Opinion: Europe Needs a Defence Doctrine That Outlives the Current Crisis

The European Union has spent the past four years rediscovering hard power, but it has yet to articulate the kind of coherent defence doctrine that would make its rearmament durable. Without one, the bloc risks slipping back into a familiar pattern in which ambition rises with each crisis and recedes once the headlines fade.

Each successive shock since 2022 has prompted impressive announcements. A war on the eastern flank produced unprecedented defence spending pledges. A new American administration disinclined to underwrite European security has spurred talk of strategic autonomy. A widening conflict in the Middle East has refocused minds on the protection of critical maritime corridors. The result, however, is more a stacking of responses than a strategy.

A genuine doctrine would begin by clearly defining the bloc’s objectives in tiers, distinguishing between vital interests where Europeans must be able to act independently, important interests where coordination with allies is essential, and broader objectives where the bloc operates within multilateral frameworks. Such clarity would help calibrate capabilities, force structure and procurement priorities.

It would also require honest answers to questions that European leaders have largely avoided. Who decides on the use of force in scenarios that fall 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 taken for granted 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 been a strategic liability for decades. The European Defence Industrial Strategy, the European Defence Fund and joint procurement initiatives have begun to shift incentives, but the political resistance to consolidation, both for sovereignty reasons and for industrial protection reasons, remains stubborn.

Public opinion, often invoked as the binding constraint, may be less restrictive than commonly assumed. Polls across the bloc consistently show majorities in favour of stronger European defence cooperation, although the 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 is the harder task.

Time is not on Europe’s side. Building serious military capability takes years, sometimes decades, and the strategic environment is unlikely to become more forgiving. A defence doctrine cannot substitute for action, but action without doctrine has proved costly. The window to develop the former, while undertaking the latter, is open now and is unlikely to remain so indefinitely.