The task is monumental – requiring not just 300,000 new troops, but also thousands of vehicles, advanced cyber security systems, counter-drone technologies, and space-based capabilities. We're not talking about incremental improvements; we're looking at order-of-magnitude increases in capacity.
Image credits: European Defence Agency
The stark reality is that Europe's defense industrial base, optimized for peacetime efficiency, must now transform to meet wartime-scale demands. This isn't just about producing more of the same, but also about simultaneously developing and scaling up production across conventional, cyber, and space domains while ensuring interoperability across 27 member states.
Recent drone attacks deep inside Russian territory serve as a sobering reminder of the rapidly evolving nature of modern warfare. The ability to detect, defend against, and counter such threats requires new capabilities and entirely new technological paradigms – and we need them yesterday.
The most immediate challenge isn't technological but bureaucratic. At a recent industry roundtable, a major defense manufacturer revealed that opening a new production facility in Europe would take them five years, explains Séverin Schnepp, associate director for European Affairs in Terma, – with three and a half years just for paperwork related to sustainability and green legislation.
While environmental and safety regulations serve crucial purposes, the current regulatory framework reflects peacetime thinking. We're operating in a gray zone between peace and war, where traditional approval processes could become strategic vulnerabilities. The European Defense Industry Program aims to address these challenges, but implementation remains complex.
The procurement process itself presents another bottleneck. Defense companies can't justify investing billions in new production facilities without guaranteed orders, yet individual nations often can't provide the scale of orders needed to trigger such investments. This chicken-and-egg problem requires innovative solutions at the European level.
"We are not at war, we are not at peace, we are somewhere in between. The regulatory framework has become so complex that it does not allow for flexibility,” Schnepp argues.
A promising approach emerging from this challenge is the concept of geographic clustering – where regions specialize in specific defense capabilities. The Nordic countries, for instance, already collaborate extensively through Nordefco, ensuring interoperability and efficient resource allocation.
The EU is rolling out ambitious funding mechanisms to support this transformation. The SAFE instrument proposes to raise €150 billion through joint loans, while the European Defense Industrial Programme aims to incentivize joint procurement. These initiatives could help aggregate demand across multiple nations, providing the scale needed to justify major industrial investments.
However, success requires careful balancing of national interests with European-level efficiency. Every member state naturally wants to maintain sovereign defense capabilities, yet complete national self-sufficiency is neither practical nor desirable in modern warfare.
"No country alone can tackle the problems or situations we are in at the moment. Cooperation is the solution – but smart cooperation is about how we organize ourselves to make the best out of it,” says Schnepp.
Success in this rapid scaling effort relies on several key factors. First, regulatory frameworks must be streamlined without compromising essential safety and environmental standards. The recently presented defense omnibus package aims at easing and simplifying the EU regulatory environment for the defense sector to be able to produce in time and volume what is needed by the Armed Forces.
Second, demand aggregation mechanisms must be strengthened. The industry needs clear signals about future orders to justify major investments in new production capacity. This requires unprecedented coordination between national defense ministries and EU-level institutions.
"If you need to open a new production facility tomorrow, you also need your investors and board to have the orders coming in. You're not going to invest millions and billions without making sure that you have something to produce,” says Schnepp.
Finally, interoperability can't be an afterthought. As we rush to scale up production, ensuring that systems can work together across national boundaries becomes even more critical. This requires strong technical standards and collaborative development processes from the outset.
The clock is ticking toward 2030 – the target year for European rearming – and the challenges are immense. Yet with focused effort and innovative solutions, Europe's defense industry can transform to meet these unprecedented demands. The alternative – failing to scale up in time – is simply not an option.