We need to make good on our pledge to invest more in defense.
Kaja Kallas is the prime minister of Estonia.
Sixteen months of war in Ukraine have revealed strategic opportunities and challenges for transatlantic security and European defense. With the European Council and NATO’s Summit in Vilnius lying just ahead, the time to lift our defense up to match the demands of the new security reality is now — because later may be too late.
Prompted by Estonia, the European Union recently decided to provide a million artillery rounds to Ukraine by March 2024. This is highly important assistance for Ukraine and, simultaneously, an incremental step toward ramping up the European defense industry’s output, and a demonstration of where common resolve and action can take us.
Russian aggression has reminded us that together, we can accomplish difficult things. However, it is equally true that when it comes to making Europe combat-effective, we are still under-delivering.
Europe’s battle-decisive ammunition stocks and enabling capabilities are not enough for the Continent’s new security realities, and our defense industry has failed to adapt rapidly. Our ability to support, defend and swiftly ramp up our defenses is critically limited. And as European leaders, it is our responsibility to turn this around rapidly because as things stand, we are unable to keep our promise of protecting our populations and ensure the ability to defend every inch of Europe at all times.
But how did we end up here?
We are currently facing the consequences of decades-long underinvestment into European defense. The EU’s combined defense expenditure as a share of GDP peaked at 1.6 percent in 2005, and it is still struggling to recover from the substantial cuts that followed, meaning that agreed defense spending targets remain just that — distant targets.
From a global perspective, EU defense spending is lagging well behind as well. From 1999 to 2021, the bloc’s combined defense spending increased by 19.7 percent against 65.7 percent for the United States, 292 percent for Russia and 592 percent for China, with disparities in purchasing power further adding to this imbalance in Russia’s and China’s favor.
Inflation and structural cost increases also bite deep into our limited nominal growth. Roughly 20 cents per each euro dedicated to defense make it into R&D and procurement — investments that meaningfully improve our ability to defend. And though it is a key readiness and deterrence asset, ammunition receives a mere fraction of investments. Thus, serious improvement of Europe’s defense remains dangerously elusive.
Europe needs to match the security realities it is faced with today. Russia’s aggression, bringing war to NATO’s borders for the first time in history, has set significantly higher benchmarks for what is enough. And accordingly, our strategic capacity requires a serious increase, and our defense industry needs to adjust to a wartime footing.
We need a combat-effective Europe, able to provide for its own defense. This is the only way to build deterrence by denial that would be credible enough to avoid war and stop Russia’s cycle of aggression.
Since the invasion began, we have seen Russia fire Europe’s monthly artillery production in a single day in Ukraine. Capacity and sustainability will determine the outcome of this war. Deep precision strikes, air defense and anti-tank weaponry have all proved crucial for Ukraine, but to sustain it, ammunition is constantly and desperately needed.
Our defense planning for the future must take this into consideration. Instead of a few days’ supply, we should think about ammunition stocks in terms of months of supply. Ten days of land-war capacity for 100 brigades of European allies comes at the price of €100 billion — and this is only for mechanized infantry needs. Europe needs to replenish stocks of all categories of battle-decisive munitions, which translates to several trillions of euros in cost.
A capable technological and industrial base remains a prerequisite for this. Long-term procurement commitments from European governments can help solve this pressing issue, allowing European defense companies to build output and capacity.
However, timing and speed matter. In 1933, there was a lack of political support for spending more on defense in Estonia, and a tenfold boost in military spending in 1939 came too late for us to defend ourselves from attack and the occupation that followed. Last year in Versailles, the European Council made a pledge to invest more in defense, focusing on identified strategic shortfalls — and that commitment must now be turned into action.
By the time allies convene in Washington to celebrate NATO’s 75th anniversary next summer, we Europeans must demonstrate that we have made a strategic leap not only in our thinking but also in real deliverables.
I know from experience how difficult it is for democratically elected leaders to argue for increasing spending. In Estonia, we are increasing defense spending to 3 percent of GDP while my government is also raising taxes. But Europe has pulled itself up before. Tackling the pandemic recovery with a €806.9 billion NextGenerationEU investment and mitigating the impact of the energy crisis with over €758 billion are just two recent examples of this.
Now, another EU-wide strategic effort is needed — this time focused on defense readiness. The EU needs to make good on its pledge, demonstrate leadership and increase its geopolitical weight. Where individual efforts fall short, unity must step forward to assist.
