DSI
Reports & Papers

Summary

Europe must ready itself to be able to defeat (not just defend against) a Russian attack within three-to-five years if not sooner and, as a key bastion of democracy, position itself to compete geopolitically against authoritarians in the long-term. Yet, if Europeans use their ‘Big Bang’ in defence funding to simply pump more money into fulfilling current force plans based on legacy platforms (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, etc) they will likely fail – as they will be running Russia’s race on platform production and risk being dragged into Russia’s type of fight.

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Going beyond the shortcomings of current proposals, the report presents a deeper diagnosis of the critical factors that any European strategy must address – including the problems of Europe’s defence industrial base (DIB) and disruptive shifts in technology and the conduct of warfare. These shifts create serious risks of rapid obsolescence for legacy platforms but also create an opportunity for Europe to turn its military disadvantage into an advantage by embracing change.

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This report proposes that Europeans should adopt a short-term ‘o,set’ strategy and a longer-term ‘competitive strategies’ approach, focused on exploiting and massively scaling emerging defence technologies. The oLset harnesses the commodification of precision networked warfare to rapidly boost combat power and multiply the eLectiveness of existing forces so our democracies can survive Russian attack and coercion. The competitive strategies approach positions Europe to master the coming revolution in military aLairs and thrive, geopolitically in the long term - and requires a ‘net assessment’ capability to inform it.

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Key Takeaways

• Europe is at a crucial moment for its defence. It can choose to embrace the future and secure itself, fast, or stick to old ways and face being timed out of its race to deter the severe and urgent threat from Russia.

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• Europe’s ‘Coalition of the Willing’ must be clear about the immediate challenge they must meet – to be clearly able to defeat Russia and thus deter it from conventional attack, while deterring it from using nuclear weapons, and developing a ‘European Way of War’, based on defending forward and threatening Russia's rear areas to do so. At the same time, they need to prepare Europe to compete geopolitically in the long-term.

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• Europe can play to its strengths in research and industrial capacity by rapidly developing, testing, refining and fielding emerging defence technologies, including mass produced precision strike capabilities, and massively scaling other emerging defence technologies, including for ISR and enabler functions, low-cost air-defence and upgrading legacy equipment through integration into advanced AI-powered battle networks.

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• Europe should institute a ‘New Force and Capability Plan’ supplied by an ‘Accelerated Military Technology and Industrial Capacity Plan’ to quicken development of promising technologies, create partnerships between SMEs and large advanced industrial manufacturers to broaden and diversify its DIB, and incentivise and facilitate private capital flows to emerging technology firms, which can also boost economic growth.

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• In addition to emerging technologies, Europe’s short-to-medium term high-end capability investment in should not be used for old platforms but, rather, ruthlessly focus on: nuclear and non-nuclear strategic and pre-strategic precision strike capabilities; massed precision guided munitions and uncrewed solutions to maximise the power of its air forces, including for suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD) and suppression of enemy air attack (SEAA); and on essential (battlefield, critical, population) air defence for Europe.

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• Ukraine must be integral to European strategy. What happens with Russia’s war in Ukraine will determine the timescale and severity of the threat the rest of Europe faces – and is integral to our future security. The European coalition should treat Ukraine as part of its Eastern flank after any ceasefire ‘deal’ and all opportunities for testing and co-producing emerging defence technologies should be seized.

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Download the full report here