Peace, Security & Defence

Europe is at war. While Ukraine bears the kinetic brunt of the war, the rest of Europe is heavily engaged in a scenario of below-threshold, hybrid warfare with Russia. Russian operations form a centrally planned and managed campaign designed to destabilise European societies, test European resilience and resolve, and weaken the transatlantic bond. In recent years, Europe has experienced a growing number of hybrid operations, from sabotage of critical infrastructure to cyber-attacks and drone incursions over EU and NATO territory.

Five years into the war in Ukraine, the nature of warfare has evolved into an increasingly digital, data-driven and unmanned domain. The European security architecture calls for reform and updates which Europe’s peacetime mindset prevents from delivering decisively.

Keeping citizens safe and protecting democracy are fundamental parts of any social contract. There is a growing consensus that resilience, vigilance and a robust defence require a greater share of collective resources.

Europe needs a decade of defence investment to rebuild deterrent capabilities run down since the Cold War. Yet, European NATO Allies already form the world’s second-largest defence spender, well ahead of Russia.  As European NATO Allies and EU member states rearm at levels not seen since the Cold War, the key question is therefore no longer whether Europe is spending more, but whether it is spending in line with the changing character of warfare.

NATO and the EU should thoroughly assess the balance in spending priorities between emerging and disruptive capabilities and legacy-heavy capabilities.

Under the leadership of the European Commission, the EU is working to accelerate defence capability delivery and utilising increased defence spending by incentivising joint procurement. This is aimed at reducing the costly fragmentation of national buying. Launching the ReArm Europe programme and the SAFE instrument provide loans and financial flexibility for defence acquisitions.

While NATO remains Europe’s central collective defence organisation for now, its deterrent power has been diminished. The EU must use its broader toolbox to meet European countries’ commitments to stronger defence and to be able to act in crises where NATO or the United States choose not to engage. This includes building on the success of collective vaccine purchases during the pandemic, ammunition procurement for Ukraine and using the European Defence Fund and European Peace Fund to develop and procure key military enablers to fill existing capability gaps. The launch of the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity in 2025 showcases the EU’s desires in facilitating a quicker and more effective response when a crisis erupts.

Increasing defence capabilities also requires strengthening defences in 21st-century domains, including developing drone and counter-drone innovation and manufacturing, space defence capabilities, revamping the AI Act while also integrating AI tools into its risk preparedness policies and planning, and investing in developing a secure quantum computing infrastructure and supporting the development of quantum-safe cryptography.

The Enlargement process has been and remains one of the EU’s most effective foreign policy tools to stabilise its strategic environment. Member states must seize the geopolitical moment and give high priority to bringing Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and all the Western Balkans countries into the Union provided they meet EU standards durably.

The increase of targeted hybrid operations in Europe has generated a need to strengthen societies’ resilience and comprehensive preparedness towards external shocks. In a new approach to citizens’ responsibility for collective defence and resilience, the EU should adopt a whole-of-society approach to crises inspired by the Finnish and Swedish total defence models and Ukraine’s wartime resilience to enhance societal preparedness in all spheres of private and public life. This may also require reintroducing compulsory military service or training and/or compulsory civil defence/readiness service in peacetime. To build resilience against hybrid warfare, the EU should create forums for regular public-private-military consultation to anticipate hybrid threats, develop systematic information-sharing and strengthen advance planning.

Friends of Europe’s Peace, Security and Defence programme actively engages on matters related to European and transatlantic security and defence in accordance with three thematic pillars: optimising defence spending, strengthening capabilities and institutions, and increasing preparedness and societal resilience. All initiatives are supported by – and feed into – the programme’s flagship Ukraine Initiative launched in 2023.

• The Spending Better Initiative
  • This High Impact initiative of the Jacques Delors Friends of Europe Foundation, led by Friends of Europe, supports debates around the need to optimise defence spending. Designed to support exchanges aimed at improving the European institutional setup enabling the rise of a strong, independent and resilient European defence industry.
• The Clearing the Skies Initiative
  • The Clearing the Skies initiative aims to elevate European capabilities in drone and counter-drone systems. This includes taking lessons from Ukraine’s experiences in drone warfare and integrating it into European defence policy and industrial development.
• The European Societal Resilience Initiative
  • Friends of Europe’s initiative on Strengthening Europe’s digital, physical and democratic resilience supports the notion that Europe must adopt a whole-of-society approach to crisis response, integrating civilian, institutional and technological capacities alongside defence planning.
• The Ukraine Initiative
  • Friends of Europe’s Ukraine Initiative promotes public diplomacy messages that supporting Ukraine financially, politically, and militarily is nothing less than a moral duty and a long-term investment into Europe’s future security. The Ukraine initiative functions as a core, transversal pillar which informs and feeds into all strands of work of the PSD programme.

Modern conflict is fought beyond the battlefield. Hybrid war targets people as much as infrastructure, and the line between civil and defence domains is increasingly blurred. This requires policy frameworks that link security, infrastructure continuity, and societal cohesion, ensuring that digital and physical resilience reinforce each other.