The war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, and the US-China technology war have brutally reminded Europe that economic dependence can be just as dangerous as military dependence. The problem is that Europe wants to simultaneously (re)build its industrial base, preserve open markets, avoid alienating America, and continue buying cheaply. In other words: globalisation, yes – but under its own or national flag.
Europe wants its own technologies, its own production capabilities, and its own security – but without paying the price of autarky. Is that even possible? How can autonomy be built without falling into costly self-isolation? „Buy European” sounds admirable until the bills for security and technology begin to rise dramatically.
What Europe currently has is improvisation and desperate, fragmented attempts to patch its „technological gaps”. Initiatives such as the European Chips Act aim to revive European semiconductor manufacturing. The European Defence Fund finances joint defence projects. Permanent Structured Cooperation is yet another attempt to integrate military-industrial capabilities. The Net-Zero Industry Act supports green transition technologies. European space projects around the European Space Agency continue to develop, while debates over economic security, de-risking, and strategic autonomy grow increasingly intense.
Yet what is still missing is a genuine strategy linking industry, security, technology, and transatlantic cooperation. The question for Europe today is no longer whether it needs an industrial policy. What it needs is resilience – not merely another slogan about „strategic autonomy”.
These issues are explored by Lieutenant General Andrzej Fałkowski, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces and a member of NAKO’s Advisory Commission, in his column for Defence24.