Defence Finance Monitor #145
Defence Finance Monitor applies a top–down method that traces how NATO, EU and allied strategic priorities are translated into regulations, funding lines and procurement programmes, and then into demand for specific capabilities, technologies and companies. We use official doctrine as the organising frame to identify where strategic relevance is being institutionally defined and where it is materialising in concrete budgets, acquisition pathways and industrial capacity.
Our working assumption is that what becomes structurally relevant in NATO/EU strategy tends, over time, to become relevant also from a financial and industrial point of view. In the European context, this includes the progressive operationalisation of strategic autonomy: the effort to reduce critical dependencies, secure supply chains, strengthen the European defence technological and industrial base, and align regulatory, financial and procurement instruments with long-term security objectives. On this basis, DFM operates as a decision-support tool: it benchmarks investment and industrial choices against institutional demand, clarifies which capabilities are rising on the spending agenda, and maps the funding instruments, eligibility constraints and supply-chain factors that shape real-world feasibility across investors, industry, public authorities and research organisations.
Defence Finance Monitor rests on a single analytical premise: within the Euro-Atlantic security architecture, strategic doctrine precedes regulation and capability planning, regulation precedes budgets, and budgets shape markets.
EDTs & Dual-Use Technologies
Synthetic Training as Europe’s Readiness Multiplier
European and NATO planners now treat synthetic training—live-virtual-constructive simulation integrated with extended reality and digital twins—not as a budgetary convenience but as a structural enabler of readiness in an era of munitions scarcity, platform fatigue and multi-domain complexity. High-fidelity LVC ecosystems allow forces to rehearse high-intensity scenarios without consuming ammunition stocks, exposing sensitive capabilities or degrading equipment, while simultaneously integrating land, air, maritime, cyber and space effects in ways that live ranges cannot safely replicate. This analysis examines how EU instruments such as the European Defence Fund and SAFE intersect with NATO’s digital transformation agenda to build federated synthetic training networks, and assesses the industrial dependencies—cloud infrastructure, GPUs, game engines, rad-hard electronics and secure data standards—that will determine whether Europe can scale a sovereign, interoperable training architecture.
EDTs & Dual-Use Technologies
Silent Power and the Future of Low-Signature Military Operations in Europe
Silent Power has emerged as a concrete military requirement rather than a rhetorical concept: the ability of land, naval and air platforms to generate and manage energy while suppressing acoustic, thermal and electromagnetic signatures. In high-threat environments saturated with sensors, drones and precision fires, the capacity to operate in extended “silent watch” without running combustion engines directly affects survivability, reconnaissance persistence and force protection. This analysis examines how hybrid propulsion, advanced batteries, fuel cells and deployable microgrids are being integrated into European defence planning, and how EU instruments such as the European Defence Fund, SAFE and EDIP intersect with industrial supply chains for lithium, hydrogen, power electronics and critical raw materials. It assesses whether Europe can build a sovereign, interoperable silent-power ecosystem that supports low-signature operations while reducing dependency on external suppliers across the 2025–2035 horizon.
Operational & Tactical Priorities - Protection of Critical Infrastructure & National Resilience
Backup Power and Redundancy Systems in European National Resilience
Backup power and redundancy systems have moved from being technical infrastructure details to becoming a core national resilience capability within NATO and the European Union. In a security environment characterised by hybrid attacks, cyber operations, kinetic strikes and energy coercion, the decisive vulnerability is not only the initial loss of grid power but the inability to sustain assured electricity to mission-critical nodes under prolonged stress. This analysis examines how microgrids, uninterruptible power systems, distributed generation, energy storage and hardened control architectures must be engineered and tested as a system-of-systems to preserve command continuity, secure communications, cyber defence and essential civilian services. It evaluates performance thresholds, supply-chain dependencies and industrial bottlenecks that will determine whether European states can translate resilience commitments into physically enforceable operational continuity.
Operational & Tactical Priorities - Defence Industrial Base & Munitions Readiness
Energetic Materials Production and Ammunition Sustainability in Europe
The ability to sustain high-intensity combat operations ultimately depends on the continuous production of energetic materials such as TNT, RDX and propellants. When these upstream industrial lines are absent, fragmented or under-capacity, ammunition stocks deplete rapidly and operational tempo collapses, regardless of the readiness of downstream assembly facilities. Recent conflicts have demonstrated that artillery and missile consumption rates can outpace existing NATO and EU production capacities within weeks, exposing structural vulnerabilities in Europe’s defence industrial base. This analysis examines energetic-material production as a distinct capability layer within ammunition and missile surge planning, assessing performance thresholds, industrial dependencies and supply-chain bottlenecks that will determine whether Europe can sustain mass firepower under prolonged high-intensity conditions through 2035.
Without a structured map of the linkages between doctrine, budget and capacity, strategy remains abstract, capital remains misallocated, and industrial readiness remains reactive rather than deliberate.