Almost three decades after Europe’s last major experiment in collective defense sputtered out, the bloc still hasn’t solved its most basic problem: power without a plan. Saint-Malo’s promise of “hard power” faded into a mirage; the European Defence Agency proved largely toothless; and the EU battlegroups remained more paper formation than deployable force.

Now, European governments are pledging hundreds of billions of euros every year for defense, yet a credible blueprint is still missing. Arguments grind on—over Ukraine policy, over the balance among drones, AI, and conventional platforms, and over how to share industrial work in joint programs without gaming the system.

The problem is not simply stinginess. Research suggests Europe’s commitments are stronger than the caricature implies. The real weakness is fragmentation—national ministries shielding domestic champions, parallel procurement lines, and overlapping systems that drain money and readiness. Unless rearmament is centralized and roles are clearly assigned, Europe will pour cash into redundancies.

More worrying is the silence around politics. Leaders act as if solidarity with Ukraine automatically confers a popular mandate for higher military budgets. It doesn’t. Populist parties across the continent could still turn that assumption into a costly miscalculation. Without a clear doctrine, public debate, and a broad mandate, rearmament risks replaying Europe’s past failures.

Have the shocks of the past decade changed this calculus? Vladimir Putin’s aggression—and Donald Trump’s warnings about allied free-riding—have driven home the same lesson: Europe’s security must be collective or it will be brittle. Yet there is still no convincing defense concept to match the moment.

Governments are budgeting vast sums without answering first-order questions: What exactly is to be defended, against whom, and by which means? What resources—human, industrial, technological—are available, and how will they be apportioned? At the strategic level, Europe needs a security doctrine that sets goals and red lines, paired with a capabilities plan that links ends to means.

A “coalition of the willing” may eventually feel compelled to place peacekeeping boots on the ground in parts of Ukraine. But the weak spots are glaring. London and Paris bicker over rules of engagement—should the mission deter Russian assaults or answer them in kind? And on capability, Europe would still lean heavily on the United States for intelligence, key weapons systems, and the logistics that make any operation work.

Those doubts about a potential “trip-wire” presence in Ukraine illuminate the unresolved choices that belong in a serious rearmament plan. How far should drones and AI displace legacy systems? How fast—and how prudently—should Europe uncouple from U.S. command, control, and kit? And how will joint industrial projects be divided in a way that is both equitable and efficient?

There is, however, a contrary truth worth stating plainly: Europe’s contributions are not as feeble or underfunded as the loudest critics claim. NATO’s European members spend roughly as much on security, proportionally, as the United States and have offset gaps in force projection with massive purchases of American hardware.

A recent RAND assessment for the Pentagon reached a similar conclusion. Tallying the full costs borne by NATO, the report found Europeans carrying a burden comparable to that of the U.S. Focusing only on headline defense-as-GDP ratios skews the picture because it excludes large indirect expenses. Add peacekeeping missions and the economic costs of sanctions to the ledger and the balance sheet of collective security looks different: Europeans account for about 38 percent; Asian, Arab, and Latin American partners about 23 percent; and the United States roughly 39 percent. RAND’s bottom line: not a flashing red sign that Washington is being taken to the cleaners.

What truly hobbles Europe is the patchwork: dozens of armies, duplicative platforms, and procurement rules written to protect national industries. Without deeper collaboration—including the United Kingdom—pledges to spend more will dissolve into more of the same. Buying nationally to field similar systems under different flags is a recipe for waste.

Brussels has floated an answer: pair joint EU funding with a powerful, Brussels-based procurement authority to concentrate orders and standardize choices. National capitals and their industrial “champions” responded with howls. Europe’s arms exporters hold a generous slice of the global market and fear any change that might dilute their leads at home.

But Europe cannot keep bumbling along, jigsawing national pieces into an ersatz whole. It needs a centralizing plan—call it revolutionary if you like—that assigns responsibilities by function and region, rationalizes production, and rewards interoperability over parochialism.

The final deficit is democratic. Across the EU and in member states, there is scant effort to build a public mandate proportionate to the stakes. Governments appear to assume that sympathy for Ukraine translates into durable support for higher defense outlays—even if those outlays squeeze social spending and test fiscal rules. That is a gamble on silence.

The alternative is harder, but necessary: lay out the doctrine, the capability targets, and the trade-offs—and invite the public to argue them through. Europe’s populists are edging toward power in several capitals; they could yet torpedo the project. The way to inoculate against that is not to hide the ball, but to make the case. Europe has the money. What it still lacks is the plan—and the permission—to use it well.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any institutions with which the author is associated.