PARIS — The United States has changed its attitude on European allies funneling defense funds to local arms industries, and will be “pragmatic” about governments choosing to buy military equipment domestically, according to a senior U.S. defense official.
If countries spend 3.5% or 5% on defense, “we understand that you’re going to need to indigenize a large fraction of that production,” Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, said at a Feb. 13 side event of the Munich Security Conference.
“Otherwise people in Germany or Poland or whatever are going to say: ‘Why are we only sending money across the Atlantic?’”
The United States over the past 30 years as typically been skeptical or opposed to policies that prioritize European manufacturers for defense projects while limiting American participation.
Colby cited “a different attitude now,” with the fundamental U.S. interest in having allies that do more for their own security.
Europe should carry the main burden for its conventional defense, Colby said at a NATO meeting in Brussels on Feb. 12, just ahead of the annual Munich gathering, adding the U.S. wants “partnerships, not dependencies.”
Washington will continue to provide its nuclear deterrent, and “in a more limited and focused fashion,” conventional capabilities that contribute to NATO defense, according to the Pentagon policy chief, who has been a proponent of the shifting the U.S. focus away from Europe.
Europe accounted for 35% of U.S. arms exports in the 2020-2024 period, as imports of weaponry by European NATO members more than doubled in the period from the previous four years, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The U.S. supplied 64% of those arms imports in 2020-2024, SIPRI says.
The U.S. is trying to grow its defense industrial base, and the Defense Department is “fully in line with that,” Colby said in Munich. Demand for defense equipment is “enormous” and will be sustained, and while the U.S. will try to capture market share and has leverage and assets, “that’s going to be a pragmatic conversation,” Colby said.
As the U.S. pushes Europe to take more responsibility for its own defense, “the whole attitude is different,” including with regards to the European Union having a role in supporting defense, Colby said.
The EU has stepped up its involvement in defense response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including with a €150 billion ($178 billion) loan program for joint defense procurement that requires at least 65% of the component costs to be from Europe, Canada or Ukraine.
“If there’s going to be large fiscal moves, we understand that some of that’s going to go through the European Union,” Colby said. “We’ll work with that. That’s kind of up to Europe to decide. Again, that gets to that partnership, not dependencies idea.”
EU member states had been forecast to spend €381 billion on defense in 2025, up 63% from five years earlier, according to data from the bloc.
Modern conflicts will be “wars of production,” as demonstrated by the war in Ukraine, and that requires a defense industry that can produce for the U.S. as well as for allies, Colby said in a separate panel at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14.
“I would say we’re also very supportive of our allies growing their defense industrial base, and that’ll put us on a long-term trajectory,” Colby said. ‘We’re confident that this will be the recipe for stability, but also deterrence and defense.”
NATO allies agreed in The Hague last year to increase defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product by 2035, including 3.5% of GDP on “core defense.”
Spain has been the only ally to reject the 5% target, saying it can achieve NATO capability targets with lower spending. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in Munich that level of spending “at the end of the day” will make Europe more dependent on the U.S. defense industry.
Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, who sat on a panel with Sánchez on transatlantic security, pushed back, saying his country is “hopefully a security provider rather than a security consumer.”
Stubb said Finland faces a Russian security threat, so “when NATO’s defense expenditure goes up to 5%, when America asks us to take more responsibility for our own defense, as a Finn, I’m actually quite pleased with that.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said reaching 3.5% spending by 2035 might be too late, and the target should be reached in 2030, “and maybe it won’t be enough.”
NATO capability targets currently don’t reflect the High North and Arctic region, according to Frederiksen. Many of the capabilities needed for the region haven’t been produced yet, and production lines in the U.S. and Europe “are not really replying to the needs we have.”
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
