There are four steps that European nations should undertake in the near and medium term to enhance NATO’s deterrence and defense capabilities against the prospect of Russian aggression.

As the European Commission’s plan for strengthening European defense stated, “Russia will remain a fundamental threat to Europe’s security for the foreseeable future,” and one which requires a timely response inasmuch as “Russia has made it clear that according to their understanding they remain at war with the West.” Accordingly, as part of enhancing NATO defense, Europe needs to take prompt action to significantly increase:

1. the effectiveness of forces at its borders with or near Russia,
2. its capability for sea control,
3. the resilience of critical infrastructures necessary to defense operations, and
4. its defense industrial capabilities.

The importance of Europe taking such actions arises from a confluence of three factors: first, Russia’s willingness as demonstrated by its actions in Ukraine to undertake “major mechanized high-intensity warfare” to achieve its geopolitical aims; second, the challenges facing the United States military with the potential for conflict in the Indo-Pacific that could require resources that heretofore have been focused on Europe; and, third, decades of defense underinvestment by European nations that have left their militaries and defense industrial bases ill-prepared to engage in a sustained conventional conflict.

These concerns are significantly heightened because Russia, despite its more than three-year, ongoing war against Ukraine, has nonetheless been able to reconstitute its land forces and has fully maintained its air, naval, cyber, and space capabilities. In recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander, described Russia’s continuing reconstitution of its military forces:

Moreover, in addition to maintaining its force structure, Russia has substantially enhanced its defense industrial capabilities. Again, per Cavoli:

Moscow is also marrying its expanded industrial prowess with more sophisticated technological capabilities. For example, Russia is investing significantly in, and having early success with, unmanned vehicle swarming capabilities.

Most significantly, Russia’s threatening activities are not limited to Ukraine. One key concern is that Russia has been building up its infrastructure near the borders of Finland and the Baltic states. As one report describes:

It is not clear, of course, whether Russia would choose to attack NATO countries. But what is clear from Cavoli’s testimony is that “Russia’s willingness to employ brutal means in pursuit of its goals,” and that the “Russian regime has refashioned its military, economic, and social structures to sustain what it describes as a long-term confrontation with the West—systemic changes that illustrate Russia’s intention to confront us into the foreseeable future.”

Estimates vary as to when Russia could sufficiently reconstitute from its conflict with Ukraine to undertake an attack against NATO. The uncertainty is rooted in the fact that the duration of the Russia-Ukraine war is itself uncertain, with substantial efforts as of this writing being taken by the United States to bring the fighting to a halt. In that event, a report from Bruegel stated: “A significantly more challenging scenario for Europe would be an unlikely peace deal accepted by Ukraine. In such a scenario, Russia is likely to continue its military build-up, creating a formidable military challenge to all of the EU in a very short period, given current Russian production. The EU and allies including the UK and Norway would need to accelerate their military build-ups immediately and massively.

Specific predictions as to the time needed for full Russian reconstitution generally range from two to five years. Norway’s senior commander has stated that two to three years would suffice; Jack Watling of the United Kingdom’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has noted the importance of “ensuring that the UK’s Armed Forces are contributing to a credible deterrence posture alongside European NATO allies by the end of 2027.”  Other estimates fall into a three-to-five-year window.

Timing uncertainties—even at the higher end—should provide little comfort. As retired Maj. Gen. Gordon “Skip” Davis, a former deputy assistant secretary general at NATO, has warned, if Russia is given “two, maybe three to five years” to rebuild its forces while Europe fails to rearm at the same pace, European forces “would be at a significant disadvantage in a high-intensity fight.”

Such a scenario of NATO fighting at a substantial disadvantage is entirely plausible if Europe fails to take action. Most obviously, Russia is fully capable of large-scale warfare with its current capabilities. If full-scale conflict in Ukraine were to end, many of those capabilities could be directed against NATO—perhaps for a relatively limited operation such as against one of the Baltic countries, combined with nuclear threats to dissuade NATO from launching an effective response, or, with longer preparation, possibly a full-scale attack. Moreover, if the United States were facing or actually engaged in a conflict in the Indo-Pacific—keeping in mind that China’s President Xi Jinping has told his forces to be ready to succeed in a conflict against Taiwan by 2027—European nations should have the necessary capabilities to respond effectively against Russian aggression.

