Europe is entering its largest rearmament cycle since the end of the Cold War. What seemed politically nearly impossible just a few years ago—defense spending at 3–5% of GDP, new tank factories, the purchase of hundreds of aircraft and air defense systems, the expansion of armies, and a return to mass production of ammunition—is gradually becoming the new norm.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the main catalyst for these changes, but now another issue has emerged: Europeans’ uncertainty about how long the U.S. is prepared to remain the continent’s primary security guarantor. In late August, the Pentagon made it clear to its allies that Washington wants to see European defense increasingly led by the Europeans themselves.
As a result, this is no longer simply a matter of increasing military budgets. Poland is building the largest land army in the EU, Germany spends over €100 billion on defense annually, France is increasing its military program by tens of billions more, the Baltic states are exceeding the 5% of GDP threshold, and Greece is creating a new multi-layered missile defense shield.
UA.News explains exactly how Europe is rearming, how much it costs, what weapons the largest countries are purchasing, and whether the continent will eventually be able to defend itself without being critically dependent on the U.S.
From 2% to 5% of GDP: How the War in Ukraine Has Changed Europe’s Military Budgets
Just ten years ago, even NATO’s requirement to spend 2% of GDP on defense was, for many European countries, more of a political recommendation than an actual rule. Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and a number of other countries remained below this level for years.
After 2022, the situation changed dramatically. According to the latest data from the European Defense Agency, in 2025, the 27 EU countries spent €418 billion on defense—approximately 20% more than the previous year. In 2026, the total is expected to rise to €454 billion.
This represents approximately 2.4% of the European Union’s total GDP. Of this amount, nearly €115 billion in 2025 went directly toward the procurement of military equipment. In 2026, about 36% of all EU defense spending is projected to be allocated to investments—that is, the procurement of weapons, infrastructure construction, military modernization, and the development of new technologies.
This figure could grow even faster. At the NATO summit in The Hague in 2025, the allies agreed to allocate up to 5% of GDP to defense and security-related areas by 2035. Of this, at least 3.5% must go directly toward core military needs, and up to an additional 1.5% toward infrastructure, cybersecurity, resilience, and other related areas. NATO reports that as early as 2026, five allies are expected to reach the 3.5% threshold for core defense spending alone.
In fact, Europe is gradually transitioning from a model of small, professional peacetime armies to a system capable of sustaining a prolonged, high-intensity conflict.
And this means the need for more than just modern fighter jets or a few dozen new tanks. It requires massive stockpiles of missiles and ammunition, reserves, repair facilities, military roads and railways, new warehouses, air defense systems, drones, and the ability to rapidly produce all of this even during wartime.
Poland Is Building the European Union’s Largest Ground Force
Poland has become one of the most telling examples. Warsaw is essentially operating on the premise that a potential major war with Russia could take place not somewhere far from Poland’s borders, but right here in Central and Eastern Europe.
For 2026, the Polish government has allocated approximately 200 billion zlotys for defense—roughly 4.8% of GDP. The Polish Ministry of Finance calls these expenditures record-breaking.
Poland’s core defense spending in 2026 will amount to approximately €53 billion. The Polish Armed Forces already number more than 220,000 personnel, and Warsaw plans to continue expanding the military.
The equipment procurement program has become particularly extensive. Poland is ordering American Abrams tanks, South Korean K2 tanks, K9 self-propelled howitzers, HIMARS systems, F-35 fighter jets, Patriot missile systems, and other weapons.
But now Warsaw is gradually shifting its approach. While the primary goal after 2022 was to purchase off-the-shelf weapons as quickly as possible from wherever they could be sourced, Poland now aims to produce an increasingly larger share of its equipment domestically.
Since 2022, Poland’s defense procurement from domestic and Central European companies has nearly quadrupled—reaching 30.4 billion zlotys. Polish companies are launching joint projects with firms in the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Germany to manufacture ammunition, drones, and air defense systems. Rheinmetall is also expanding its presence in the country.
The logic here is simple: if a major war breaks out, it’s not enough to have a contract to supply ammunition several years down the line. You need to have factories, components, personnel, and technology on your own soil—or as close as possible.
Germany is returning to its role as Europe’s leading military power
What is happening in Germany carries even greater symbolic significance. After the end of the Cold War, Berlin spent decades downsizing its military and military infrastructure. Now, this policy has effectively reversed course.
According to the German government, approximately €108 billion is earmarked for the Bundeswehr’s needs in 2026, including funds from a special defense fund. The money is being used to purchase F-35s, new air defense systems, armored vehicles, frigates, ammunition, drones, and to modernize the ground forces.
