- Middle East
Europe's security predicament is increasingly paradoxical. Facing an expanding Russian threat and growing uncertainty about American commitments, European governments have pledged to achieve greater strategic autonomy. Yet their efforts to strengthen their defenses have produced a new dependency, this time on Israel. Even as European capitals have become increasingly critical of Israeli policies and imposed restrictions on arms exports to Israel, they turn to Israeli manufacturers for some of the military technologies they need most urgently.
The contradiction has become more acute in the aftermath of the American-Israeli campaign against Iran. European governments largely opposed the military operation, and several even restricted American access to bases or airspace. Yet Iranian missile capabilities pose a growing threat to Europe itself. At precisely the moment when Europe is distancing itself politically from Israel, Israeli technology has become indispensable to important parts of Europe's air and missile defense.
As the war rages in Ukraine, Russia’s probing of Europe’s perimeter has intensified, reaching from its easternmost borders to its Atlantic approaches. The frequency of these incursions has increased sharply over the past year. They have come predominantly from the air, although one should not overlook the wave of sabotage attacks that have targeted key infrastructure, from energy generators to railroads. The gravest aerial breach occurred in early September 2025, when nineteen Russian drones crossed into Poland, marking an incursion Warsaw formally reported to the United Nations as unprecedented in scale since the all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, Romania has logged twenty-three airspace violations in 2026 alone, against eighteen in the four preceding years combined, with four drones shot down and at least forty-two NATO air-policing missions flown. Romania’s Black Sea coast and the Danube Delta are proving vulnerable as well. On October 5, 2026, Germany’s foreign intelligence service told the Bundestag that Russia is conducting a shadow war which cannot be understood with conventional military or legal categories. Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned in October 2026 that Europeans underestimate the Russian threat and that Moscow is working to destabilize the entire political order of the European continent. Russia is waging a hybrid campaign calibrated to remain below the threshold likely to provoke an Article 5 response, but that is the strategic point: it is trying to corrode European self-confidence and the credibility of NATO's security guarantee.
Europe’s security problem is not only Russia. On March 20, 2026, Iran fired two ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a British and American base in the Indian Ocean some four thousand kilometers from its own territory. Both missed, but the attempt suggested that Tehran’s missiles possess a range twice as long as was previously publicly claimed. Measured from Iran’s northwestern frontier, that same radius, the distance to Diego Garcia, encloses a large number of Europe’s major metropolitan areas and national capitals. None of this is hypothetical. NATO defenses have twice intercepted Iranian missiles bound for Turkey and an Iranian-made drone struck the British base at Akrotiri on Cyprus. No matter how Europe may criticize the Trump administration’s Iran policies, most of Europe is in the direct line of fire from the Islamic Republic. Europe therefore needs a credible defense against missiles and drones.
Yet anti-missile technology is precisely the capability that Europe is least equipped to produce. Secretary General Mark Rutte described the urgency of the situation in June 2025, saying that NATO needs “five times as many systems to defend ourselves against missiles and an air defence in general, that’s a 400% increase.” The challenge is to close Europe’s shortfall across almost the entire threat spectrum, but most systems are unavailable in the required volumes and many stockpiles are inadequate for high-intensity warfare. EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius underscored this vulnerability, warning that Europe lacks adequate detection assets and possesses no cost-effective means to neutralize uncrewed aerial threats, often sacrificing million-euro missiles to down ten-thousand-euro drones.
The traditional answer to this European shortfall has been the American security umbrella. Yet since the conflict in the Middle East widened, the U.S. has drawn heavily on its own stockpiles of air and missile defense interceptors. Analysts have come to believe that a substantial share of that inventory has been expended. In September 2026, Washington notified allies that deliveries of key systems including Patriot and THAAD interceptors, Tomahawk missiles, and ATACMS face potential delays of up to five years, with Central and Eastern European partners impacted most. Facing depleted stockpiles, the Pentagon moved in August 2026 to triple and quadruple output of its critical interceptors positing a long-term requirement of close to fourteen thousand rounds. Expanding industrial capacity on such a scale, however, will take years. Moreover, as new production lines open, priority allocation will likely be directed to replenish American stockpiles rather than responding to the needs of strategic partners and secondary allied buyers.
With American supplies constrained and European alternatives insufficient, Israel has emerged as a critical source of urgently needed defense technology. Europe is Israel's largest defense customer, accounting for 36% of its record $19.2 billion in defense exports in 2025. Among European NATO members, the American share of arms imports fell from 64% to 58% over five years, while Israel's share nearly doubled, from 3.9% to 7.7%, making it one of the alliance's three largest suppliers. This shift reflects not merely increased European military spending but the growing importance of Israeli technology in areas where European capabilities remain inadequate. Missile, rocket, and air defense systems represented 29% of Israel's defense export agreements in 2025, the largest single category.
The most consequential acquisitions involve layered air and missile defense. Germany's purchase of the Arrow 3 exo-atmospheric interceptor from Israel Aerospace Industries, under agreements totaling approximately $6.5 billion, constitutes the largest defense export transaction in Israeli history. When the first battery became operational in December 2025, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius described the capability as "unique among our European partners." Other countries have turned to Israeli systems for lower-altitude defense. Finland purchased Rafael's David's Sling interceptor despite political pressure to cancel the contract; its defense minister maintained that no viable alternative supplier existed. Romania acquired the SPYDER system for lower-altitude threats, while Greece committed $3.4 billion to its Achilles Shield, a layered system incorporating Israeli interceptors and radars. These purchases demonstrate the extent to which Israeli technology has become integral to Europe's developing air defense architecture.