European nations are, of course, alert to these issues. As a consequence of the Russian threat, and amid growing concern over US commitments to the North Atlantic alliance, their combined defense budgets (including Canada) are now equal to just over 2 percent of their aggregated gross domestic product. Multiple nations are planning further increases: Poland expects to spend 5 percent of GDP in 2025; Germany recently voted to exempt defense spending from its “debt brake,” and the government announced support for defense spending (including relevant infrastructure and cyber capabilities) of 5 percent of GDP; France has set a target of 3.5 percent; and the United Kingdom has established a target of 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027 and 3 percent thereafter. For its part, the United States has called for “adopt[ing] a new 5-percent-of-GDP Defense Investment Plan,” which will be a central topic at the NATO summit in June.

Additionally, the European Union has determined to become a significant player in the defense arena. There is a newly created Commissioner for Defence and Space, and the EU is undertaking to provide 150 billion euros to member countries for defense. Further, the EU is planning to authorize countries to “trigger an emergency clause allowing them to make defense investments that push them over the bloc’s budgetary spending limits.” Exactly how much additional spending this would generate is not clear since, as of this writing, only twelve of the twenty-seven EU countries plan to use the emergency clause, and three of the larger countries—France, Italy, and Spain—do not plan to. Nonetheless, reporting on the European Commission’s tracking of member states’ defense plans indicates: “The European Commission is sticking to its estimate that member states could spend up to €650 billion on defence over the coming four years despite just half of governments requesting more fiscal headway to boost investments in the sector in time.”

As valuable as these actions are, it is important to recognize that even the most expansive budgetary plans do not translate into prompt, actual military capabilities. Initiatives must be transferred into actual budgets. Budgets must be approved by parliaments and then provided to defense ministries. Ministries must sign contracts. And companies with contracts must undertake production that often requires the scaling up of facilities.

Europe has a very long way to go on defense spending and capability requirements, with NATO asking “alliance members to raise their military capability targets by 30% as the organization seeks to boost its force posture, according to the [Supreme Allied Commander Transformation] in charge of defense planning at the 32-nation alliance.” Accomplishing these upgrades—to achieve a military posture credible and sufficient enough to offset Russian capabilities—demands a strategic approach that can be accomplished in a timely fashion and with a laser-like focus on the most critical and implementable capabilities. European nations are in a race against the clock and, consequently, must prioritize actions in the near and medium term to deliver capabilities that provide the greatest deterrence or, if necessary, actual military defense against a Russian threat.

To achieve this goal, NATO should focus on the four key challenges it currently faces. First, Europe has too few forces on the borders with Russia. Second, Europe, without US support, cannot marshal the forces necessary to gain sea control. Third, European nations are highly vulnerable to cyberattacks on infrastructure that is critical for sustained, effective military operations. Fourth, Europe’s defense industries lack the capacity to provide substantial amounts of effective weaponry in the near and medium term.

The NATO summit in June offers a forum for the alliance, and its constituent members, to adopt the necessary actions in response to these concerns. The required steps are set forth below.

I. Europe needs to promptly boost the efficacy of forces at its borders with or near Russia

As described above, Russia is in the process of enhancing its capabilities near the Baltic states and Finland. Doing so will provide the infrastructure and forces necessary for a conventional attack. But deterring or defeating such an attack—and especially repelling not expelling an attack—requires an effective NATO forward force posture. However, as Cavoli has stated:

To establish the necessary posture that Cavoli envisions, European nations should take the following actions, all of which can be accomplished in the near and medium term and all within existing or planned budgets. These actions should be undertaken irrespective of any decisions by the current US administration regarding American forces for Europe.

First, NATO European nations need to undertake a massive buildup of unmanned aerial vehicles. The use of drones has completely changed the nature of battle—as demonstrated by their role in the Russia-Ukraine war: Drones now kill more soldiers and destroy more armored vehicles in Ukraine than all traditional weapons of war combined, including sniper rifles, tanks, howitzers and mortars, Ukrainian commanders and officials say.

Just as the United States is planning for extensive use of unmanned vehicles in the Indo-Pacific should there be a conflict over Taiwan, and as Ukraine has done in its own defense, NATO needs to have a large and effective unmanned vehicle inventory available for use in the event of war with Russia. Ukraine is utilizing millions of unmanned vehicles. NATO needs a comparable supply. (A large-scale capacity for ammunition production is also needed—and discussed below in the defense industrial section.)

