Thanks to Trump and Putin, Europe needs to rearm quickly. But can it catch up fast enough?
Europe’s security reset may already need resetting
The gold leaf halls of Paris's Luxembourg Palace have witnessed countless stirring moments of oratory in the roughly 200 years that it has hosted French senators and other parliamentarians, but the moment that stands out of late belongs to Claude Malhuret and his incendiary takedown of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Malhuret, a 75-year-old doctor and lawyer who once headed Médecins Sans Frontières, made headlines around the world in March with an eight-minute speech that was translated and racked up tens of millions of views on social media.
It eviscerated the U.S. president, calling him a "traitor" to the West and a threat to European security.
"Trump's message is that there is no point in being his ally because he will not defend you," boomed Malhuert from the ornate chamber. "He will impose higher tariffs on you than his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories."
"Europe is standing alone," he said as he called on the continent to accelerate military aid to Ukraine to help it repel Russia's invasion and to rapidly build up Europe's armies to compensate for Trump's disinterest.
In the weeks since giving that speech, military and security developments on the continent have moved at a dizzying pace. And while Malhuret's voice was but one of many making such arguments, he told CBC News he takes some comfort that his words might have helped motivate the largest rearmament program Europe has seen in decades.
"Europeans are emerging from denial," he told CBC News in a recent interview at Luxembourg Palace.
"The message for the French people [is] very simple. We will probably have to defend Ukraine ourselves. And the second message is that the Atlantic Alliance is in great danger," he said.
Earlier this week, Trump — again — falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia and continued to insist President Vladimir Putin wants peace even as Russia's bombardment of Ukrainian cities has increased.
First steps
While European leaders continue to push to change Trump's mind, they have also taken major steps to rearm.
The European Union says it plans to raise an immediate 150 billion euros ($236 billion Cdn) for collective defence. Separately, many countries have announced their own measures.
Poland says it plans to create an army of half a million soldiers.
France says it intends to build a new generation of aircraft carriers and has begun talks about possibly extending its nuclear umbrella over other countries.
Germany has unlocked hundreds of billions of euros for new infrastructure, much of which could be channeled toward defence.
And Britain, no longer in the European Union but still keen to demonstrate broader leadership, is boosting defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, the largest such increase in four decades.
Big gaps
Despite the flurry of announcements, a new report is underscoring the reality of just how difficult it will be for European countries to wean themselves off of American military might and technology — and to do it quickly.
The report by the Brussels-based Bruegel think-tank underscores that there are immense gaps in defence production capabilities that must be overcome.
Notably, it says Europe suffers from a paucity of advanced defence technologies.
For example, while the U.S. has ramped up mass production of its fifth-generation F-35 fighter, European factories are still churning out fourth-generation European planes.
It also says national rivalries are sapping Europe's ability to mass produce top quality systems.
Whereas the U.S. focuses its energies on producing a single main battle tank (the M1 Abrams), Europe produces seven, with each country prioritizing their own home-produced model.
One of the authors of the report told CBC News "procurement nationalism," or favouring products produced in their home markets, is holding back Europe's rearming project.
"Step No. 1 is that we must use the economies of scale that the huge European market has," said Armin Steinbach, a non-resident fellow at Bruegel.
"That helps to scale up production in a much more efficient and less costly way."
Steinbach's group is proposing a new pan-European defence fund — the "European Defence Mechanism" — to facilitate the joint procurement.
In theory, he says non-European countries, including Canada, could contribute to the fund and also benefit from it by collaborating on potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in new military projects.
"We are aware that Canada is a country that is also in a moment of reorientation, given what's going on in the U.S.," said Steinbach.
European defence ministers considered the Bruegel proposal for the first time last week, calling it a good starting point.
French optimism
On a recent trip to France, CBC News spoke with several senior European officials engaged with the rearmament effort who remain optimistic that they can execute the difficult pivot on defence procurements that's needed.
"What we want to build is a European Union that relies on itself regarding its security," France's former prime minister Gabriel Attal told CBC News.
Attal was prime minister for nine months from January to September 2024, before his Renaissance Party lost power after President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election to try to fend off a surge from the far-right.
He remains an elected member of France's Parliament and there's widespread speculation that he could stand for the presidency in 2027.
"Our vision is to invest way more in our national budgets on defence, to buy European and from European defence industries and to build some sort of a European compass regarding our defence," he said.
Svenja Hahn, a German member of Europe's Parliament representing the left-leaning Free Democratic Party, said she believes the security crisis posed by Trump and Putin will help focus minds on overcoming the collective challenges.
"If we do not want to be overrun by the bullies of the world, we really have to become a third superpower [after China and the U.S.]," she told CBC News at a forum in Paris.
Tough timing
While new fighter jets, tanks and sophisticated missile defence systems can take many years — even decades — to develop and produce, Europe may be able to move faster ramping up defences in other areas, notably drones.
"Its a huge priority," said Rafael Loss, a fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.
"The Ukrainians are showing you can have a large production base without necessarily enormously extended timelines for production."
He also said the standing armies of most European nations at the moment are too small, yet they can be bolstered through new recruitment and training relatively quickly.
While the Bruegel report doesn't specifically set a deadline for Europe to ramp up its own rearmament, Loss says planners are likely considering several key timelines.
"One is with the [duration] of the Trump presidency; the other is Vladimir Putin's lifespan," he told CBC News.
In other words, he says there's an imperative to revamp armies and create new armaments quickly, as Trump still has three and half more years in his term. And at the same time, Putin, who's 72, may also be inclined to accelerate his ambitions to enlarge Russia's territory by taking over neighbouring Baltic nations in his lifetime.
Loss says the other big determinant on how much time Europe has to rearm is the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
"I think defeating Russia in Ukraine would minimize the risk of Russian escalation against European countries."
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