Europeans are building a war economy. Can they master it?
By Sebastian Sprenger
Feb 23, 01:11 PM
COLOGNE, Germany — When Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron quickly proclaimed Europe needed an “économie de guerre” — a war economy — to underwrite its security.
Since then, governments here have rushed to assess how rapidly they can purchase weapons. Most were sobered by the lack of production capacity in an arms industry focused on the promise of expensive, advanced technology rather than mass output.
As Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its third year, there’s a movement afoot to remake the European defense-industrial complex into a muscular deterrent in its own right. The effort is playing out in national capitals as well as at the European Union. Officials in Brussels are expected to unveil a defense industry strategy soon that will test the bloc’s ability to unleash and simultaneously tame a market that went from obscure to omnipresent in two short years.
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/02/23/europeans-are-building-a-war-economy-can-they-master-it/
