Europe’s next war may not begin with tanks crossing a border. It may begin with a severed undersea cable, a disabled port, a swarm of cheap drones over an airbase, a cyber-attack on an energy grid, GPS disruption in the High North, sabotage against pipelines, or political paralysis caused by fear, disinformation and economic shock. The battlefield will not be confined to the front line. It will run through Europe’s seas, skies, networks, factories, supply chains and public confidence.
By Maj Gen Rambir Singh Mann, PhD
That is why Europe’s rearmament debate must move beyond the simple question of spending more. The real question is whether Europe can arm intelligently enough to secure its future without wasting resources, duplicating effort or preparing for the last war. Europe needs smart arming, not panic rearmament.
Smart arming means converting defence expenditure into usable strategic capacity. It means building forces that can deter, fight, replenish and adapt. It also means treating military capability, the defence industry, energy security, economic resilience, civil preparedness, technological sovereignty, and diplomacy as a single integrated security problem. For Norway and for European defence and intelligence planners, this is real.
Norway sits at the intersection of the High North, the North Atlantic, European energy security, undersea infrastructure, maritime surveillance and advanced defence technology. Its geography makes it a frontline state; its offshore energy infrastructure makes it a strategic European asset; and its defence industry gives it a role in Europe’s wider industrial renewal.
Strategy Before Rearmament
Rearmament must begin with strategy. Defence expenditure should flow from a clear assessment of threats, interests, geography, alliance commitments, industrial capacity and diplomatic objectives. Without that discipline, rearmament risks becoming an expensive catalogue of platforms: politically reassuring, but strategically incoherent. The best answer to insecurity is not always more arms but is to shape the geopolitical environment so that wasteful arming becomes unnecessary.
Diplomacy, crisismanagement channels, strategic communication, economic statecraft, arms control, regional confidence-building and calibrated deterrence remain essential instruments of security. Europe should not abandon diplomacy in favour of militarisation. It should ensure that diplomacy is backed by credible capacity. Restraint without capability is hollow; capability without restraint is dangerous. Europe must therefore pursue adequate deterrence while actively managing escalation and reducing avoidable arms racing.
In the Arctic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Black Sea and North Atlantic theatres, security will depend not only on military posture, but also on political signalling, maritime protocols, infrastructure protection agreements and crisis communication mechanisms. Rearmament must be threat-based, not emotion-based and not be driven by external influences, geo-political games of outside powers or by the Military Industrial Complex.
Its purpose is not to arm endlessly. Its purpose is to create the level of capacity that makes aggression unattractive and allows diplomacy to operate from strength.
The Threat: A Long Contest Across Multiple Domains
Europe’s most immediate military threat remains Russia. Even after heavy losses in Ukraine, Russia retains nuclear forces, submarines, missiles, long-range aviation, air defence systems, cyber capabilities, electronic warfare, intelligence networks and a political culture willing to absorb high costs. Moscow has shown an ability to mobilise industry, exploit grey-zone ambiguity and conduct a long war of attrition.
For Norway and northern Europe, this has specific implications. The High North, Barents Sea, Norwegian Sea and North Atlantic remain central to Russian strategic posture. Russian submarines, Arctic bases, missiles and aviation assets make the northern theatre critical to NATO reinforcement and deterrence. Any serious European crisis would place immediate pressure on sea lines of communication, surveillance networks, airfields, ports and energy infrastructure across the northern flank. But Europe’s threat environment is not limited to Russia.
China’s role is more indirect but increasingly consequential. Its influence is visible in critical raw materials, technology dependencies, port infrastructure, telecommunications, supply chains, dual-use research and strategic finance. Europe cannot view security only through territorial defence. Economic dependency can become strategic vulnerability. The third threat is systemic disruption below the threshold of war. Cyber-attacks, drone intrusions, sabotage, GPS jamming, disinformation, attacks on undersea infrastructure and coercive migration pressure are instruments of strategic shaping.
Their purpose is to test thresholds, impose economic cost and weaken political cohesion before any formal conflict begins. Smart arming must therefore prepare Europe not only for invasion, but for sustained coercion.