Dependency extends to drones and counter-drone systems. The Netherlands awarded Elbit an upgrade contract without competition, explicitly stating that "no equivalent alternative exists." Germany operates the Israeli Heron TP, while Britain, Romania, and Switzerland have acquired Israeli-designed reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft. These procurements reflect Europe's difficulty in obtaining comparable capabilities from domestic manufacturers on the required timetable.
Romania's experience illustrates both the depth and the risks of this dependency. Elbit repeatedly delayed delivery of Watchkeeper X drones, invoking force majeure arising from Israel's wartime security conditions. Although Romania's defense minister threatened to cancel the contract, Bucharest ultimately continued with the purchase, lacking a comparable European aircraft in serial production. The episode demonstrates that dependence on Israel carries risks of its own, but that these risks do not necessarily provide European governments with a practical alternative.
Israeli suppliers have also expanded their position in European rocket artillery. Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Greece have selected Elbit's PULS system, capable of launching precision-guided rockets at ranges of up to 300 kilometers. Germany's decision to make PULS the basis of its future long-range artillery underscores that reliance on Israeli technology extends beyond air defense to other essential components of European rearmament.
These procurement decisions reflect not only the availability of Israeli technology but also the limited capacity of European manufacturers to meet urgent military requirements. Europe could eventually produce much of what it needs, but not on the timetable imposed by emerging threats. MBDA, Europe's leading missile manufacturer, requires seven years at current capacity merely to fulfill its existing contracts. Production delays are being compounded by regulatory obstacles and shortages of skilled personnel. Germany's first IRIS-T fire unit, delivered in September 2024, did not enter service until February 2026 because an ammunition-loading crane had not been certified to German regulatory standards. In March 2026, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte acknowledged that the alliance remained far from its target of quintupling ground-based air and missile defenses, noting that personnel beginning their training in 2026 would not be fully available to the defense industry until 2030.
At the highest tier of missile defense, Europe's problem is not insufficient manufacturing capacity but the absence of a European-developed system. When fifteen European nations launched the European Sky Shield Initiative in 2022, they selected a European system for the lowest tier but turned to Israel's Arrow 3 for exo-atmospheric interception, a capability no European manufacturer could provide. On July 14, 2026, five leading European aerospace and missile manufacturers, including Airbus and MBDA, signed a letter of intent to develop what they describe as Europe's first sovereign exo-atmospheric interceptor. However, the agreement commits neither funding nor orders and envisages an initial space-based test in 2027.
European efforts at the next lower tier are also far from operational deployment. The HYDEF program, intended to develop an interceptor against hypersonic threats within the atmosphere, had reached only laboratory proof of concept by August 2026, with a working prototype envisaged for 2030. Europe's limitations, therefore, extend beyond insufficient manufacturing capacity to the absence of mature domestic technologies in critical portions of the missile-defense architecture.
Europe's efforts to overcome these deficiencies are complicated by its own regulatory policies, which prioritize the development of a sovereign defense industry even as immediate security needs require foreign suppliers. Under the €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loan instrument adopted in 2025, defense contractors must meet eligibility requirements favoring firms established within the EU, the European Economic Area, or Ukraine. Moreover, SAFE-supported procurements are subject to rules that generally limit components originating outside eligible countries to 35% of total component costs and restrict foreign control over the design and use of certain weapons systems. Similar provisions appear in the European Defence Industry Programme, while the Commission's February 2026 counter-drone action plan emphasizes reducing dependence on non-EU suppliers. These policies reflect a legitimate ambition to build European industrial capacity, but they also risk restricting access to the very technologies Europe needs most urgently. Indeed, EU regulations themselves acknowledge that important defense projects cannot proceed without foreign participation. The pursuit of long-term strategic autonomy thus threatens to complicate the achievement of short-term military readiness.
Yet these EU funding restrictions do not prohibit individual member states from purchasing Israeli weapons. Nor have most European governments extended their restrictions on arms exports to Israel to imports from it. The distinction illustrates the tension between diplomatic opposition to Israeli policies and continued reliance on Israeli military technology. Spain is a notable exception: legislation enacted in September 2025 prohibited both exports to and imports from Israel. Ireland had already announced an administrative decision to cease purchasing Israeli military equipment, while Slovenia imposed a comprehensive arms embargo in July 2025 only to reverse it in June 2026. Geography may partly explain the positions of Spain and Ireland, both far removed from the eastern frontier and the airspace now subject to Russian probing. For the European governments most exposed to Russian military pressure, however, restricting access to Israeli defense technology would impose a potentially substantial security cost.
The Zeitenwende announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February 2022 was supposed to inaugurate a new era of European responsibility for its own security. Defense expenditures have indeed risen dramatically. Yet greater spending has not produced the strategic autonomy that European leaders promised. Instead, it has exposed the inadequacies of Europe's defense industrial base and the limits of its capacity to respond quickly to emerging threats.
European governments may eventually overcome these deficiencies. But the timetable of industrial development does not coincide with the timetable of military danger. Russia may be prepared to test NATO's defenses well before European manufacturers can deliver the capabilities needed to deter it. In the intervening years, Israeli technology will remain a critical component of European security. Europe consequently faces a contradiction that its political leaders have been reluctant to acknowledge: the pursuit of strategic autonomy has deepened its dependence on a state whose policies many European governments increasingly condemn. Whether that tension can be sustained is no longer merely a diplomatic question. It has become a question of European security.
