The wave of militarisation now engulfing Europe is of historic proportions. Not since the end of the Second World War has the continent witnessed such an extensive military build-up—and never in the post-war period has the threat of war been so acute. Confronting this unprecedented militarisation is therefore one of the central tasks facing progressive forces today. Europe’s arms build-up is characterised not only by rivalries between the US and the European states, but also by rivalries within Europe itself, particularly between Germany and France. A careful examination of these rivalries helps, on the one hand, to contextualise apparent contradictions in the current militarisation and, on the other, to gain greater clarity for the development of counter-strategies.

The Europeanisation of NATO

The final declaration of the NATO summit held in Ankara on 7–8 July 2026 reaffirmed several commitments that were particularly important to the European member states. Among these was an explicit commitment to the Alliance’s mutual defence clause under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, as well as continued support for Ukraine. Both commitments had assumed particular importance for the European allies in light of the increasingly unpredictable approach of the Trump administration to NATO.

As in the previous year, the declaration was relatively brief, reflecting the tensions between the United States and the other members of the Alliance. Nevertheless, it made clear that NATO would continue and further expand its rearmament efforts. At the same time, the declaration signalled a greater role for the European member states and Canada in the Alliance’s defence. It stated that “the European allies and Canada will assume greater responsibility for the defence of the alliance”, while emphasising that this would take place in close “cooperation with the United States”.((The Ankara Summit Declaration. nato.int 08.07.2026. https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/official-texts-and-resources/official-texts/2026/07/08/the-ankara-summit-declaration .)) The statement thus points towards a stronger European role within NATO, cumulating in the statement: “Shaping the future: a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO”, while maintaining the transatlantic framework of the Alliance.

There is a rare consensus between the European NATO member states and the US on the need for the former to play a stronger role within the Alliance – albeit for different reasons. The United States no longer wishes to focus militarily on a Europe in economic and political decline, but rather on its historic power struggle against China. In preparation, it seeks to restore its military control over its immediate geographical surroundings – the ‘Western Hemisphere’, or Latin America and the Caribbean – from which it seeks to oust Chinese – and Russian – influence as far as possible. In Washington, there is occasionally talk of ‘NATO 3.0’. Whereas the transatlantic alliance focused on the struggle against the Soviet Union during the Cold War (NATO 1.0) and, from 1990 onwards, concentrated primarily on operations beyond the alliance’s territory (NATO 2.0), the reorientation of US forces towards the Asia-Pacific region and towards Latin America and the Caribbean – the latter through Operation Southern Spear – now heralds the alliance’s next transformation. Under NATO 3.0, Europe must take independent responsibility for containing Russia.((See, e.g.: Remarks by Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby at the NATO Defense Ministerial (As Prepared). war.gov 12.02.2026. https://www.war.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/4404801/remarks-by-under-secretary-of-war-for-policy-elbridge-colby-at-the-nato-defense/))

The motivations in Europe are different, and they are not the same across the continent. All European NATO member states share the view that the Trump administration cannot be relied upon; it is therefore necessary to at least draw up plans in case the US either fails to support allied countries in the event of war or even withdraws from the Alliance altogether. And ever since Trump openly threatened to invade Greenland and even annex it, particularly Nordic NATO members entertain an extreme scenario, in which they must be capable of military action not only without the US, but against it. Such considerations were already tentatively being explored during Trump’s first term in office. As early as 2017, there was talk of the need to strengthen NATO’s ‘European pillar’, for example by Rüdiger Huth, Deputy Head of the Policy Department at the German Ministry of Defence.((Saskia Gamradt: Nato bleibt transatlantisch, aber stärkt ihre europäischen Pfeiler. kas.de 23.11.2017. https://www.kas.de/de/veranstaltungsberichte/detail/-/content/nato-bleibt-transatlantisch-aber-staerkt-ihre-europaeischen-pfeiler1)) Huth had made these remarks regarding efforts by the EU to become capable of independent military action – for example, through an ‘EU army’. EU countries particularly close to the US – Poland, for example, and the Baltic states – did not appreciate this direction. However, creating a strong “European pillar” within NATO has been consensus for all parties across the continent – including those who wanted to become independent of the US in the long run but were prepared, for the time being, to step up their military capabilities within NATO.

