For decades, Europe treated defence spending like that dusty treadmill in the garage. You know it exists. You keep promising you will use it. You keep not using it. Then Russia went into Ukraine in 2022 and the treadmill got dragged into the living room, switched on, and set to sprint.
Europe’s rearmament is real. The money is real. The urgency is real. The plan is the part that keeps wobbling.
The continent spent years outsourcing deterrence to the United States and calling it “the rules based order”. Now it is trying to rebuild mass, readiness, and production capacity at the same time, while arguing about budgets, procurement, and who gets the contracts. Every country wants security. Every treasury wants restraint. Every prime minister wants a photo op in front of a tank.
NATO has now put a number on the new reality. The alliance committed to a 5 percent of GDP goal by 2035, with at least 3.5 percent for core defence under the NATO definition and 1.5 percent for security related spending. It is all spelled out on NATO’s own pages, in plain language, no romance included, just a deadline and a bill. NATO’s 5% commitment
That commitment is a credibility signal aimed in three directions. At Russia. At Washington. At Europe itself.
Russia’s war broke the old assumption that borders are fixed and that war is something that happens “over there”. Europe watched a major land war return to the continent and realised its stockpiles were thin, its factories were slow, and its procurement was built for peacetime committee culture.
The spending surge is already visible at EU level. Defence expenditure across EU member states hit €343 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach €381 billion in 2025, according to the Council of the EU’s own numbers. That is the direction of travel. It is also the start of the argument about what counts as “defence” when budgets get tight. defence expenditure
Germany is the cleanest example of the mood shift and the mess underneath it.
Berlin went big with the Bundeswehr special fund, then ran into the reality of timelines, capacity, and the fact that special pots of money still run out. The German finance ministry has laid out how 2025 defence spending reaches 2.4 percent of GDP under the NATO definition once you count the special fund and related items, with €62.4 billion earmarked for defence in the federal budget itself. 2.4% of GDP
The looming problem is what happens after the special fund is exhausted. Reuters has reported the post 2027 funding gap question in blunt terms. special fund
Poland is doing the opposite of German caution. It is buying capability like a country that sits on the front line and believes the calendar is hostile.
Warsaw’s spending has been running at the top of NATO charts and it has openly talked about pushing towards 5 percent of GDP in the mid 2020s, with 4.7 percent figures repeatedly appearing in official forecasts and reporting. 4.7% of GDP
Poland’s procurement wave is the point. Tanks, artillery, rockets, aircraft, everything that says “do not test me”. The risk is not intent. The risk is sustainment. Training, maintenance, spares, ammunition, personnel, doctrine, all of the boring parts that decide whether a purchase becomes power.
France is trying to be France. Strategic autonomy, sovereign capability, big ticket programmes, and the assumption that Paris should never be reliant on anyone’s mood swings.
France’s own defence ministry frames the Military Programming Law as a €413 billion commitment for 2024 to 2030. That figure is not a rumour. It is published in official French channels and it is anchored in law. 413 milliards d’euros
France’s 2025 defence key figures put the “Defence” mission budget at €50.5 billion excluding pensions. €50.5bn
The political constraint is obvious. France carries heavy public debt and domestic patience is not infinite. Rearmament competes with everything else, and voters notice when the state asks them to tighten belts while funding gets routed into high end systems.
The UK is doing the British thing. Serious intent, global posture language, and an equipment plan shaped by the physics of money.
The government has publicly committed to 2.5 percent of GDP for defence from April 2027. 2.5% of GDP
The National Audit Office has also been very clear about the UK’s procurement reality. The Ministry of Defence’s Equipment Plan is unaffordable, with forecast costs exceeding the budget by £16.9 billion. That is not vibes. That is the NAO. £16.9 billion
Now the part that keeps getting ignored because it sounds awkward in speeches.
Europe talks about autonomy while importing urgency.
The European Commission has its own assessment showing that between June 2022 and June 2023, 78 percent of EU defence procurement was bought from outside the EU, and of that outside procurement, around 80 percent came from the US, 13 percent from South Korea, with smaller shares elsewhere. That is Europe paying for speed because its own industrial base cannot meet the demand fast enough. 78%
The Commission even put it in a defence industrial strategy issues paper, with the same numbers and the same implication. Europe wants to stand taller. Europe still needs outside suppliers to do it quickly. procured from outside the EU
So yes, Europe is rearming. It is also doing it with fragmented programmes, national favourites, competing industrial priorities, and supply chains that cannot be scaled by press conference.
The spending spree will create capability in some places. It will also create receipts that haunt finance ministers for a decade. The question that matters is simple. Does the money translate into readiness and production, or does it translate into beautiful kit and empty magazines.
Peace as a guaranteed setting is gone. Europe is learning what deterrence costs. It is learning it in public.
Subscribe below. Because “we didn’t see it coming” is getting old.