The price of European military space autonomy

Space is where modern wars start, are enabled, and may ultimately be won. Washington, Moscow, and Beijing understood this long ago; most European capitals did not. For years, they largely overlooked Russia’s development and operational deployment of counterspace capabilities, while allowing their own dependence on US space systems to deepen. It was only the war in Ukraine, followed by growing uncertainty over US engagement, that pushed European countries to pour unprecedented sums into military and dual-use space assets.

By 2030, Germany will invest €35 billion in space security, France over €10 billion under its record defence-space budget, the EU €10.6 billion in the IRIS² secure satellite constellation, and, in a historic step, even the traditionally civilian ESA €1.2 billion in the European Resilience from Space programme. Further investment will come from other European military space-capable allies, including Italy, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the UK.

The new IISS report “Advancing European Military Capacity in Space” estimates that announced investments will reach at least $109 billion by 2030. The authors argue, however, that this is neither enough for genuine burden-sharing with the US nor even close to enabling European autonomy in the space domain, and outline what it would take for the continent to achieve either.

Space burden-sharing vs. full autonomy

The report finds that current investments are too nationally fragmented, strategically uncoordinated, and financially limited to close Europe’s core capability gaps and reduce its dependence on the US. Those gaps are especially acute in launch, ISR, missile early warning, and SSA. As the authors note, “the most difficult gaps to close are precisely the areas of greatest dependency on the US” — capabilities that are costly, global, and high-end.

An additional $10 billion over the next ten years is the estimated price tag if Europe wants to close its most critical operational gaps. This would include improving GNSS resilience for PNT, better integrating national ISR capabilities, fielding a Europe-focused space-based missile warning layer, and expanding both ground radars and a space-based layer for SSA. In effect, this would enable the kind of burden-sharing increasingly expected by the US, under which Europe could operate in its own theatre with limited but still substantial American support.

Even under burden-sharing, Europe would remain dependent on unmatched US global enablers, especially in ISR, early warning, and SSA. Replacing them and achieving full autonomy in space would require at least another $15 billion in scaled space systems, as well as redundant heavy-launch capacity and credible counterspace capabilities. This amount does not include the far broader task of Europeanising the entire end-to-end space architecture by removing reliance on US software, ground infrastructure, and technology. Such an effort would only be possible through far deeper European pooling and integration and would likely stretch well beyond the 2030s.

Greater European autonomy or national fragmentation?

The authors leave us with a clear conclusion: “Greater European military space autonomy is technically feasible but politically, financially, and industrially demanding.” The first problem is Europe’s inherently responsive rather than anticipatory posture toward geopolitical developments. As the current surge in space spending has been largely driven by concerns over US commitment and Russian behaviour, further investment is more likely to result from a continued deterioration of Europe’s security environment than from preventive action taken in anticipation of such developments. The decision to pursue greater autonomy may therefore come too late.

However, such external pressures would not automatically translate into greater European integration and coordination; European leaders will have a political choice to pursue greater space autonomy either nationally or regionally. More sovereigntist and exposed states may prioritise national capabilities, which offer greater speed, control, and alignment, but are inherently limited in scale and scope. Such a national approach may improve burden-sharing with the US in the medium term, but it cannot deliver full autonomy over the long term. That would require the resources and industrial capacity to field scaled, global capabilities that lie beyond the reach of any European country alone and could only be achieved through the collective and coordinated mobilisation of resources. It remains to be seen whether European capitals can recognise these limitations and act more anticipatorily, with the strategic imagination that the space domain requires.