Europe Needs More Than Tanks. It Needs Smarter Rearmament.

Why Europe must turn higher defense spending into technological deterrence—and learn from Ukraine before the next war.

The “New Age Defense” Conference took place in Berlin on June 6, 2026.

When it comes to European security, the same phrase is repeated again and again: Europe must wake up and begin rearming.

But that argument is already outdated. Europe has woken up.

Europe has woken up

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, many countries have sharply increased their defense budgets and launched large-scale rearmament programs.

Today, all NATO allies are estimated to meet or exceed the Alliance’s 2 percent benchmark. Several countries—especially those on NATO’s eastern flank—now spend between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on defense, and in some cases even more.

This process has not been easy. France is increasing military expenditure while already running a budget deficit above the European Union’s fiscal threshold. Germany amended its constitutional fiscal rules so that certain defense spending is exempt from the debt brake. Denmark abolished an important public holiday in a measure intended, in part, to help finance higher defense spending.

Almost every government has also faced opposition from parties on both the right and the left that have resisted or sought to slow the rearmament process.

Nevertheless, the results are already visible. Defense companies are expanding production, buying factories across the continent, and creating new jobs.

A specialized stock market index of European defense companies has more than tripled since 2022. Banks and public financial institutions have expanded support for the sector, while the European Union’s SAFE instrument can provide up to €150 billion in long-term loans for defense investment and joint procurement.

Even Europe’s industrial pride—its automotive companies—is gradually shifting toward military orders.

All of this means that security has returned to the list of Europe’s fundamental values, alongside humanism, environmental protection, and human rights.

More Money, the Wrong Priorities

But there is a problem. It concerns how exactly this money is being spent.

According to a Kiel Institute study of 736 publicly reported procurement orders placed by Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom between 2020 and January 2026, only about 12 percent of their total value went to what the researchers classified as “new-paradigm” capabilities suited to the changing realities of warfare.

In other words, only one euro in eight is invested in drones, military artificial intelligence, new air-defense systems, and other technologies that will define the warfare of the future.

The picture is uneven rather than static: Germany’s share declined, the United Kingdom’s remained broadly flat, and Poland’s increased considerably. Even so, the aggregate figures suggest that Europe has not yet absorbed the full implications of the revolutionary changes seen on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Europe’s problem is not only what it buys. The same Kiel study found that delivery timelines commonly run from two to four years and that genuinely pan-European procurement remains very limited. Europe is therefore often buying too slowly and too nationally as well as too conventionally.

The Battlefield Has Already Changed

Of course, tanks, artillery, and armored vehicles remain necessary. No war can be won by drones alone. Ultimately, the last word on the battlefield still belongs to the infantry soldier.

But the fundamental transformation in the nature of warfare cannot be ignored. Syrskyi has said that unmanned aerial vehicles account for about 60 percent of strikes on enemy targets. Their influence is greater still when reconnaissance, targeting, communications relay, and battle-damage assessment are included. The decisive factor is not simply how many drones an army owns, but how effectively it integrates them into command, logistics, training, intelligence, electronic warfare, and combined-arms operations.

There is no doubt about the engineering excellence of Europe’s “traditional” military equipment.

But Ukraine’s experience shows that engineering excellence alone is not enough. On a battlefield saturated with sensors and inexpensive strike drones, tanks and other large platforms must be dispersed, concealed, and often employed farther from the front. Artillery must balance mobility, concealment, range, and cost. Against Shahed-type attack drones, Ukraine has also had to develop cheaper layers of air defense, because using multimillion-dollar missiles against mass-produced drones is economically unsustainable.

Still Preparing for the Previous War

Today, a significant share of European defense procurement continues to move by inertia and to “prepare for the previous war.”

The consequences can already be seen in Ukrainian-European military exercises that are frequently covered by the media.

The consequences could be seen during NATO’s Hedgehog 2025 exercise in Estonia, where operators from Ukraine’s 412th Nemesis Brigade reportedly conducted nearly 30 bomber-drone missions over three days and recorded 14 simulated equipment kills. Any description of NATO commanders as “astonished” should be retained only if the author can provide the underlying quotation, source or at least mention that the source is one of her anonymous contacts.

All of this is the result of outdated doctrines and of the fact that, over the past several decades, weapons were ordered primarily for warehouses, parades, and impressive figures in The Military Balance, rather than for the warfare of the future.

Some procurement inertia is understandable. European governments must prepare for possible conflict under severe time pressure, while their societies are not living under daily missile and drone attacks. They therefore lack the brutal feedback loop that forces Ukraine to adapt continuously.

What Europe Must Learn From Ukraine

Europe should create fast-track procurement pathways for systems validated in Ukraine; expand joint European-Ukrainian production; reserve part of national procurement budgets for iterative, software-intensive capabilities; and require major exercises to test forces against dense drone coverage, electronic warfare, and degraded communications.

In Ukraine, authorized military units can select from hundreds of approved drone and electronic-warfare systems through the DOT-Chain Defence digital marketplace, while the state manages contracting, payment, and logistics. Official reporting places average delivery times at roughly seven to nine days. Ukraine has also created dedicated training centers and a separate Unmanned Systems Forces branch.

Within a matter of months, we formulate requirements for new types of equipment and bring them into service. We have built a competitive arms market from scratch and created a range of institutions for exchanging experience.

All of this has come at an enormous cost. We deeply dislike being a testing ground. But since this is what has happened, Europe must use this experience to become stronger.

Technology as Deterrence

Ukraine is also a testing ground for Russian weapons and tactics. The more capable Russia’s systems become—and the wider the technological gap with its neighbors—the more confident the Kremlin may feel about another act of aggression.

In 2022, the full-scale war began with Russia’s complete confidence that it would capture Kyiv in three days. What if the occupiers become equally confident in their technological superiority over their Baltic neighbors?

Russia understands only the logic of nuclear deterrence. Everyone knows that nuclear war will not happen when mutual destruction is guaranteed.

Europe therefore needs technological deterrence. If Russian planners know that any incursion will encounter dense drone coverage, resilient networks, autonomous systems, layered air defense, rapid target acquisition, and an industrial base capable of replacing losses quickly, the likelihood of aggression will fall.

Europe Must Build Its Own Defense-Tech Champions

Nor should we forget Europe’s perennial problem: its dependence on the United States. Look at how the United States develops innovative technologies, investing tens of billions of dollars in next-generation systems. Companies such as Palantir, Anduril, and Shield AI are now gaining extraordinary momentum.

Europe is capable of creating innovative global giants of its own. Many ambitious European manufacturers—including Quantum Frontline Industries, Quantum Systems, UForce, and Destinus—have already performed extremely well in Ukraine.

We cannot allow Europe to become dependent on American technology in these categories of weapons as well. The security of Ukraine and the European Union must not depend on the outcome of elections across the Atlantic.

The War That Never Begins

Europe will undoubtedly prevail. Even if an enemy comes, the strength of European civilization will break any occupier, because European culture, economy, and society are built on innovation, adaptation, and strength of spirit.

But the best victory is the war that never begins. Europe can strengthen deterrence without firing a shot—by investing in the right technologies, reforming how they are purchased and used, and learning from Ukraine while there is still time.

Preventing war is itself an expression of the European humanism that Western countries teach to the rest of the world. And if war is unavoidable, the highest expression of humanism will be to send a robot on a dangerous mission instead of a human being.