Deterrence by Capacity
For decades, Europe relied on NATO deterrence, American military depth and the assumption that future wars would be short, limited or expeditionary. Ukraine has broken those assumptions. A modern war consumes ammunition, missiles, drones, vehicles, manpower, electronic systems and political will at a rate Europe was not prepared for. Deterrence by capacity rests on four foundations.
Europe must have ready forces able to deny a rapid fait accompli. It must rebuild stockpiles of ammunition, air defence interceptors, anti-ship missiles, spares, fuel, medical supplies and engineering stores. It must expand industrial surge capacity in factories, supply chains, skilled labour, energetics, machine tools and certification systems. It must also harden the civilian systems on which military endurance depends: ports, railways, grids, data centres, pipelines, hospitals, public communication systems and local administration.
Lessons from Ukraine and Iran
The wars in Ukraine and Iran carry a central lesson for Europe: military power is no longer measured only by economic size, platform sophistication or conventional mass. A weaker state, if resilient, adaptive and politically determined, can stymie a stronger power by denying rapid victory, imposing attrition, exploiting geography, dispersing assets, using drones and missiles intelligently, and turning conflict into a contest of endurance. Ukraine has demonstrated this against Russia.
It did not survive through symmetry. It survived by combining national will, dispersed defence, external support, rapid battlefield innovation, drones, air defence, intelligence fusion, information operations and societal mobilisation. It showed that superiority in armour, artillery, aircraft or manpower can be blunted when a defender can see, strike, adapt and endure. The Iran conflict offers a different but relevant lesson. Iran could not match the United States or Israel in conventional military sophistication. Yet missiles, drones, proxies, geography, maritime leverage, political endurance and regional depth complicated the calculations of far stronger adversaries.
Even where Iran suffered heavy losses, the conflict underlined that weaker actors can impose disproportionate costs, stretch expensive air defence systems, threaten sea lanes, shape political narratives and exploit escalation thresholds. For Europe, the implications are that resilience, adaptation and asymmetry now matter as much as traditional force ratios. Europe needs a high-low mix: advanced platforms for decisive effect, affordable mass for persistence, and rapid innovation cycles for adaptation. Expensive systems can be saturated by cheaper weapons. Air defence can be exhausted if interceptors are scarce. Precision fires lose value if stockpiles are shallow. Command systems become vulnerable if they lack redundancy. Smart arming must therefore combine quality with quantity, technology with endurance, and deterrence with regeneration.
Europe’s Threatened Flanks
Europe’s geography demands an integrated flank strategy. The eastern front is the most visible, but the northern, North Sea and Mediterranean flanks are equally important. A new vulnerable flank is also developing in the digital geography – data centres. With the excessive reliance on AI in all facets of human endeavour, these may emerge as a key vulnerability. The northern and Arctic flank is central to Russian strategic power and NATO reinforcement. Any crisis in Europe would depend on secure sea lanes across the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea. Norway’s geography, airfields, ports, intelligence capabilities, maritime surveillance and energy infrastructure therefore have continent-wide importance.
The Arctic is becoming more accessible due to climate change, increasing military activity, surveillance competition, resource interest and strategic signalling. Europe requires persistent situational awareness, anti-submarine capability, satellite coverage, cold-weather readiness and resilient communications in the north. The North Sea is one of Europe’s most critical security spaces. It contains gas platforms, offshore wind infrastructure, pipelines, power interconnectors, subsea cables, ports, shipping lanes and maritime approaches to northern Europe.
Sabotage against pipelines, cable disruption, drone surveillance of offshore installations, cyber-attacks on port systems and interference with maritime traffic could impose severe economic and psychological costs without crossing the formal threshold of war. Europe therefore needs a North Sea security architecture combining naval patrols, coast guards, maritime domain awareness, seabed sensors, satellite surveillance, autonomous underwater systems, rapid repair teams, cyber protection and legal frameworks for attribution and response. The Mediterranean flank is different in character but no less important.
