Opinion: Europe Needs a Defence Doctrine That Outlives the Current Crisis
The European Union has spent the last four years rediscovering hard power, yet it has still to articulate the sort of coherent defence doctrine that would render its rearmament durable. Absent such a framework, the bloc risks falling back into a familiar pattern: ambition surges with each crisis, only to ebb once the headlines recede.
Every successive shock since 2022 has prompted impressive pronouncements. War on the eastern flank produced unprecedented pledges on defence spending. A new American administration disinclined to underwrite European security has provoked talk of strategic autonomy. Widening conflict in the Middle East has refocused attention on the protection of critical maritime corridors. The outcome, however, amounts to a stacking of responses rather than a strategy.
A genuine doctrine would begin by defining the bloc’s objectives in tiers, distinguishing between vital interests where Europeans must be capable of acting independently, important interests where co-ordination with allies is essential, and broader objectives where the bloc operates within multilateral frameworks. Such clarity would assist in calibrating capabilities, force structure and procurement priorities.
It would also require honest answers to questions European leaders have largely sidestepped. Who decides on the use of force in scenarios falling short of an Article 5 invocation? How are command relationships organised between national armed forces, NATO structures and any future European command? How is collective deterrence credibility maintained when the political coherence of the bloc cannot be assumed from one summit to the next?
Industry policy is the other half of the equation. The fragmentation of European defence procurement, with dozens of competing programmes for similar capabilities, has represented a strategic liability for decades. The European Defence Industrial Strategy, the European Defence Fund and joint procurement initiatives have begun to shift incentives, but political resistance to consolidation—driven by sovereignty concerns and industrial protectionism alike—remains stubborn.
Public opinion, often invoked as the binding constraint, may be less restrictive than commonly supposed. Polling across the bloc consistently shows majorities favouring stronger European defence co-operation, though willingness to invest in higher defence budgets is more uneven. Translating diffuse public support into the kind of sustained political commitment that survives electoral cycles remains the harder task.
Time is not on Europe’s side. Building serious military capability takes years, sometimes decades, and the strategic environment is scarcely likely to become more forgiving. A defence doctrine cannot substitute for action, but action without doctrine has proved costly. The window for developing the former whilst undertaking the latter is open now—and is unlikely to remain so indefinitely.
