Armed by America: how Europe's militaries depend on the US

The Guardian

5 days ago

European leaders will meet with Donald Trump at a Nato summit on Tuesday, as the alliance prepares to approve a significant boost to defence spending.
A new target for every member to spend 5% of GDP – more than double Nato's current benchmark – marks a major win for the US president, who has long railed against America footing the bill for Europe's security.
That concern is now increasingly mutual. European governments are pursuing an unprecedented push for military independence, amid fears the US is no longer a reliable ally.
'Don't ask America what it can do for our security. Ask yourselves what we can do for our own security,' said the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, in an address to EU lawmakers in January.
But when it comes to raw firepower, the bloc has a long way to go.
Europe's militaries still overwhelmingly rely on US-made weapons and equipment, according to Guardian analysis of stockpile data that raises doubts about ambitions for European-led rearmament.
Close to half of the fighter jets in active service across European air forces originate from the US, while American – rather than European – missile defence systems remain the most widely deployed on the continent.
American hardware also features prominently in stocks of tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery deployed by European nations.
This deep reliance on Washington for key military capabilities has been starkly exposed by recent moves from the Trump administration, prompting alarm in Brussels.
The suspension of US military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March has been a major flashpoint, as well as Trump's recent suggestion that Europe may soon be sold downgraded American fighter jets.
Yet, despite efforts to bolster homegrown defence, European states are still turning to the US to plug critical gaps.
In the past five years, the EU27, the UK, Norway and Switzerland have bought more than 15,000 missiles, 2,400 armoured vehicles and 340 aircraft from the US – far outstripping what European states buy from one another.
In some cases, EU countries are buying more weapons from suppliers such as Israel and South Korea than from their continental neighbours.
This includes nations central to European defence concerns in 2025 – Poland and the Baltic states bordering Russia.
But even among Europe's big four, only France buys more equipment from Europe than from the US. Britain, Germany and Italy still predominantly shop in Washington.
The UK is notably more pro-American than other European powers. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, described the US as the UK's 'first partner in defence' when he unveiled the conclusions of a major defence review at the start of June.
The Guardian analysis below, based on arms transfer data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) and stockpile figures published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), reveals just how deeply embedded the US defence industry is in European armies.
Since 2020, the EU, the UK and Norway have bought a total of 26,036 missiles from other states.
Less than 10% of these missiles were part of deals between European states.
The lion's share were American missiles bought by Europe in same period.
The rest were largely from Israel, at just under 7,000, and South Korea, at 2,000.
There is a similar pattern with other weapon types – such as the armoured vehicles and aircraft purchased by Europe since 2020.
American imports top the list, followed by imports from other European states and then the rest of the world.
But US dominance in European arsenals goes beyond sheer quantity. Many of the most advanced weapons on the continent are American-made.
These include the F series of American fighter jets, which dominate Europe's air forces. The latest model is the F-35 Lightning II, a cutting-edge aircraft developed by Lockheed Martin that is prized for its stealth and sensor fusion capabilities.
'There are European alternatives, but none of them compete with the F-35,' said Camille Grand, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The aircraft's main competitors – the Eurofighter Typhoon and French-made Rafale – are in active service in only a minority of European air forces.
Instead, at least 38 F-35s were delivered from the US to Europe in 2024, to countries including Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK.
According to experts, the reliance on the F-35 encapsulates Europe's broader problem with advanced weapon manufacturing: a lack of pooled resources, in contrast to the deep pockets of the US military.
'The key is there is a very big cost to develop this stuff. The F-35 is a hugely expensive programme,' said Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow at the thinktank Bruegel.
'If you want this kind of fighter jet, you need a huge upfront investment. And for any individual European country to do that, it's actually quite difficult.
'After all, we are all relatively small countries compared to the US. So fiscally, that would be a huge burden.'
Europe, instead, tends to manufacture older or more established forms of military technology – tanks, other armoured vehicles and artillery – where domestic industries are more mature.
The German-made Leopard tank is widespread among European land forces, while the British army uses the Challenger, the French the Leclerc and the Italians the Ariete.
But outside the big four, many countries lack a sizable domestic defence industry.
'Poland is the odd one out in terms of large European countries,' said Wolff. 'They don't really have a strong domestic industry, so they buy a lot from abroad'.
Poland has been on a weapon-buying spree since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but it has turned to non-European countries for key pieces of equipment.
In 2024 Poland had its first deliveries of M1A1 Abrams tanks, following a $1.4bn deal with the US signed in 2023. Tanks from South Korea have also been arriving – 56 units of the K2 Black Panther in 2024.
'The Poles have bought so many tanks in the last few years, from American and South Korean sources, that they will soon have more tanks than the French, British and German armies combined,' said Grand.
For many European countries, the benefits of buying American go beyond the hardware.
US deals often come with closer integration into wider US military systems – what defence experts call 'strategic enablers': satellite-based intelligence, secure communication channels or early warning systems.
But relying on the US comes with risk, given that the demand for American weapons is global.
Grand explained: 'There is misperception in Europe that the US is a gigantic Walmart with everything available off the shelf.
'The reality, and especially for complex weapons, is that you end up in a queue. So you buy something and it will be delivered in two, three, five years, depending on where you are in the queue.
'You're not only competing with other European customers, but you're also competing with the American customer, which always gets priority, and you're competing with the Israelis, the Saudis, the Emirates, the Asian market.'
And yet, for nearly the entire postwar period, the US has been the main non-domestic supplier of arms to European countries.
For western Europe this trade relationship has been consistent since the 1950s. For eastern European countries, arms deals with the US only took off at the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But there is now a concerted push within Brussels to deepen defence ties between member states.
In March, the European Commission announced a €150bn loans scheme to prioritise more weapon purchases within the bloc and allied countries, rather than the US.
EU leaders have directly framed the package, called Security Action for Europe (Safe), as a response to Russian aggression. 'We don't have a cold war, but we have a hot war on European soil, and the threat is existential. It's as real as it can get,' the bloc's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas,told reporters.
For Grand, Safe is 'a step in the right direction' – the loans will include more favourable terms to joint purchases 'to incentivise Europeans to buy the same kit' and reduce fragmentation on defence.
But it also raises questions: 'The commission is trying to have a sort of single market for European weapons. But then the question is, what do we mean by single market? Does it include the UK and Norway?'
The new deal announced by the UK and the EU at the end of May offers some answers.
A new security partnership agreed by Starmer and European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has opened the door to British defence companies getting more lucrative contracts funded by Safe loans.
The two sides must now finalise an agreement that will enable British defence companies to be part of joint procurements funded by Safe.
Not all EU member states have welcomed the move towards greater defence integration, however.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, are among those who have voiced opposition to Safe, citing concerns about the impact on EU debt and national sovereignty.
But, according to Wolffe, old arguments against military cooperation in Europe are being met with a new kind of response.
'Historically, there's this notion that greater cooperation is questionable for sovereignty, and you've got to be careful not to share too much of your defence industry with your neighbours,' he said.
'But the counter argument that many are pushing is that at the moment we have a huge dependency on the US. And that means sovereignty doesn't sit in Europe – it's in Washington.'