It connects Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the wider Indian Ocean. Through it flow energy, trade, migration, terrorism risks, organised crime and geopolitical competition. Instability in the Mediterranean affects shipping insurance, supply chains, migration politics, internal cohesion and military posture. Europe needs a Mediterranean strategy built around naval presence, maritime surveillance, port security, counter-drone systems, intelligence cooperation, energy security and partnerships with North African and Middle Eastern states.
Capability Priorities for Smart Arming
Europe cannot do everything at once. It must prioritise capabilities that generate deterrent effect, operational endurance and resilience. Air and missile defence must be foundational. Europe needs layered protection against drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and aircraft. The key requirement is not only launchers but cost effective interceptor production at scale. Directed-energy systems should form part of Europe’s smart-arming agenda.
Shipborne and shore-based lasers, as well as high-power microwave systems, are becoming viable for counter-drone, counterswarm and close-in infrastructure defence roles. They offer low cost per shot, deep magazines and rapid engagement, making them especially relevant against the economics of drone saturation seen in Ukraine and the Middle East. However, they presently remain constrained by weather, range, dwell time, power, cooling, target hardening and electromagnetic safety considerations.
They should therefore be fielded selectively as a part of layered kinetic air defence for missiles and high-end aerial threats. Their value lies not in replacing conventional systems, but in reducing the cost curve of defence against cheap mass. Long-range precision fires are equally important. Europe must be able to hold adversary military assets at risk through deep-strike systems, anti-ship missiles, loitering munitions and networked targeting. Such capability complicates enemy planning and reduces the credibility of rapid aggression. Drones and autonomous systems must become a permanent European industrial ecosystem, not an emergency import category. Europe needs tactical drones, maritime drones, autonomous underwater systems, long-endurance ISR platforms, loitering munitions and counter-drone networks that can be produced, upgraded and replaced quickly and cheaply. Electronic warfare and spectrum control are now central to military effectiveness.
Jamming, spoofing, passive detection, signals intelligence, secure communications and alternative navigation systems are critical. GPS disruption in northern Europe has already shown the vulnerability of both military and civilian systems. Undersea and maritime security require urgent attention. Pipelines, cables and power connectors cannot be protected by traditional naval presence alone.
Europe needs seabed mapping, sensors, autonomous underwater vehicles, rapid inspection capacity, repair capability, satellite integration and multinational legal protocols. Logistics and military mobility are warfighting capabilities. Forces are useless if they cannot move. Ports, railways, bridges, fuel systems, customs procedures, ammunition depots, maintenance hubs and medical evacuation systems must be upgraded for crisis conditions. Finally, Europe must rebuild ammunition and energetics production. The ammunition problem is not merely a stockpile deficit. It is a production deficit involving propellants, explosives, skilled labour and manufacturing capacity.
Flexible Procurement in the Age of Generative AI
The full impact of generative AI on defence is still unfolding, but it will be profound. It will affect intelligence analysis, planning, simulation, decision support, cyber operations, logistics, maintenance, training, deception, software development, autonomous systems and information warfare. It will compress decision cycles and accelerate adaptation. It will also create new vulnerabilities: synthetic media, automated disinformation, AIenabled cyber-attacks, model poisoning, data dependency and over-reliance on opaque systems.
Traditional defence procurement is not suited to this environment. Europe cannot rely on rigid cycles built around fixed specifications, long trials, slow certification and platformcentric acquisition. By the time such systems are fielded, the software, threat and countermeasure environment may have changed. Smart arming therefore requires flexible government procurement. This does not mean abandoning accountability. It means moving towards modular contracts, spiral development, open architecture, rapid prototyping, operational experimentation, software update pathways and framework agreements that allow fast insertion of new technologies. For intelligence organisations, the implications are even sharper.
Generative AI will transform the volume, velocity and manipulation of information. Agencies will need AI tools for data fusion, open-source intelligence, language processing, anomaly detection, maritime surveillance, satellite imagery, cyber threat analysis and deception detection. But they will also need human judgement, auditability and protection against adversarial manipulation.
For Norway, AI-enabled maritime and Arctic surveillance could be a major force multiplier. Vast maritime spaces, Russian activity, energy installations, undersea infrastructure and North Atlantic approaches require persistent sensing and rapid analysis. AI can assist, but only if procurement systems allow secure adoption at operational speed.