Second, NATO nations that border Russia and Belarus must establish effective obstacles—including land mines—to blunt a Russian attack. Useful lessons can be drawn from the Ukraine conflict, where mines have been utilized by both sides, and from the Korean context, where the defense of South Korea is supported by mines. Five Baltic nations—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—are in the process of withdrawing from the Ottawa Treaty, which bars the use of anti-personnel mines (anti-vehicle mines are allowed). The sooner mines are emplaced on the borders with Russia and Belarus, the stronger NATO deterrence and defense will be.

Third, some European forces should move forward on NATO’s eastern flank. Germany is planning to have a brigade stationed in Lithuania by 2027. The United Kingdom should position one of its brigades currently in England to Estonia, where the UK already has a brigade headquarters leading a multinational force. In Latvia, where Canada leads a multinational force, France could bring forward a brigade. There could be arrangements other than mobilizing UK or French forces, but the key point is to add forward forces ready for a conflict if necessary. These actions will be necessary to meet the requirements of the NATO Force Model calling for “well over” 100,000 forces in up to 10 days and 200,00 in 10–30 days.

Fourth, equipment for European forces needs to be prepositioned in or near the Baltics and Poland to be readily available in the event of conflict. Prepositioning could be on land—as the United States currently does in several places in Europe—or the equipment could be placed on maritime prepositioning ships, again following the US approach which worldwide includes seventeen prepositioning ships.

Fifth, Europe needs to establish an equivalent to the US Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) pursuant to which US airlines “contractually commit to . . . augment Department of Defense airlift requirements in emergencies when the need for airlift exceeds the capability of military aircraft.” Creating a European equivalent would be particularly valuable for moving personnel to fall in on prepositioned equipment as recommended above.

In terms of the proposed prepositioning and the European version of CRAF, it is worth noting that while mobility by rail and motor vehicle has long been identified as a challenge for NATO, and while the European Union has undertaken a mobility initiative that has reduced a certain amount of bureaucratic obstacles, little has been accomplished to meaningfully enhance physical mobility. For just one example, the “completion of Rail Baltica, an alternative 870km (540 miles) north-south railway link [through the Baltic states], has been postponed from 2025 to 2030 and is facing massive cost overruns.”

II. Europe needs to enhance its capability for sea control

In the event of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific, United States naval forces would play a major role, thereby calling on much or all of those forces for the European theater to be engaged in that arena. European maritime forces would therefore need to make up the resulting gaps in NATO’s four seas—Baltic, Black, Mediterranean, and North—as well as in the Atlantic and in the Barents Sea. European navies have excellent capabilities, including, for example, French and UK aircraft carriers and submarines from multiple countries extending beyond France and the United Kingdom to Norway, Sweden, and Germany, among others. As an illustration of European maritime capabilities, Cavoli testified that NATO operations in spring 2025 relied solely on approximately 20 European ships, and he had “zero U.S. ships working for [him] as SACEUR.”

The issue for NATO maritime forces, therefore, is not so much one of upgrading capabilities but rather one of mass. European navies are relatively small. That challenge is susceptible to solution, however, by utilizing unmanned maritime vehicles as part of NATO’s maritime operations. The value of unmanned surface vehicles has been demonstrated by the United States through Task Force 59 operations in the Gulf and Windward Stack (now transitioned to Southern Spear) operations in Latin America, where USVs have provided highly effective surveillance capabilities critical to maritime domain awareness. More dramatically, Ukraine has utilized USVs successfully to attack and neutralize the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

NATO itself has recognized the value of unmanned capabilities and has begun operations with unmanned surface vehicles through its Baltic Sentry activity: “NATO launched Baltic Sentry, a new military activity in the Baltic Sea which aims to improve Allies’ ability to respond to destabilising acts. The activity brings together Allied navies, maritime surveillance assets, and private sector operators to ensure real-time situational awareness and rapid response capabilities across the Baltic Sea’s vulnerable zones.”

According to media reports, approximately twenty USVs are taking part in Baltic Sentry, and NATO has established Task Force X to further these capabilities. In a conflict, much larger numbers of unmanned vehicles would be required just for maritime domain awareness—and even larger numbers would be necessary if lethal capabilities were to be included, as Ukraine is successfully doing in its conflict with Russia. Accordingly, NATO must urge nations to substantially increase their unmanned surface fleets and to add unmanned lethal capabilities to the existing surveillance capabilities.