Germany is also establishing a full-fledged combat brigade in Lithuania. For Berlin, this is a historic step: a large Bundeswehr unit is being deployed on a permanent basis outside the country’s borders, directly near NATO’s eastern border.
At the same time, the German defense industry itself is undergoing changes. In August, Rheinmetall announced an investment of approximately €270 million in the development of its facility in Kassel, which is set to become one of the key centers for tank production and military logistics. There, the company plans not only to expand armored vehicle production but also to develop and test unmanned aerial vehicles.
On September 2, Germany successfully tested the Israeli LORA ballistic missile, which has a range of up to 500 km. This represents a new capability for the Bundeswehr—Germany previously did not possess its own ballistic missiles of this class. At the same time, the country is working on an upgraded version of the Taurus cruise missile.
In other words, Germany is gradually building capabilities for long-range strikes, large-scale air defense, and protracted warfare—capabilities that received significantly less attention after the Cold War.
France Is Expanding Its Army, Missiles, Drones, and Nuclear Deterrence
France has a different starting point. Unlike Germany, Paris has never completely abandoned the concept of strategic military autonomy. France possesses its own nuclear weapons, nuclear submarines, an aircraft carrier, its own Rafale fighter jets, and a powerful defense-industrial complex.
However, even Paris has decided that its previous military program is insufficient. In August, France finalized an update to its military planning law for 2024–2030. It plans to add another €36 billion to the €413 billion already allocated. In 2026–2027 alone, the additional spending is expected to total approximately €10 billion. The French Ministry of the Armed Forces explains this by the need to accelerate rearmament amid a deteriorating international situation.
In 2026, the budget for the French defense mission, excluding pensions, will be €57.1 billion—€6.7 billion more than in 2025. Nearly €14 billion is planned to be allocated directly to weapons programs, and €2.4 billion to ammunition.
Paris is placing particular emphasis on missiles, drones, space systems, air defense, and nuclear deterrence. The updated program is expected to bring the French defense budget to €76.3 billion by 2030.
For France, this is also a matter of political influence. If the U.S. military presence in Europe diminishes in the future, France will remain the only EU country with its own nuclear arsenal. As a result, the discussion about France’s “nuclear umbrella” for its allies is increasingly shifting from the theoretical to the practical realm.
The Baltic states are already spending as much on defense as NATO requires only in the future
While Germany and France can afford to gradually build up their capabilities, the Baltic states are acting as if time is running out.
In 2026, Lithuania will allocate €4.8 billion to defense—about 5.38% of GDP. That’s nearly €1.6 billion more than the previous year, and roughly 14% of the country’s total budget expenditures, excluding certain European programs.
Most of the funds will go toward creating its own division, new weapons, training grounds, barracks, and preparing infrastructure to host a German brigade. Latvia is also rapidly approaching the 5% mark. According to updated data from the Latvian Ministry of Defense, more than €2.15 billion, or approximately 4.73% of GDP, is earmarked for defense in 2026. By comparison, in 2020 this figure was only about 2.2%.
Estonia will allocate approximately 5.4% of its GDP to defense in 2026, remaining one of NATO’s largest military spenders relative to the size of its economy.
For the Baltic states, this spending has a specific structure. It involves not only tanks and aircraft but also the creation of defensive lines along the border, minefields, engineering obstacles, supply depots, anti-tank weapons, air defense systems, and the ability to rapidly deploy troops from other NATO countries.
In other words, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are preparing not only to maintain their own combat-ready armies but also to transform their territories into a prepared theater of defense, where large allied forces can be rapidly deployed in the event of war.
Greece is creating its own multi-layered “shield” against missiles and drones
The rearmament effort extends beyond the eastern flank. On August 31, Israel and Greece signed an agreement worth approximately €3 billion, or $3.5 billion, to create a new multi-layered air and missile defense system.
The project is part of Greece’s Achilles Shield program. It is set to include the David’s Sling, SPYDER, and BARAK MX systems, as well as radars and a unified command-and-control system. Separately, Athens will receive Drone Dome systems to counter unmanned aerial vehicles.
The overall program to modernize the Greek armed forces through 2036 is estimated at approximately €28 billion. In addition to air defense, Greece plans to acquire F-35 fighter jets, new frigates, and other weaponry.
Greece already spends about 3.5% of its GDP on defense, although its security logic differs from that of Poland or the Baltic states. For Athens, the complex military-political rivalry with Turkey has traditionally remained a key factor.
But the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have taught a new lesson: even a country with modern fighter jets and a strong navy remains vulnerable without a large stockpile of air defense missiles and more affordable means of countering swarms of drones.
Europe is once again building factories to produce tanks, missiles, and millions of shells
The main problem with European rearmament is not even money, but production capacity. For decades, European defense plants operated primarily on relatively small peacetime orders. There was simply no need to produce hundreds of thousands or millions of artillery rounds each year.
