While Europe has increased its defense funding, this alone will not deliver the continent’s defense policy goals, note senior partners David Chinn and Hugues Lavandier and coauthors. As of now, Europe operates more than five times as many weapons systems as the United States across certain categories. To lower costs and help funding go further, European nations might want to ensure greater alignment and collaboration to gain scale.
Image description:
The chart displays illustrations of different military weapons systems, comparing the number and type available in all European countries with those available in the US. A series of images of the weapons systems for Europe and the US animates onto the screen, followed by a dot representing the number of each weapon type within the weapon system. There are vastly more dots on the European side in every instance. For nonnuclear submarines, the US has no service units, while Europe has 10.
Source: Copyright © 2022 The International Institute for Strategic Studies, based on data taken from The Military Balance 2022 (reproduced with permission)
End of image description.
To read the article, see “Invasion of Ukraine: Implications for European defense spending,” December 19, 2022.