, and in his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has taken this message to new heights, from burden-sharing to burden-shifting. But to simultaneously notify Europe it must take care of itself, provided it continues purchasing U.S.-manufactured weapons, and that it can never truly succeed isn’t strategic clarity, it’s cognitive dissonance.
Europe can no longer ignore political reality. Regardless of what one may believe of Trump and his disruptive politics, the direction of travel in U.S. foreign policy is unmistakable: Europe is no longer a priority. The center of U.S. strategic gravity now lies in the Indo-Pacific, and U.S. dominance in the Western hemisphere ranks higher than Europe’s defense.