The “Europeanisation of NATO” gained momentum towards the end of 2025. Some Alliance member states had already begun to give detailed consideration to the matter at the start of the year, shortly after Trump took office. In late autumn, however, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Germany joined in, and this gave the matter fresh impetus.((Bojan Pancevski, Daniel Michaels: Europe Is Accelerating a NATO Fallback Plan in Case Trump Pulls Out. wsj.com 14.04.2026. https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-nato-trump-plans-3a423233)) “The challenge is enormous,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing insiders: the entire NATO structure had been built “at almost every level” around the leading power, the US; this applied to troops and equipment just as much as to the Alliance’s infrastructure and military leadership. In light of this, some very specific questions had been raised since late 2025: Who could actually take over NATO’s air defence in the event of a partial or even complete US withdrawal from the alliance? Who could manage the logistics if the US administration were to withdraw the US officers currently in charge? And, of course, there was also the question of hardware and software: what if Elon Musk were to shut down Starlink for European nations in the middle of a war, as he did first with Ukraine and then with Russia?

Finding answers to these and other questions was well underway. Occasionally, this takes place well below the threshold of public awareness. For instance, the European NATO member states are now increasing the number of NATO manoeuvres that are either conducted under sole European leadership or involve exclusively European troops. In early 2025, a series of NATO manoeuvres called Steadfast Dart began, in which the mobilisation of NATO’s rapid reaction force, the Allied Reaction Force (ARF), and its deployment to a potential theatre of war in Eastern or South-Eastern Europe was rehearsed; not a single US soldier took part in these large-scale exercises, which are held annually and involve around 10,000 military personnel. Germany held a leading role in Steadfast Dart 2026; according to a US commentary, this revealed the extent to which Berlin is becoming a military hub in Europe.((Christopher F. Schuetze: NATO Is Having a Military Exercise. The U.S., Its Largest Member, Won’t Be There. nytimes.com 29.01.2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/world/europe/nato-military-exercise-spain-germany.html)) Incidentally, planning for Steadfast Dart began during US President Joe Biden’s term of office. The shift towards a kind of ‘NATO 3.0’ is not an invention of the Trump administration; it dates back further, and is politically far more deeply rooted than merely in the whims of the property magnate – and now also crypto-oligarch – in the White House.

Other steps towards the ‘Europeanisation’ of NATO were widely noted. In February 2026, the Alliance announced that its second-tier military command would in future be staffed entirely by Europeans; thus, not only the Joint Force Command in Brunssum in the Netherlands, but also the Joint Force Command in Naples and the Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Virginia, would be led by European officers. Only the post of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), based in Mons, south-west of Brussels, did the United States continue to reserve for itself.((European Allies to take on new leadership roles in NATO’s Command Structure. nato.int 06.02.2026. https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/articles/news/2026/02/06/european-allies-to-take-on-new-leadership-roles-in-natos-command-structure)) The next step followed in early June; the Trump administration announced that it would ‘decommit’ extensive air force and naval units from NATO structures, as it is known in alliance jargon. What does this mean? In the event of an emergency, the Alliance would no longer be able to call upon them – European NATO member states would have to provide replacements. This was achieved at short notice; even before the NATO summit in Ankara, SACEUR, US General Alexus Grynkewich, reported that all gaps had been ‘largely’ closed, and that ‘in the few areas’ where ‘replacement capabilities’ were still lacking in Europe, efforts were being made ‘to find alternative solutions with equivalent effect’.((Sabine Siebold: Europeans fill most gaps left by US in NATO defence plans, top commander says. reuters.com 01.07.2026. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/europeans-fill-almost-all-gaps-left-by-us-nato-defence-plans-source-says-2026-07-01/))

Admittedly, doubts remain. What if all this could not happen quickly enough? What if, for example, US President Trump were to decide at short notice to invade Greenland, and ‘European NATO’ did not yet have sufficient structures of its own to be able to operate independently? Particularly in Northern Europe and the Baltic states, the debate about a ‘Plan B’ began. Frequently, reference was made to the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a rapid reaction force established by the UK in 2014, led from London and now comprising ten NATO member states – apart from the UK itself, the Nordic and Baltic states, and the Netherlands; it has a permanent headquarters at Northwood, north-west of the British capital, with an independent structure, and is able to operate autonomously at any time. In May 2026, Edward Arnold, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), was quoted saying that the JEF was “the most established of all the alternatives”.((Europe’s secret plan B to replace NATO. economist.com 19.05.2026. https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/05/19/europes-secret-plan-b-to-replace-nato)) However, the main effort in Europe continued to focus on adopting NATO structures as far as possible. Germany, in particular, was leading the way in this regard, a high-ranking Pentagon official explained in April; the new German military strategy, for example – which quite unambiguously calls for a “European leadership role” for the Bundeswehr – was “a clear, credible path towards NATO 3.0”.((Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby am 24. April 2026 on X.)) The Pentagon would support “Germany in particular” on this path.

Europe’s struggle for defence autonomy

Is a “European NATO” under German leadership taking shape? That, at any rate, is the objective that could be inferred from statements by Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz as well as from the aforementioned German military strategy. In his first government statement to the Bundestag following his election as Chancellor on 14 May 2025, Merz announced that “strengthening the Bundeswehr” was now “Berlin’s top priority”: “In future, the Federal Government will provide all the financial resources the Bundeswehr needs to become the strongest conventional army in Europe.” This was “more than appropriate for the most populous and economically strongest country in Europe”.((Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz zur neuen Bundesregierung vor dem Deutschen Bundestag am 14. Mai 2025 in Berlin. https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/suche/regierungserklaerung-von-bundeskanzler-friedrich-merz-2347888)) The military strategy – the first ever for the Federal Republic – presented by the Ministry of Defence on 22 April 2026 also states that the Bundeswehr should become “the strongest conventional army in Europe” by 2039; through the “consistent use of innovative technologies”, it should also be “technologically superior”.((Gesamtkonzeption militärische Verteidigung. Militärstrategie und Plan für die Streitkräfte. Bonn, April 2026)) The military strategy also referred to a future force of “460,000 combat-ready soldiers”. As this would breach the 1990 Two-Plus-Four Treaty, the document broke the total figure down into 260,000 regular soldiers and 200,000 reservists. If this expansion is successful, only Turkey and possibly Poland would have more soldiers in Europe. Germany’s main rival, France, currently has just over 200,000 and just under 50,000 reservists. And its potential for expansion is limited.

This is primarily because Paris cannot keep up with Germany’s exorbitant military spending. Immediately prior to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, in 2013, the German military budget stood at 32.8 billion euros, whilst the French budget was 31.4 billion: the difference was negligible. By 2021, the German defence budget had risen by almost half to 47.2 billion euros, whilst the French budget had risen to just 39.2 billion: the gap began to widen. From 2022 onwards – with a further increase in 2025 – all manner of additional debt (‘special funds’) was added to the rapid expansion of the military budget in Germany. All told, the German government spent more than 108 billion euros on the Bundeswehr in 2026; nearly 154 billion is planned for 2028, and approximately 184 billion euros for 2030. This is possible because Germany – with a debt level of 63.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 – was able to take on enormous amounts of debt; between 2027 and 2030, a total of 838 billion euros in new debt is planned.((Anne-Sylvaine Chassany: Germany to borrow €800bn for rearmament in historic shift. ft.com 06.07.2026. https://www.ft.com/content/72878c3e-a4c6-4e4d-86c1-6df11593e4ac?syn-25a6b1a6=1)) France, which was already in debt to the tune of 115.6 per cent of its GDP in 2025, did not have that option. Its military budget stands at around 57 billion euros in 2026 and is set to reach around 76 billion euros by 2030. The situation is similar for the UK, which was in debt to the tune of 95.5 per cent of its GDP in 2025: it intended to increase its defence budget from 54 billion pounds in 2024 (64 billion euros) to 80 billion pounds in 2029 – 94 billion euros at the current exchange rate. That is the limit.

