Europe’s defence market opening up to Indian industry is a possibility: Let’s raise its probability

While the transatlantic relationship made the headlines at this month’s Munich Security Conference, many of the European analysts I hung out with were more concerned about whether, how and how quickly Europe could build adequate military capacity to achieve meaningful strategic autonomy. The twin fears of a potential Russian invasion and an American divorce have compelled Europe’s leaders to invest in military capacity, but it presents the EU and its member states with unprecedented structural challenges.Europe sees a threat to the Union itself, but has to rely on the military establishments of its member-states to respond to it. Like the Pope, Brussels has practically no divisions under its command.

Europe’s armed forces are maintained by individual nation-states and operate under Nato (read American) command. So defence policy, strategy, command, equipment, capacity and procurement are fragmented across the 27 EU states and the UK. What Europe’s effective rearmament demands—fiscal capacity, a military-industrial base, an innovation ecosystem and a demographic base—is also geographically distributed.

Countries that have the money don’t have enough people willing to fight and those with big industries don’t have enough startups. Moreover, Europe’s commitments to social spending and its climate transition work both as budgetary and cultural constraints to rapid rearmament.Europe’s leaders got their first wake-up call during Donald Trump’s first term and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In addition to supporting Kyiv with arms and money, they began thinking of European defence.