III. Europe needs to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructures fundamental to defense operations

NATO’s military capabilities are reliant on the effective operations of key critical infrastructures, including the electric grid, pipelines, transportation capabilities (rail, seaports, and airports), and information and telecom systems. Those systems, however, are susceptible to Russian cyberattack. As the recent US Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community states: “Russia’s advanced cyber capabilities, its repeated success compromising sensitive targets for intelligence collection, and its past attempts to pre-position access on U.S. critical infrastructure make it a persistent counterintelligence and cyber attack threat. Moscow’s unique strength is the practical experience it has gained integrating cyber attacks and operations with wartime military action, almost certainly amplifying its potential to focus combined impact on U.S. targets in time of conflict.”

While the assessment focuses on US infrastructure, comparable vulnerabilities exist in Europe. Moreover, given the “no limits” relationship between Russia and China, it is entirely possible that China’s very formidable cyber capabilities could be used in support of a Russian attack against NATO.

To be sure, in a conflict, cyberattacks are unlikely to be definitive in and of themselves. Ukraine has sustained many such attacks and has continued its defense against Russia. The operational technologies running critical infrastructure are resilient in the sense that they generally get disrupted but not destroyed by a cyberattack—and so can be reconstituted.

Still, disruption can have far-reaching and even catastrophic consequences—especially in the early days of a conflict when NATO would be engaged with bringing the necessary forces into place to repel a Russian attack. Critical infrastructures companies like port or railway operators do not have the expertise to respond to a high-level cyberattack on their own. A coordinated public-private set of actions would be required.

There are currently three overlapping sets of activities intended to bring about the necessary resilient cybersecurity for European private sector infrastructures:

1. NATO formally recognized the importance of cyber as an operational domain in 2016 and has undertaken a variety of initiatives since then. At the 2023 “Vilnius Summit, Allies . . . committed to more ambitious goals to strengthen national cyber defences as a matter of priority, including for critical infrastructures.” Most recently, NATO has said it will establish the NATO Integrated Cyber Defense Center to combine NATO’s existing cyber efforts and to engage industry partners from across the alliance as well. But this activity is not expected to be complete until 2028, and it is far from clear what degree of effort it will be undertake to ensure the resilience of key critical infrastructures.
2. Twenty-three of the thirty-two NATO nations are members of the European Union and therefore subject to the EU requirements on cybersecurity. EU regulations require that “essential and important entities should adopt a wide range of basic cyber hygiene practices, such as zero-trust principles, software updates, device configuration, network segmentation, identity and access management or user awareness, organise training for their staff and raise awareness concerning cyber threats, phishing or social engineering techniques.”
3. NATO nations have national cybersecurity programs, illustrated by France’s National Cybersecurity Agency [ANSSI] and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Defence Centre. Each of these (and the other national cyber agencies) undertakes to provide support to private sector entities, though the specifics vary according to the country. For example, the NCDC “support[s] the most critical organisations in the UK, the wider public sector, industry, SMEs as well as the general public. When incidents do occur, we provide effective incident response to minimise harm to the UK, help with recovery, and learn lessons for the future.”

A recent analysis set forth a series of key actions required to protect critical infrastructures necessary for NATO military operations. None of those actions should wait until 2028 for NATO’s establishment of its Integrated Cyber Defense Center. Most crucially: “NATO ultimately needs a mechanism for planning and implementing cyber operational collaboration among alliance members and with the private sector.”

In establishing such collaboration, NATO should “prioritize involving private sector entities that have a key operational role, including unique insights that could support operational activity as well as direct operational capabilities.” Key aspects of such collaboration would include:

• identifying and engaging the highest-priority infrastructure assets to ensure that they are sufficiently investing in resilience and have the highest level of government support in order to protect national security and economic productivity; and
• establishing “sector-specific councils or working groups that include representatives from member states, industry partners, and relevant NATO bodies. These groups could facilitate the exchange of threat intelligence and best practices, enhance collective defense capabilities, and streamline coordinated responses to cyber incidents affecting multiple NATO countries.”

Additionally, a focus on technological capabilities will be important. As the report states, “New innovations can help to provide visibility into both operational and information technology, using artificial intelligence to quickly learn what normal activity looks like and detecting anomalous behavior.”

