CAN EUROPE DEVELOP ITS MILITARY?

If the Europeans want to seriously militarise, they will have to make a difficult choice between buying guns or continuing to adequately fund butter (social welfare programs). Given current budgetary constraints, raising military expenditure for most countries would require cutting back on social programs and that would be unacceptable to the ageing populations of these countries,

- AMIT GUPTA

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s national security establishments firmly believed a new era of remilitarisation was in store for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nations. The military-strategic community in Europe, and its counterparts in Washington, saw NATO returning as a viable military force that would be able to project military power both on the European continent and abroad. Europeans also believed that the West was once more a credible force in international affairs and NATO went as far as to list China as a challenge to the global order.

However, with the advent of the Trump presidency, there are serious doubts about how far Europe can go in its militarisation efforts because of demographic and social factors as well as due to the question, “What exactly does Europe mean by remilitarization?”.

The Demographic Time Bomb

Europe is the victim of a demographic time bomb as its population is both greying and in some countries is actually shrinking. Table 1 below shows the major nations of Europe (including Russia), i.e., the countries with large standing armed forces, and as can be seen their median age is expected to rise and, in the case of Italy, Spain, Greece, and Germany, the population shrinks. (See table-1)

These numbers paint a bleak future for while the nations listed above have the largest and most capable armed forces among NATO, they all have greying populations and, by 2030, except for Turkey, will have a median age that is greater than 40 while Italy is in serious demographic trouble with a median age of 50.8—Spain and Greece also have a median age of nearly 50. Worse, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain, are all going to see a major decline in their populations.