Captive Capability and Controlled Dependence
Europe must avoid two opposite mistakes. The first is the fantasy of full autarky: the belief that every state, or even Europe as a whole, can produce everything indigenously at acceptable cost and speed. The second is careless dependence: the assumption that allies, markets or global supply chains will always provide what is needed in crisis.
The answer is controlled dependence. Europe must identify what must remain captive, what can be pooled regionally, and what can be outsourced to trusted allies or partners for cost effectiveness and scale. Critical capabilities should remain under sovereign or tightly trusted-alliance control, irrespective of cost. These include secure command systems, cryptography, operational software, sensitive sensors, missile seekers, propulsion technologies, warheads, energetics, electronic warfare libraries, cyber tools, sovereign intelligence databases, airdefence command networks, undersea surveillance data and core repair rights for strategic platforms.
If losing access to a component would disable national defence in crisis, that capability cannot be treated as an ordinary market commodity. Other capabilities can be outsourced, co-produced or pooled where cost effectiveness is enabled and strategic risk is acceptable. Non-sensitive components, vehicle parts, protective equipment, training simulators, commercial drone structures, electronics packaging, maintenance services and non-critical spares can be produced through trusted partner networks. The aim should not be dependence for convenience, but distributed resilience.
Economic Security and Industrial Renewal
Europe’s defence cannot be separated from its economy. An adversary does not need to defeat NATO militarily if it can fracture European societies through energy shocks, trade disruption, infrastructure attacks and political manipulation. Energy security is central.
Europe’s move away from Russian energy has made Norway more important, but it has also made Norwegian infrastructure more exposed. Offshore platforms, pipelines, terminals, undersea cables and power interconnectors must be protected as strategic assets. The energy transition creates additional vulnerabilities. Offshore wind farms, battery supply chains, hydrogen systems, smart grids, rare minerals and digitalised power networks all require security planning. Green transition without security resilience would merely replace one dependency with another.
Smart arming must also be designed so that defence expenditure is ploughed back into Europe’s wider economy and industrialisation. Rearmament should not become a narrow military consumption exercise. If properly structured, it can strengthen manufacturing, high-technology ecosystems, skilled employment, regional industrial bases, research institutions and dual-use innovation. Europe must rebuild capacity in precision engineering, shipbuilding, electronics, propulsion, energetics, advanced materials, semiconductors, sensors, cyber systems, autonomous platforms, space services and secure communications.
These are not only defence sectors. They are foundations of future economic competitiveness. Defence procurement should therefore be linked to broader industrial policy. Long-term contracts should create predictable demand. Defence orders should support apprenticeships, vocational training, engineering skills and advanced manufacturing. Public investment in defence research should generate dual-use spillovers into robotics, maritime technology, energy systems, artificial intelligence, telecommunications, logistics and cyber security.
NATO, the EU and Non-EU Partners
Europe’s smart arming strategy must align NATO, EU and non-EU states. NATO should define the operational requirement: deterrence posture, readiness, command arrangements, interoperability and defence plans.
The EU should help create the industrial and financial conditions: procurement incentives, regulatory alignment, infrastructure resilience, critical raw materials, defence investment, technology policy and cross-border industrial cooperation.
Non-EU NATO partners such as Norway and the United Kingdom must be fully integrated where their capabilities are essential. Excluding them from European defence industrial arrangements would weaken Europe’s own security. Norway’s maritime, missile, sensor, energy and Arctic capabilities make it indispensable to any serious European security architecture.
The Defence Industrial Compact
Europe Needs Europe requires a long-term defence industrial compact based on five principles.
First, demand certainty. Industry will not invest in production lines without predictable orders. Multi-year procurement must become normal for ammunition, missiles, drones, air defence interceptors and critical components. Second, distributed production. Critical manufacturing should not be over-concentrated. Europe needs dispersed, protected and interoperable production networks.