Beyond the foregoing recommendations, four further actions will be important:

1. NATO networks as well as key critical infrastructures should all strictly adhere to the requirements for “zero trust architectures” that reduce the abilities of adversaries to compromise network capabilities. As noted above, the EU’s NIS 2 standard calls for zero trust, but it will be critically important to ensure that this requirement is being effectively put in place (including for non-EU nations). Achieving that goal will require a certification system backed up by red teaming to determine whether the particular system is in fact highly capable.
2. NATO should be ready to undertake an expanded effort akin to the United States’ “Hunt Forward” activity, which works with allies and partners to identify and eliminate malware in key cyber systems.
3. It will be necessary for NATO not only to focus on cyber defense but also to undertake to disrupt the offensive cyber capabilities that Russia would utilize against the alliance. As previously described: “The actual implementation of NATO’s cyber offensive capabilities is by nations through a process described as the ‘sovereign cyber effects provided voluntarily by allies.’ . . [Utilizing] this approach allows allies to support NATO commanders with cyberattacks, but to keep to themselves (as they choose), the particulars of their offensive cyber methods.. . . . However, in conditions of conflict, the value of wartime cyber offensive operations may benefit from broader coordination with kinetic operations.”
4. NATO should also undertake to ensure that both its own information technology systems and those of the critical infrastructures upon which it relies transition to so-called “memory safe” software inasmuch as two-thirds and more of cybersecurity issues derive from the use of unsafe code. This cannot be accomplished immediately, but the United States Defense Advanced Projects Agency has developed the “TRACTOR” program which will automate the transition from the widely used C language to the memory safe RUST language.

Achieving the NATO-private sector collaboration described above, including the necessary operational and technological changes, is crucial for wartime success. However, while it would be difficult enough to establish an effective NATO-private sector cyber relationship, there are further significant obstacles given both the national and European Union cybersecurity roles. Analytically, a NATO-EU collaboration should be achievable since all share a desired outcome: resilience to a Russian (or Chinese) cyberattack.

Practically, however, NATO-EU collaboration often devolves into multiple meetings without consequential on-the-ground impact—and NATO is not without fault as its approach to national cyber requirements has been more aspirational than operational or technical. It will be a critical test for European defense—and for the leaders of NATO, the EU, and the private sector—to see if cyber resilience can in fact be enhanced or whether it will fall prey to bureaucratic dysfunctionality.

IV. Europe needs prompt enhancement of its defense industrial capabilities

Europe’s defense industrial base needs substantial and immediate enhancement. As the Draghi report on the future of European competitiveness stated, “The defence industry is too fragmented, hindering its ability to produce at scale, and it suffers from a lack of standardisation and interoperability of equipment, weakening Europe’s ability to act as a cohesive power across the bloc.” In recognition of these deficiencies, individual European allies and the European Union have pledged to enhance their defense production and capacity. But many of those much-needed initiatives will take time—to send sufficient demand signals to industry, to ramp up industrial capacity, and to field actual capabilities to ensure allied warfighters are appropriately equipped. Time, however, is a very expensive commodity for a Europe facing a reconstituting Russia. Speed is critically important.

In the short and medium term, European allies need a sober assessment of what capabilities must be fielded quickly and which capabilities can reasonably be produced on the continent. As a first step, Europe should look to Ukraine for lessons learned on how to ramp up defense production quickly and which capabilities have been particularly effective against Russia. As discussed above, unmanned vehicles play an outsized role on the modern battlefield, and maintaining robust ammunition stockpiles is essential. Ukraine mass-produces UVs—at a volume of four million drones annually. European allies should undertake to promote defense industrial initiatives that deliver unmanned vehicle capabilities at comparable scale as promptly as possible. 

European allies could use the planned increases in defense budgets for investments in facilities for UV production. Such facilities can be stood up relatively quickly. By way of example, in the United States, Anduril is building a so-called “arsenal plant” to produce tens of thousands of autonomous weapons systems annually. The plant is expected to cost less than one billion dollars and to be operational in approximately eighteen months. Anduril is considering standing up a similar facility in the United Kingdom, but there are a number of European companies, such as Helsing in Germany or Leonardo in Italy, that could step up production of unmanned vehicles with the appropriate financial support. Investing in such facilities, and ramping up capacity across Europe, would dramatically strengthen Europe’s capabilities for any conflict on NATO’s eastern flank.