With a military budget that is expected to be almost twice as large as the UK’s and almost two and a half times as large as France’s by the end of the decade, Germany undoubtedly has the resources to transform the Bundeswehr into one of Europe’s strongest conventional armed forces through a massive rearmament programme. Berlin is pulling out all the stops. A few examples: in October 2025, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced that the Bundeswehr would be acquiring drones worth around ten billion euros over the coming years. In December 2025, the Bundeswehr ordered Puma armoured personnel carriers for 4.2 billion euros. The Bundeswehr budget for 2026 provided for the purchase of ammunition worth 12.7 billion euros. The cost of eight MEKO A-200-class frigates, the purchase of which the federal government announced in the summer of 2026, amounted to around twelve billion euros. Add to this at least 26 billion euros for a new high-tech frigate, the F127, which was to be developed. These are just a few examples of many armaments projects.

The strategic orientation of the Bundeswehr is revealed by where Berlin purchases its weapons and how the supply chains are structured. The Bundeswehr will continue to be equipped with US defence materiel. For example: In his government statement on 9 July 2026, Merz announced that Germany would purchase Tomahawk cruise missiles. The Bundeswehr will also acquire F-35 fighter jets for ‘nuclear sharing’. One detail: the new F127 frigate is to be equipped with Standard Missiles and SPY-6 radar for air defence; both are manufactured by the US company RTX (formerly Raytheon). The reason for the latter is that a genuine European equivalent does not yet exist. However, it is already being suggested that, in the medium to long term, the Iris-T defence missile family from Diehl Defence in Germany could provide a solution; the US weapon systems would therefore be merely a stopgap. This is also the case with the Tomahawks; European cruise missiles – German-British, and possibly also German-French – have long been in the planning stage. The German government is therefore purchasing US systems primarily to bridge gaps until it can hopefully replace them with European systems.

An influential group of experts is working to ensure that this hope is realised; they have been drafting concepts for this purpose since early 2025, with the most recent one presented in May 2026 under the title ‘Sparta 2.0’. The authors include Thomas Enders, long-time CEO of Airbus and, since 2019, President of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP); René Obermann, former head of Telekom, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Airbus, and a member of the supervisory board of the software group SAP; Jeanette zu Fürstenberg, an influential figure in the German start-up investment scene; and Moritz Schularick, an economist and President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). Sparta 2.0 states categorically that, at present, ‘no European combat mission’ is conceivable without US systems and their authorisation from Washington. However, it is possible to break free from this dependence within five to ten years by developing and producing Europe’s own systems. This would require 500 billion euros, and the first step should be to fill ten key “capability gaps” – for example, by manufacturing European drones, European air defence systems, European satellites and satellite constellations. The path to “defence autonomy”, in other words independence from the US, lies in “the deployment of Germany’s financial and industrial resources”.((Der Weg zu europäischer Verteidigungsautonomie: Ein Leitfaden zur Überwindung kritischer Abhängigkeiten. Mai 2026. kielinstitut.de. https://www.kielinstitut.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/Media/Images/News_Press_Releases/2026/Der_Weg_zu_europ%C3%A4ischer_Verteidigungsautonomie__Ein_Leitfaden_zur_%C3%9Cberwindung_kritischer_Abh%C3%A4ngigkeiten.pdf .))

