The Russian Army. Photo courtesy of the Russian State Duma
After eighty years of relying on the U.S. for defense, the EU’s combined military power remains dwarfed by the U.S., Russia, and China.
Recent media reports have claimed that Europe is bolstering its defenses to counter Russia, increasingly independent of U.S. assistance.
These headlines, while attention-grabbing, often gloss over a critical clarification: Europe is not a unified political entity. It is a continent—a geographic space—lacking its own institutions or a standing army.
When such claims surface, they could plausibly refer to three distinct entities: NATO, the US-led transatlantic alliance with its collective defense framework; the European Union (EU), a political and economic union with limited military integration; or a broader notion of “greater Europe,” encompassing all nations on the continent, including non-EU and non-NATO countries like Russia itself.
For this article, I assume these claims point to the EU’s militarization efforts. And for the analysis, I am employing this PMEI framework—Political, Military, Economic, and Infrastructure—widely used in strategic and national security contexts, to provide a comprehensive lens to assess the EU’s complex systems, identifying strengths, vulnerabilities, and interdependencies across these critical domains.
Political Domain: The EU has institutions like the European Defence Agency (EDA), established in 2004 to coordinate defense research and procurement, yet it lacks a unified army, command and control, or Pentagon-like strategy.
The U.S., Russia, and China, as individual nations, can make rapid, centralized decisions—crucial in wartime—while the EU, a coalition of 27 states, must navigate the European Parliament, a body lacking the mandate, authority, or enforceability for tough wartime choices.
For example, the Parliament cannot institute conscription or order troop deployments, powers reserved for member states, hobbling unified mobilization.
Alliances further differentiate them: the U.S. maintains bilateral defense agreements with approximately 50 nations (e.g., Japan, South Korea, Australia) and is party to multilateral arrangements beyond NATO, including NORAD (with Canada), the UKUSA Agreement (Five Eyes with UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad with Japan, Australia, India), AUKUS (with UK, Australia), and the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty with 19 Western Hemisphere nations, including Caribbean states like Bahamas and Trinidad).
Russia leads the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with six ex-Soviet states, and China, though formally allied only with North Korea, has proven—via economic support in the Ukraine war—its willingness to back Russia in conflict.
The EU, beyond its NATO members’ commitments, has no significant external formal alliances, relying on internal coordination and ad hoc partnerships.
Military and Economic Domain: To frame the EU’s military capacity, compare it to global powers: the U.S. spends $916 billion annually (this includes all defense and defense-related expenditure as per Department of Defense budget), Russia $145.9 billion, and China $235 billion, overshadowing the EU’s collective $300 billion.
Military Domain: Troop numbers show the EU’s 1.3 million active personnel matching the U.S., but trailing China’s 2 million and Russia’s 1 million. Naval power reveals further gaps—the EU’s one aircraft carrier (France) and 60 submarines versus the U.S.’s 11 carriers and 66 subs, Russia’s one carrier and 62 subs, and China’s three carriers and 74 subs.
In space, logistics, and intelligence, the EU relies on U.S. satellites (e.g., GPS) and lacks independent threat assessments, unlike the U.S., Russia, and China, which maintain self-reliant systems and publish detailed, geography-specific strategies (e.g., Arctic, Indo-Pacific).
Nuclear arsenals underscore the divide: the EU’s 290 warheads (France) against the U.S.’s 3,708, Russia’s 5,580, and China’s 600.
Infrastructure Domain: The EU’s industrial base supports arms production but lacks the scale and autonomy of the U.S., Russia, or China.
Dependent on U.S. systems (63% of recent acquisitions) and global supply chains, it struggles to match Russia’s 2 million shells or the U.S.’s centralized surge capacity—targeting 2 million shells by 2025 but hindered by fragmentation.
Energy dependence (57% imported) leaves it exposed to a Russian cutoff or blockade, with reserves and LNG insufficient for a prolonged war, unlike the self-sufficient U.S. and Russia or coal-reliant China.
Food-wise, the EU is 90% self-sufficient but relies on imported fertilizers and energy, a fragility absent in the U.S. and Russia, though less acute than China’s import needs. These weaknesses compound the EU’s strategic lag.
In terms of raw firepower, the Global Firepower Index (GFP) ranks the U.S. at 0.0744, Russia and China tied at 0.0788, reflecting their top-tier status.
The EU lacks a unified score, but aggregating its strongest members—France (0.1878, rank 8), Italy (0.2164, rank 10)—and its collective assets suggests a theoretical capability akin to India’s 0.1184 (rank 4), though fragmentation weakens its practical standing. The UK, with a PwrIndx of 0.1785 (rank 6), boasts Europe’s strongest military but, as a non-EU state since 2020, doesn’t bolster the Union’s tally.
This PMEI analysis reveals the EU’s profound vulnerabilities across political cohesion, military might, economic resources, and infrastructure resilience. Without U.S. assistance, the EU would struggle to defeat either Russia or China in a conventional war.
Russia’s proximity, 5,580 nuclear warheads, and energy leverage—capable of cutting off remaining gas flows or blockading Baltic and North Sea routes—overwhelm the EU’s fragmented defenses, limited naval power (one carrier vs. Russia’s submarines), and reliance on imported munitions and energy (57% of needs).
China, with 2 million troops and a growing navy (74 subs, three carriers), poses a different but equally daunting challenge.
The EU’s lack of strategic depth, unified command, and self-sufficient arms production (e.g., only 500,000 shells delivered vs. promised 1 million) would falter against China’s scale and resilience, even as a net importer.
The U.S.’s $916 billion budget, 11 carriers, and self-sufficiency in arms, energy, and food underpin its role as the EU’s linchpin. Absent that support, the EU’s theoretical firepower (akin to India’s) dissipates in practice, leaving it outmatched by Russia’s immediacy or China’s mass.
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