Alongside an industrial base in need of immediate and substantial enhancement, Europe is woefully low on artillery and ammunition rounds. The Ukrainian military uses approximately two million 155 mm artillery rounds annually. Through the European Act in Support of Ammunition Production, the European continent is supposed to scale up bloc-wide ammunition production efforts to produce two million 155 mm rounds a year. However, this much-hyped initiative has struggled to deliver on its promises—and even if it were able to reach this benchmark, it would still fall short of the necessary artillery production to sufficiently resource Ukraine and allied militaries while simultaneously replenishing allied stockpiles.

Europe struggles to produce the requisite number of artillery rounds, in part due to systemic industrial capacity issues but also because of a global shortage of TNT and gunpowder. In the short term, Europe should authorize around-the-clock industrial shifts in munition factories to ramp up production. Additionally, European allies should explore innovative opportunities to cast artillery rounds and other munitions rather than relying on the traditional method of forging, as proposed in a recent Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report. Forging is a time-intensive process compared to casting, which is more flexible and allows for recyclable metal to be molded in a shorter time frame. Europe has a significant foundry industry that could be redirected to produce artillery rounds and other munitions. Overcoming the global shortage of TNT will require strengthening strategic supply chains with like-minded allies and partners—most notably Japan. In the longer term, European allies should invest in new munition manufacturing facilities and expand the number of TNT production facilities beyond its reliance on the existing Nitro-Chem plant in Poland. To be sure, European munitions troubles extend beyond 155 mm artillery rounds. However, the clear vulnerabilities in this artillery production underscore the necessity for Europe to take prompt and innovative action to scale its munitions production.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that air defense is crucial to safeguarding civilians as well as critical infrastructure. Europe has tried to bolster its air and missile defense through collaborative procurement programs like the European Sky Shield Initiative and now the ReArm Europe plan. However, in the past, such initiatives have had mixed success, as progress stalls over political divergences. For example, France has been openly critical of the European Sky Shield Initiative for prioritizing the purchase of US weapon systems over European systems. As European allies continue to disagree on key issues related to security and defense, allies at the national level must forge ahead by buying individual capabilities that meet NATO’s interoperability standards to ensure these systems can be integrated across the alliance. Some would be US systems, such as Patriot, and some would be European, such as the NASAMS system by Kongsberg or the newer Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG.

Lastly, even if Europe were to adopt all of these approaches tomorrow—at both speed and scale—it would likely fall short of the needed industrial capacity to field sufficient capabilities to deter or defend against Russian aggression. In the short term, Europe must cooperate with its allies and partners, both in North America and the Indo-Pacific region, to fill its stocks and provide other capabilities. Despite political headwinds, the United States remains the strongest defense industrial partner of Europe: Its systems are widely used, trusted, and meet interoperability standards established by NATO. The remedy for laggard defense industrial capacity on both sides of the Atlantic is greater cooperation—not isolationism.

Where national governments diverge on approaches, European military planners and industry partners should explore other opportunities to strengthen industry-to-industry ties. This approach would match European defense industrial ambitions by supporting European efforts to meet short-term capability targets while also investing the necessary capital in facilities to grow a healthy and robust European defense industrial base in the long term. To this end, efforts to harness advantages on both sides of the Atlantic in the form of co-production and co-development facilities are heating up. For example, in December, RTX partnered with MBDA to open the first Patriot missile facility in Germany—which is slated to begin producing over a thousand Patriot missiles for NATO allies annually. Opportunities like this allow Europe to quickly scale up facilities, while allowing European industries to offset some of the steep costs associated with building out new manufacturing plants. In the short term, Europe is equipped with capabilities at an accelerated rate while at the same time developing the requisite infrastructure to create for itself a healthier and more self-sufficient defense industrial base. 

V. Conclusion

The transatlantic community agrees: Europe must do more to enhance its role in NATO. Taking the actions set forth in this issue brief will provide the necessary enhancement of European defense capabilities in the short and medium term to deter and, if necessary, defeat a reconstituted Russia.

Board director

Franklin D. Kramer

Distinguished Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Cybersecurity Defense Policy

Staff

Kristen Taylor

Assistant Director

Transatlantic Security Initiative

Europe & Eurasia European Union

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Image: A soldier from the US Army's 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team parachutes during a NATO-led exercise in Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel