How prepared is Europe for war?

Let’s face it, it is increasingly likely that at some point in the future, Russia will test Europe’s resolve in defending itself against the threat of Russian invasion. That’s the main reason why European countries are increasing their defence spending. But how ready is Europe across all domains necessary to defend the continent?

D’Artis Kancs from the Latvian National Armed Forces developed a readiness-enabling index for European countries. The way he did this was to score countries on four dimensions:

• Macroeconomic capacity: Is a country able to finance and absorb defence expansion?
• Sectoral resilience: Is a country able to maintain production under disruption?
• Defence-industrial capability: Can a country convert higher demand into higher output, or are there capacity and supply chain constraints?
• Logistics and sustainment: Can a country sustain and replace usable capacity if it gets damaged or destroyed?

He groups Europe’s countries into different blocks:

• Nordics: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
• Baltic-Polish Flank: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
• Industrial Core: Belgium, Czechia, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and the UK.
• South-West Med: Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
• South-East Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia.

What this methodology allows him to do is identify the strengths and weaknesses of each region and the binding constraints. Where is the chain going to break first in case of war? Which brings me to the table that caught my eye and that I find really fascinating to think about.

Binding constraints of defence-readiness across Europe