As US President Trump begins his second term, the cracks in the relationship between the United States and Europe continue to expand, and the calls for internal European defense independence are becoming increasingly strong. Recently, European Commission President von der Leyen proposed a plan to "rearm Europe" and planned to invest 800 billion euros (about 860 billion US dollars) to build "a safe and resilient Europe." However, international public opinion generally believes that the plan faces many challenges in the actual advancement process, and Europe's "re-arming" path is full of thorns.

  Challenge 1: The combat system is deeply entrenched in dependence on the United States

  In modern military confrontation, the advantages of the combat system are the core elements of controlling the initiative in war. A complete combat system requires efficient reconnaissance and early warning capabilities, which can achieve long-range detection, accurate identification, continuous tracking and positioning of enemy stationary and mobile targets, while ensuring real-time transmission of target data from sensors to weapon platforms, so as to give full play to the combat effectiveness of high-precision weapons and advanced combat platforms.

  Currently, European countries rely heavily on the United States in many key military capabilities. Especially in the fields of remote detection, target identification, stationary and mobile target positioning systems, over-visual target information transmission systems, and air electronic warfare capabilities led by the United States, it is difficult for Europe to get rid of its dependence on the United States. Although the "Re-arming Europe" plan aims to build a completely autonomous combat system, with particular emphasis on strengthening local reconnaissance and early warning capabilities, it faces many obstacles at the technical and institutional levels.

  Building a comprehensive and accurate database of enemy targets is the primary challenge. This database is the basis for improving the accuracy of target recognition and reducing the rate of intelligence misjudgment, but its construction requires a lot of manpower and material resources, relying on the continuous accumulation of multi-source data, and it is difficult to achieve significant results in the short term. In addition, it is equally difficult to integrate data from multiple sensors (such as radar, photoelectric and acoustic sensors) with combat platforms (such as satellites, aircraft, ground systems). This not only requires the realization of accurate detection, identification, tracking and positioning of goals, but also avoid repeated marking of goals or management omissions. European countries face major challenges in terms of technological coordination and standard unification.

  Challenge 2: Weapon production capacity is seriously out of touch with demand

  For a long time, many European countries have relied on foreign countries in the fields of weapons and equipment such as anti-submarine aircraft, aerial refueling aircraft, high-altitude long-distance drones, high-altitude air defense systems and multi-barrel rocket launchers. One of the important goals of the "Re-arming Europe" plan is to achieve independent production and large-scale supply of key equipment to meet the growing defense needs. However, Europe is currently facing problems such as insufficient industrial capacity, fragile supply chains, and imbalance in resource distribution, and there are many constraints in improving weapon systems and ammunition output.

  At the technical level, if European countries want to produce weapons and equipment that have been relied on imports for a long time or have never been involved in, they need to solve a series of technical problems. Restarting related production not only requires adjusting the design plan, but also solving the complex problems caused by the integration of new and old technologies. In terms of supply chain, the high reliance of European military production on global supply chains makes it weak in risk resistance. Disruptions in supply of critical components may lead to delays in delivery of weapons systems. Against the backdrop of the Trump administration's implementation of trade protectionism and the process of globalization has been blocked, the uncertainty of global supply chains has increased significantly, further increasing the difficulty of achieving independent production of weapons and equipment in Europe.

  Challenge 3: Consensus for arms construction is difficult to achieve

  Foreign media generally believe that many EU member states have serious differences on the goals and implementation paths of the "rearming Europe" plan, and it is difficult to form a unified position.

  In terms of overall goals, there are three different ideas within Europe: some countries advocate only developing passive defense capabilities to deal with potential external invasions; some countries emphasize priority in improving deterrence capabilities and curbing potential opponents' offensive intentions; some countries advocate strengthening offensive capabilities and taking the initiative before their opponents take action. On specific issues, such as "whether long-range interception or offensive air defense constitutes deterrence" and "whether offensive operations should include strikes on non-military critical infrastructure", many countries have different opinions and vague positions, which have weakened the cohesion and execution of the "Re-armed Europe" plan.

  In terms of implementation paths, taking weapons and equipment construction as an example, although NATO implements unified standards to ensure the interoperability of weapon systems of member states, the actual compatibility of weapons and equipment produced by its European member states is poor, and there is a lack of consideration for neighboring countries' weapons systems and overall strategic needs in Europe. Taking Germany and France as examples, the two countries developed and produced different models of main battle tanks respectively. While the EU is pushing member states to clarify “capacity goals” under the NATO framework and to assess overall combat needs in Europe, progress has been slow and limited results.

  In addition, with the rapid development of military technology and the accelerated evolution of war forms, recruiting a sufficient number of high-quality military personnel has become another problem facing Europe. If this problem is not effectively resolved, it will have an adverse impact on the advancement of the "rearming Europe" plan.

[Editor in charge: Gao Qiang]