Editor’s note: Robert Brüll is the founder and CEO of FibreCoat, a materials technology company that supplies lightweight, electrically conductive fibers used in defense, space, and industrial applications. He writes here in a personal capacity. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the editorial position of The Defence Blog.
At the time of writing, the U.S. administration is claiming that a peace deal with Iran has finally been struck. A chorus of foreign leaders, from Japan’s Sanae Takaichi to Australia’s Anthony Albanese, have welcomed the news, and oil prices have fallen sharply. Some are seeking clarity, others are expressing skepticism that the deal will hold. It’s a small illustration of the chaotic character of global geopolitics today, and of the widespread feeling that rarely can the promises of a major world leader be taken at face value.
It’s also a reminder for those of us in Europe that there are times when our interests and those of our friends in the United States don’t align. This was inevitable. The Iran conflict, like the proposed annexation of Greenland, threw into sharp relief the diverging interests of the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It’s important to emphasize that this does not spell the end of our alliance or friendship with the U.S., we’re united in so many ways, but it is something that was always going to happen sooner or later. Different countries, almost by definition, have different interests.
But standing up for those interests isn’t easy in a world that conforms to a particularly lopsided distribution of power. We are not all roughly equal in military and economic strength, and everyone knows that to negotiate, you have to be able to say “no.” Put bluntly: if Europe wants to stand on its own feet, to assert itself, to defend its interests, and to achieve its longstanding aim of “strategic autonomy,” it has to be able to fight its own battles without help. We’ve been sheltered by the American defense umbrella for decades, free to spend on schools, hospitals, and the other trappings of a modern, humane society what we might otherwise have spent on defense. That has to change. The U.S. is no longer considered untouchable by its rivals, and the cost of defending its interests is rising. Washington will focus on the areas it deems most critical, and Europe is not one of them.
At a time when drones, sensors, advanced materials, optical communications, data collection, and other technologies make the difference in conflict, Europe has to start building its own technology. But it must do more than that: it must also control its technology, and that is a harder task than it might seem. Military systems combine a wide range of components, many of which can be manipulated remotely. Any system that contains parts built elsewhere can’t be called sovereign. I repeat that the United States remains a great ally of Europe, but it’s still the case that any piece of European equipment containing American parts is not fully European, and therefore isn’t truly “ours,” a basic principle of the modern supply chain.
This nuances the debate over defense spending. More spending is necessary, and welcome. It’s just not enough by itself. If our interests and those of our American allies diverged over Ukraine, for example, and European powers had to step in to defend Ukraine’s interests, we would be attempting to do so with technology, however sophisticated, that could in theory be disabled, withheld, or made difficult to use at any moment. What we should do is learn from the United States and pursue similar initiatives: a pan-European version of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with an advisory board drawn from across the emerging and established defense industries. We could strengthen the innovation pipeline that, in the United States, connects the Pentagon to venture capital and technology firms. In doing so, we wouldn’t just be able to defend ourselves and deter our enemies, but forge a more fruitful relationship with the United States. The Trump administration has been right to say, since the start of Trump’s second term, that Europe needs to pull its own weight as a NATO partner.
Are there positive signs? Without question. The French government recently began trials of Arcadia, a battlefield command system built by French companies and modeled on the U.S. military’s Maven AI system, which turns raw battlefield data into usable insights. Arcadia is designed to combine drone footage, satellite data, sensor feeds, and intelligence reports, then use software to spot patterns and identify possible targets so commanders can act more quickly. It shows that European governments are waking up to the need to procure sovereign technology and components. But not everything is moving at the speed it should. If there is one lesson from Ukraine, it’s that speed, of innovation, of deployment, of feedback and iteration, is everything. Europe is still holding itself back with outdated procurement approaches. Startups are frequently overlooked. There is fragmentation and duplication across the continent, with large countries spending heavily to build their own technology rather than sharing costs, avoiding duplication, and scaling production together. The lack of standardization undermines interoperability and makes it harder for smaller players to enter the European market.
So Europe must kick its addiction to American tech. But to do that, it must pursue root-and-branch reform of how, and by whom, our technology is built. This needs to happen now, even though it may seem superfluous to say so given how aware we all are of the dangers we face. If it does happen, Europe will be able to rise to the height that this moment in history demands. Who should drive it is perhaps the key question. The European Future Combat Air System project has just run aground on political realities, and the European Commission is too slow to bring about change at the speed and scale required. What we can say is that Europe’s national resilience will be built in factories, not at conferences.
Robert Brüll is the founder and CEO of FibreCoat, a materials technology company developing lightweight, electrically conductive fibers for defense, space, and industrial applications.