Third, allied specialisation. Not every country needs to produce everything. Europe should identify centres of excellence in missiles, naval systems, land systems, cyber, drones, sensors, energetics, space systems, ship repair and Arctic capabilities. Norway should be central in maritime strike, sensors, undersea security, energy protection and High North surveillance.
Fourth, surge capacity. Contracts should include provisions for rapid expansion, stockpiled inputs, trained reserve labour, dormant production capacity and accelerated certification.
Fifth, innovation at operational speed. Defence innovation must move from experiment to fielded capability quickly. Europe needs test ranges, challenge funds, rapid procurement cells and military units authorised to test new technologies.
The compact should measure conversion efficiency. The real test is not how much money is spent, but how quickly expenditure becomes deployable capability; how much of it strengthens European industry; how much improves stockpiles, repair capacity and supply-chain resilience; and how much reduces future dependence.
The Norwegian Role
Norway can make a decisive contribution to Europe’s smart arming agenda. It can lead in High North surveillance and Arctic security. It can help build the North Sea security architecture. It can protect and harden energy infrastructure vital to Europe. It can contribute advanced maritime strike, air defence, sensors and autonomous systems. It can strengthen undersea domain awareness, share total defence lessons and serve as a bridge between NATO operational planning and European industrial initiatives.
Norway also has a diplomatic role. Its strategic culture in the High North has historically combined firmness with restraint, alliance integration with predictability, and deterrence with communication. That balance is precisely what Europe now requires: strength without recklessness, preparedness without panic, and sovereignty without isolation.
Conclusion: Arm for Endurance Europe’s security challenge is not simply a shortage of weapons. It is a shortage of depth: strategic depth, industrial depth, stockpile depth, infrastructure depth, technological adaptability, civil resilience and political seriousness. Smart arming is the answer. It means building capabilities that deter because they can be sustained. It means protecting Europe’s eastern, northern, Mediterranean and North Sea flanks together. It means recognising that energy security, economic security, AI readiness, industrial policy and military power are now inseparable.
Europe must also use strategy and diplomacy to shape the environment, reduce unnecessary confrontation, manage escalation and avoid wasteful arms competition. The best defence policy is one that combines adequate deterrence with political wisdom. The purpose of smart arming is not to prepare Europe for permanent war. It is to make coercion fail, aggression unattractive, diplomacy credible and democratic prosperity defensible.
Bio: Maj Gen (Dr) Rambir Singh Mann (Retd), VSM
Board of Directors, Narrative Strategies | Homeland Security
Maj Gen (Dr) Rambir Singh Mann (Retd), VSM, is a practitioner-scholar in military strategy, narrative warfare, and defence policy, with 37 years of service in the Indian Army culminating at the rank of Major General. Holding a PhD from IIT Delhi and a graduate of the Advanced Course on International Strategy at IHEDN, Paris, his work spans hybrid conflict, grey-zone operations, and the narrative dimensions of strategic competition.
Forged in operational environments where narrative was as decisive as firepower — from counter-insurgency and internal security operations to UN peacekeeping in Angola and defence cooperation with France and the UK — he brings a practitioner’s understanding of how perception shapes outcomes on the ground and in the international arena.
A frequent contributor to Homeland Security Today, his published work includes “Israel, Iran and the Illusion of Relevance,” “What Makes the Russia–Ukraine War a Pivot of History,” “Geography Strikes Back: The Sea Holds the Balance” (April 2026), and the two-part analytical series “The Dragon’s Gambit: Reordering of West Asian Security after the Iran War” (May 2026) — which examines China’s deliberate construction of a parallel West Asian security architecture and its consequences for Israel, India, and the petrodollar system. He also authored “AI Ethics in the Age of Narrative Warfare” (The Week, 2026). He has participated in international crisis simulation exercises including “Baltic Storm 2035” (Black Horizon, 2026) and “Shattered Sky” (Taiwan Crisis, 2035), and contributes regularly to think tanks and international security forums.
He previously served as a Ministry of Defence consultant on technology and offsets, and currently advises independently on national security strategy and defence policy.
Contact info:
rambir.mann@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/rambirmann
We are humble proud to publish his first in dept article in Defence and International Norway!
– Jan H. Kalvik, Editor-In-Chief