Europe doubles its arms imports to counter Russia’s threat and reduce reliance on the US

Europe is consolidating its commitment to rearmament. Arms imports by European states were 94% higher in 2019–23 than in 2014–18, while in the rest of the world’s regions purchases declined. Russia’s war in Ukraine has tested European security and the old continent, in addition to reinforcing its defense with the purchase of weapons, wants to boost its own defense industry to compensate for its dependence on the United States. On a global scale, the United States remains the world’s main arms supplier, while Russia’s arms exports halved and the country became for the first time the third largest arms exporter, just behind France.

The data published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) confirm that, despite the fact that the global volume of international arms transfers fell by 3.3% between the 2014–18 period and the 2019–23 period, Europe accelerated its rearmament drive. “Europe’s demand for weapons has increased since 2014 [the year of the Russian invasion of Crimea and part of eastern Ukraine], but the sharp rise in recent years is explained because much of the weapons purchased have been donated to Ukraine and countries want to continue to be protected militarily,” says Pieter Wezeman, co-author of the report and a senior researcher at SIPRI.

Europe’s main supplier continues to be the United States, with 55% of total imports in the last five-year period coming from that country. Wezeman explains that the United States has a significant advantage in military technology, especially when it comes to fighter aircraft. Eight of the 10 European countries that obtained aircraft in the last five years opted for the U.S.-produced F-16 and F-35, according to the report. “Buying weapons from the United States is, of course, part of maintaining and even improving relations with that country,” adds the expert.

One of the objectives that the European Commission has set itself, given the Russian threat, is to strengthen the European defense industry with more weapons distributed among all member states. Specifically, it seeks to urgently boost local production so that by 2030, 50% of military acquisitions will occur within the bloc, the high representative for EU Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, announced last week. The paradigm shift will also involve leaving behind decades of dependence on the United States, even more so now that there is a possibility that Donald Trump — who made controversial comments about NATO’s funding — might return to the White House.

For Wezeman, this goal, although not impossible, is still very far from becoming a reality. “Many orders have already been placed for weapons that will continue to arrive over the next few years. Furthermore, although the European defense industry is very complete, it does not have the capacity to produce at a sufficient rate to meet its own demand.”

Ukraine is, by far, the European country where imports have grown the most in the last five-year period: 6,633% more than in the previous period. In addition, at least 30 states supplied major arms to Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. The report also notes that in order to broaden Ukraine’s military capabilities, suppliers began to deliver long-range systems in 2023: among others, Poland and Slovakia donated 27 surplus combat aircraft, and France and the U.K. supplied missiles with a range of 300 kilometers.

In addition to these deliveries to the Ukrainian army, European countries are also acquiring weapons to defend themselves in the event of a hypothetical escalation. Last year Poland, which shares a long border with Ukraine, ordered 12 air defense systems from the U.S., while Germany “ordered a single but particularly high-value system from Israel.” Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland did the same with German, Israeli and Norwegian defense systems.

France overtakes Russia

Russian exports fell by 53% in the last five-year period compared with 2014-2018, deepening the gap with the United States in global arms influence. While Washington exported weapons to 107 countries on all continents, Russia did so to only 41. The decline has been even more evident since the invasion of Ukraine: in 2019, 31 countries received Russian weapons; in 2022, only 14 did, and in 2023, that number fell to 12. Europe’s sanctions on Moscow are not the only reason for this trend. “We are seeing cases like China, Russia’s historic buyer, which is developing an industry of its own that is sufficient for its technological needs,” notes Wezeman. The case of India is similar, although the United States can exert some pressure there with the threat of sanctions. The same goes for Egypt and Indonesia.

The weakening of Russia’s arms trade allowed France to take second place in the list of top exporters. French arms sales increased by 47% between 2014–18 and 2019–23. Of the 64 recipient countries, the main ones were India, Qatar and Egypt with just over 50% of the total. Greece was the largest European buyer from France, purchasing 17 Rafale combat aircraft, the main French military export product. Last year alone, 193 orders were placed for this aircraft, although most were going to Asia (Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) or Africa (Egypt).

Unlike Europe, the rest of the world reduced its weapons imports between 2014–18 and 2019–23. In Asia and Oceania, the figure fell 12%, dragged down by China. Despite this, it remains the market with the largest volume of imports with giants such as India, Pakistan, Japan and Australia. The decline is similar in the Middle East, where the United States remains the main exporter due to purchases from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel. “Many countries have reached their ceiling and that is why they matter less. Others have improved their production capacity,” clarifies Wezeman. A drop was also recorded in America and Africa, of 7.2 and 52%, respectively. The calculation system used by SIPRI does not refer to real purchase and sale prices, but is based on the production costs of each item.

The report does not reflect, however, a great change in Israel’s imports in the last five-year period, with a marginal rise of 5.1% from 2014-2018, despite the offensive launched in October on Gaza in response to the attack by Hamas. “The fact that Israel is able to mount a military operation of such scale in Gaza is based on the fact that it has been receiving substantial quantities of weaponry from the United States for many decades. The weapons that are being used today [on the Gaza Strip] were supplied in previous years,” says Wezeman. Even so, SIPRI did record that at the end of 2023, the United States “rapidly delivered thousands of guided bombs and missiles to Israel.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition