About ten years ago, I spoke with a friend from Austria. They were visiting the U.S. and we had the typical “Second Amendment” conversation that we usually have with Europeans. Then we talked about NATO and how Europe has been riding for free, i.e. very low, if any, military spending. I politely pressed them and they admitted that they couldn’t afford all that “free stuff” if they had to build their military. And then the lady joked about depending on the U.S. to protect them.
Well, it may be time for Europe to come to terms with reality. First, they are very vulnerable to Russia today and China down the road. Second, the U.S. wants a fair deal and not provide a free lunch for everyone.
It’s refreshing to see that some voices in Europe are sounding the same theme. This is from an editorial on the Financial Times:
“If Europe wants to avoid war, Europe must get ready for war,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said in March. Most European countries have finally confronted the need to spend big on rearmament, and started to mobilise the financing.
Now they need to spend the money wisely. They must avoid the trap of preparing to fight the last war, and instead leapfrog ahead in developing the technologies needed to fight, or hopefully deter, the next one.
Thank you, Ursula. Thank you for reminding your fellow Europeans of what President Washington said years ago: “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”
So when do you start making the tanks and bombs? Or drones, as the FT article points out:
Drones — in the air, on land and underwater — are now among the most effective weapons. The Royal United Services Institute, a UK think-tank, estimates that they account for roughly two-thirds of damaged and destroyed Russian systems in Ukraine. They have enabled Kyiv’s forces, massively outgunned and outmanned by Russia, to resist full-scale invasion for more than three years and launch effective attacks on their adversary. Cheap drones costing $300 can knock out multimillion-dollar tanks; naval drones have driven the Russian fleet out of much of the Black Sea. Used adroitly and at scale, they can give defensive forces an asymmetric advantage. They can also be used for surveillance and logistical support.
That has lessons for procurement. Western militaries have to switch more defence spending from traditional hardware to drones and software, and from established “primes” — such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Thales and Rheinmetall — to more nimble start-ups such as Anduril and Helsing. But the Ukrainians, and the Russians, have proved adept at building drones even more cheaply, and adapting them more quickly, than western start-ups. So, learning from Ukraine, European countries need to build a flexible ecosystem of defence innovation, including finding ways to adapt cheaper consumer technologies and software.
Okay. I’ll leave the details to those who know something about weapons and military planning. I’m all for defense innovation to fight today’s war. What’s more important is that the Europeans come to terms with the fantasy that they’ve lived for too long. In other words, no one is going to defend you for free if you are not willing to fight for yourself.
So Ursula, get your gun and make sure that everyone else gets theirs too.
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This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
