Rebalancing the transatlantic defense-industrial relationship: Regional pragmatism in Northeastern Europe

For much of the post–Cold War period, the transatlantic defense relationship rested on a stable but asymmetric bargain. The United States provided security guarantees and high-end military capabilities; Europe aligned its force planning, procurement choices, and industrial base accordingly. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) planning processes and U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) mechanisms embedded U.S. platforms deeply into European militaries, reinforcing a logic in which “buying American” promised not only superior capabilities and faster delivery, but also political reassurance about U.S. security commitments to the continent. For decades, this arrangement reduced friction within the alliance by substituting dependence for coordination.

That model is now breaking down. Strategic divergence, industrial bottlenecks, and political uncertainty in Washington have made the old bargain untenable, without yet producing a viable replacement. A more balanced transatlantic defense-industrial relationship—one that would rest on equal cooperation rather than one-sided dependence—is possible. Achieving such an equilibrium will require political restraint and coordination to avoid destructive ideological confrontation, as well as recognition in Washington that a Europe investing heavily in its own defense-industrial capacity will expect—and merit—a more equal partnership. But it will also depend, above all, on Europe’s ability to strengthen its own defense-industrial base. Europe’s problem is not only how to spend more, but how to spend fast and efficiently without locking in dependencies and fragmentation.

The recalibration of the transatlantic defense-industrial relationship is unlikely to emerge from a single institutional breakthrough or a comprehensive redesign of Europe’s defense architecture. It is taking shape instead through a series of incremental, capability-level choices made under acute time pressure. Europe’s northeast offers an early illustration of how rebalancing can occur in practice. This region is demonstrating how to pool demand, standardize equipment, and integrate Ukraine on the path to effective rearmament. Faced with a shared and immediate threat environment, most governments in the Baltic Sea region (BSR)—the Nordics, Baltics, the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, and Poland—have little space for industrial jealousies or ideological positioning. Ministries of defense are weighing suppliers and partners pragmatically, judging options against concrete criteria: delivery speed, performance, cost, and the strategic risks of dependency. Procurement and production decisions are treated as questions of operational credibility—choices that may be tested sooner rather than later by a revanchist Russia.

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