Efforts to achieve independence from the US defence industry have been underway for some time. Take drones, for example: start-ups producing them are springing up across several European countries. German start-ups were among the early entrants and have – so far – been successful. The best-known example is Helsing, Germany’s most valuable start-up, which in July 2026 rose to become Europe’s most valuable defence start-up with a revaluation of 18 billion US dollars. Helsing began supplying drones to Ukraine at a very early stage and – like other German drone start-ups – has consistently been able to analyse frontline experience, leaving it well positioned as a result. The company focuses on building ‘Resilience Factories’: ‘highly efficient production facilities’, as stated on the company’s website, ‘that enable nation states to manufacture locally and independently’.((Helsing produziert weitere 6000 Kampfdrohnen für die Ukraine. helsing.ai 13.02.2025. https://helsing.ai/de/newsroom/helsing-produziert-weitere-6000-kampfdrohnen-fuer-die-ukrain)) Avoiding US components and, wherever possible, using German components – this is a guiding principle of the German industry. What has not yet been achieved, however, is financial independence from US investors. In Europe, and particularly in Germany, venture capitalists are few and far between. This is why German defence start-ups repeatedly accept funding from the US. Though it is usually stated that all precautions are taken to ensure US investors do not gain any real influence. Furthermore, efforts to specifically promote venture capital from Europe have been intensifying for some time.

So is Europe now aligning itself against the US? Yes and no. Yes, because the number of European projects is indeed increasing; Germany and Norway, for example, are jointly building submarines, whilst Germany and the UK are jointly developing long-range weapons – cruise missiles or hypersonic missiles, it is not yet entirely clear. No, because behind the PR buzzword ‘European’ often lie long-standing differences between the major powers of the European continent. One example: in 2022, the EU decided to develop a ‘European Starlink’ to break free from its dependence on Elon Musk’s SpaceX. To this end, it launched a project called IRIS2. The traditionally strong French space companies hope to benefit from this; Airbus – the space arm of the Franco-German group is clearly based in France – Thales (France) and Leonardo (Italy) also founded the satellite joint venture Project Bromo in 2025 with this in mind. In 2026, the German government began work on creating a ‘German Starlink’, funded by the 35 billion euros that Berlin intends to allocate to military space programmes, and developed by the satellite company OHB from Bremen and Rheinmetall. At present, it appears that the ‘German Starlink’ is supplanting the ‘European Starlink’.((Thomas Jahn, Roman Tyborski, Markus Fasse: „Starlink für die Bundeswehr“ – Rheinmetall will Airbus ausstechen. handelsblatt.com 26.01.2026. https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/ruestung-starlink-fuer-die-bundeswehr-rheinmetall-will-airbus-ausstechen/100193946.html)) Berlin’s systematic undermining of the French defence industry – the main rival to the German one – is no coincidence; one need only think of the Franco-German FCAS fighter jet project, which was cancelled by Germany.

Rivalries between imperialist powers

All in all, it is clear that the ‘Europeanisation’ of NATO is in full swing. The US is seeking to offload some of its burden onto Europe in order to free up resources for military activities in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region – against China. The states of Europe are striving for independence from the US so that – as in the case of Greenland, for example – they can act autonomously at any time in an emergency. The key factor in determining whether they will succeed is likely to be their endeavour to develop independent European technology. If the nations of Europe manage to develop not only tanks and ammunition, but also, for example, drones, anti-aircraft missiles, cruise missiles and satellite constellations that do not rely on US technology, then their ruling classes may achieve military independence from the US, possibly within the framework of a ‘European NATO’. The question then remains, however, as to whether they will procure, say, a ‘European’ or a ‘German Starlink’; the bitter rivalry between the ruling classes of Germany and France overshadows the drive for independence from the US. Whether Berlin or Paris prevails in this regard will determine the extent to which Germany will in future dominate Europe not only economically and politically, but also in terms of the defence industry and militarily.