Europe is finally cranking up its creaky defense factories

It is welcome news that the European Union is beginning to address its defense procurement woes. The E.U. announced it will spend about $550 million to bolster ammunition and artillery shell production at weapons plants in more than a dozen E.U. nations, among them Greece, Slovakia and Hungary. The new funds are the first in a series of planned E.U. infusions to modernize Europe’s spotty and scattered defense industries.

As if to underscore the point, the E.U. released its first-ever blueprint for updating the continent’s sagging defense industrial base, outlining ways for nations to overhaul production lines and buy weapons from neighbors as well as stepping up their joint defense planning. Nearly twothirds of all European-made weapons are purchased only by the country where they are manufactured, McKinsey reported last year, a predictable but costly inefficiency.

The road to heightened European security will be long and difficult. While NATO reported in February that 18 of its 32 members will spend 2% of their GDP on defense in 2024 (a huge advance from five years ago) several of the richest nations — France, Germany and Canada, for example — struggle with that goal and with years of underfunding their militaries.

NATO infantry units are overstretched; combat ships are understaffed; and defense ministries often cannibalize equipment from one unit to get another ready to deploy. Britain has committed to provide one heavy armored division to NATO in the event of a crisis, but a recent House of Commons report suggested it could not deploy at full strength unless another country provided a third of the force.

Recruitment and retention for what are mostly volunteer forces is a vexing challenge (just as they are in the United States) and ammunition and spare parts shortages are common. Some of the largest NATO countries buy their weapons year by year, rather than with more economical long-term contracts, which makes both front-end research and back-end maintenance harder. And shipments of available weapon stockpiles to Ukraine since 2022 have deepened NATO’s readiness problems.

The United States has guaranteed Europe’s security for the past 75 years. Partly as a result, no other Western nation can afford to conduct sustained, complex military operations far from home. But NATO does not need every member nation to be a bristling, multi-mission superpower.

NATO is designed to mount a collective defense. Individual countries have excellent specialties: The Dutch excel at special operations; the Norwegians are the world’s best at underwater operations. U.S. officials praise the Carl Gustaf, an 84mm recoilless rifle made by Sweden’s Saab Bofors that is, said one, “cheaper and better than anything we have.” A British-Swedish system, the NLAW close support weapon, has been credited with helping Ukraine destroy a third of Russian armor.

Alliances work best when all parties make the most of their strengths — and act together to address their shared weaknesses.