The war in Ukraine has shown just how dangerous this model has become. Ammunition that was stockpiled over years during peacetime can be depleted in a matter of months during intense combat operations.
Now, companies are ramping up production on a massive scale. The Czech company CSG, one of Europe’s largest ammunition manufacturers, increased its revenue by more than 17% in the first half of 2026, and its order backlog reached €46 billion. The company’s production capacity already stands at approximately 850,000 rounds of ammunition per year and is expected to grow to 1.1 million by the end of 2027.
At the same time, Rheinmetall is expanding its production of artillery shells, armored vehicles, and missiles. The company is even negotiating with the American firm Lockheed Martin to produce ATACMS in Germany. At the same time, Rheinmetall’s management acknowledges that scaling up missile production will still take years.
It is precisely this problem that explains why Europe is now trying to conclude long-term, multi-year contracts. It is not profitable for a manufacturer to build a plant costing hundreds of millions of euros if the government orders shells only once. To build a fully-fledged defense industry, companies need a guarantee of demand for decades to come.
The European Union has begun borrowing money for weapons itself
Just a few years ago, joint financing of large-scale military procurements at the EU level was a politically sensitive issue. Now Brussels is effectively creating separate financial mechanisms for rearmament.
One of the key instruments is SAFE—Security Action for Europe. Through this instrument, the European Union can raise up to €150 billion on financial markets and provide member states with long-term loans for joint defense procurements. The European Commission explains that the funds will be raised through the issuance of common EU bonds.
This is a significant shift in the very model of European defense. Previously, Poland would buy its own tanks, Germany its own air defense systems, and France its own missiles, with dozens of national programs often duplicating one another. Now the EU is trying to encourage member states to order weapons jointly.
The reason is not merely political. A large order placed simultaneously by several countries allows for larger production runs, lower unit costs, faster utilization of manufacturing capacity, and ensures that the equipment of different armies is as interoperable as possible.
The problem of fragmentation remains serious. In Europe, there are many different models of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, and missile systems, whereas the U.S. traditionally standardizes a much larger portion of its armaments.
Ukraine is gradually transforming from a recipient of weapons into a part of the European defense industry
A distinct shift is taking place around Ukraine. In the early years of the full-scale war, the basic model was simple: European countries produced or purchased weapons and transferred them to Ukraine.
Now, the opposite process is emerging—European countries are beginning to invest directly in Ukrainian technologies and integrate Ukrainian manufacturers into their own defense systems.
Germany is already funding the purchase of 50,000 Shrike strike drones from the Ukrainian company SkyFall and a program to supply 15,000 interceptor drones. Germany’s Quantum Systems and Ukraine’s WIY Drones have established a joint venture to develop interceptors and air defense technologies.
For Europe, Ukrainian experience is particularly valuable. Ukrainian manufacturers are developing weapons not based on abstract notions of a future war, but directly in the midst of the largest war in Europe since 1945.
It is here that FPV drones, maritime drones, low-cost interceptors, digital battlefield command and control systems, and rapid software updates to counter new electronic warfare capabilities have been extensively tested.
Therefore, Ukraine has the potential to become not only a buyer of European weapons after joining the EU, but also one of the major manufacturing hubs of the new European military-industrial complex.
Can Europe Fight Without the U.S.?
Despite record-breaking budgets, the answer so far remains largely negative. European countries can field large ground forces and possess modern fighter jets, submarines, missiles, artillery, and the nuclear arsenals of France and the United Kingdom. But decades of dependence on the United States have created critical gaps.
The Americans provide a significant portion of NATO’s strategic intelligence, satellite capabilities, long-range logistics, in-flight refueling, command and control systems, missile defense, and nuclear deterrence.
It is impossible to build all of this in a few years, even with the necessary funding. That is precisely why Europe’s current rearmament should be viewed not as preparation for a U.S. withdrawal from NATO, but as an effort to ensure that the European part of the Alliance can shoulder a significantly larger share of the burden of war.
Washington is already actively pushing its allies toward this model. In late August, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby told NATO representatives that Washington is striving for “European-led defense of the continent.” At the same time, the Pentagon is reviewing U.S. military deployments in Europe.
And this is precisely where the main difference lies between the current rearmament and previous waves of military budget increases. Europe no longer operates on the assumption that a major war on the continent is practically impossible, and that the U.S. will quickly provide all necessary forces and weapons in any situation.
This does not yet mean that Europe is ready to wage a major war on its own. But the direction has shifted irrevocably: after decades of military downsizing, the continent is once again building a military economy, large stockpiles of weapons, and industrial capacity designed not only for deterrence but also for the possibility of a protracted conflict.
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