Europe Is Spending More. But the Question Isn't Money

In 2025, European NATO members spent 739 billion euros on defense. That's 14% more than the year before — the fastest growth since 1953. The numbers are impressive. The headlines are pleased. But there's one question that doesn't appear in those headlines: what, exactly, has changed?

The answer is uncomfortable—almost nothing.

Bigger budgets aren't the same as greater independence. Most of what Europe is buying with that money is produced outside the continent. The doctrines underpinning defense planning were developed over decades within American strategic logic. Command infrastructure, logistics chains, communications systems — all embedded in an architecture centered on Washington, not Brussels or Warsaw. When Europe spends more, it mostly integrates more deeply into the same system. That isn't necessarily wrong — but it's not what anyone would call strategic autonomy.