Technological Priorities for Long-Term Deterrence

The future of European deterrence will be determined not only by the scale of its armed forces or the depth of its industry, but by the technologies it can master and sustain. The war in Ukraine has revealed that the advantage once enjoyed by Western militaries through precision, surveillance, and communication has eroded. Russia’s ability to integrate drones, electronic warfare, and long-range fires has demonstrated that innovation is not the monopoly of advanced economies. For Europe, the challenge is to translate technological sophistication into deployable capability and endurance. Deterrence in the twenty-first century will depend on cognitive and informational superiority—the ability to see, decide, and act faster than an adversary across all domains. This requires coordinated investment in artificial intelligence, space systems, cyber defence, autonomous platforms, and distributed sensing. These are not discrete technologies but interdependent components of a single ecosystem that determines how effectively Europe can anticipate, respond, and recover in crisis.