Hard-Hitting World Leaves EU Soft Power Stranded
Europe’s defense industry remains too fragmented for rearmament to be accomplished swiftly.
Europe’s defense industry remains too fragmented for rearmament to be accomplished swiftly.
Photographer: Petra Malukas/AFP/Getty Images
Last week, with uncertainty raging over whether the US would join Israel in striking Iran, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto delivered an elegy for a soft-power Europe that looked stranded in a hard-power world. “We talk about Europe as if Europe counted for something,” he said. “But its time is over, and I say it with sadness.” It turned out to be a fitting prelude to the weekend’s events as Europe’s last-ditch push for diplomacy with Tehran ended with American bombers striking Iranian nuclear sites.
It speaks to wider anxiety over Europe’s geopolitical future as drones and missiles continue to pound Ukraine, tensions rise in the Taiwan strait and the Middle East erupts. Yes, the combination of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump has finally stung the European Union out of complacency, with the prospect of rearmament projects worth €800 billion ($920 billion) sending share prices soaring and industrial capacity whirring into life. German weapons maker Rheinmetall AG, for example, is outperforming tech darling Nvidia Corp. and taking Gucci parent Kering SA’s place on the Euro Stoxx 50 index. Yet at the same time, we’re a long way from a European defense worthy of the name.