European spacepower and the cost of strategic division

Europe has remarkable space capabilities, but fragmented authority limits its strategic power and autonomy.

This is the fifth installment of a GIS series on spacepower. To read more, visit part one, part two, part three and part four.

The United States, China, Russia and India are sovereign states. Their approaches to space differ considerably, but each can ultimately connect national policy, military power, economic resources, technology and diplomacy through a national government. Europe cannot do this in the same way. It possesses many of the capabilities associated with a great space power, but the political authority behind those capabilities remains divided.

Yet this has not prevented Europe from becoming one of the world’s most accomplished space actors. The Galileo satellite system provides independent positioning and navigation. Copernicus has become an important Earth-observation system. European industry produces sophisticated spacecraft and components, while Ariane 6 has restored an independent heavy-lift capability after several difficult years. France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and other European states possess their own military and commercial programs. The European Space Agency (ESA) remains one of the world’s leading scientific organizations.

The problem is not technological competence. It is translating technological competence into strategic power.

This distinction has become harder to ignore since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Modern warfare depends upon communications, navigation, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, missile warning and the ability to replace or protect systems upon which military forces depend. Europe possesses important capabilities in nearly all of these areas, but it still relies heavily on the U.S. for some of the most crucial strategic enablers.

Europeans are trying to change this. The European Union now treats space as a strategic domain and speaks openly about reducing dependencies. NATO has expanded space’s role in collective defense. The ESA is becoming more involved with security. National governments are increasing military-space investments, while secure communications, Earth observation, launch capacity and resilience have moved closer to the center of European defense planning.

Europe is becoming more serious about spacepower, but it is doing so without becoming a strategic actor.

Europe and the problem of power

Europe’s difficulty in developing a common grand strategy did not begin with space. For centuries, it produced some of the world’s most powerful states while remaining politically divided. Competition among them led to war, empire, technological innovation, economic expansion and eventually two conflicts that nearly destroyed European civilization. After 1945, Western Europeans chose another path. Integration was intended to make another continental war increasingly unlikely while allowing sovereign nations to cooperate in areas where interests overlapped. Europe is a place where its people can achieve great operational and tactical success but fail strategically.

The result has been remarkably successful in economic and, to a degree, political terms. It has been less decisive strategically. In the past, NATO provided the military framework for Western defense, but American power remained its foundation. European integration advanced under the protection of an Atlantic security system that reduced the need to answer some of the hardest questions about European military power.

The end of the Cold War made it easier to postpone those questions. Russia’s attack on Ukraine made them difficult to avoid.

This history matters because European spacepower developed inside the same political structure. The ESA brought national scientific and industrial capabilities together without creating a European sovereign authority. Later, the EU became a major space actor through programs such as Galileo and Copernicus. NATO developed its own requirements for space-enabled military operations. But national governments continued to control armed forces and many sensitive space assets. Europe therefore did not create one space program. It created overlapping ones.

That arrangement worked particularly well when the principal objectives were science, economic development, communications, Earth observation and exploration. It becomes more complicated when space is treated as an instrument of national security.

Technological excellence

Any argument about European strategic weakness has to begin by acknowledging European strength. Galileo is perhaps the clearest example. Europe decided that access to satellite navigation was too important to depend entirely upon the U.S. The result was an independent global system that now serves billions of users and gives European governments capabilities that would otherwise depend on another power.

Copernicus provides another example. European Earth observation has become important for climate monitoring, agriculture, disaster response, maritime awareness and, increasingly, security. Europe also retains considerable expertise in satellite manufacturing, scientific missions, telecommunications, propulsion, sensors and other areas that are less visible than launch but no less important.

Any argument about European strategic weakness has to begin by acknowledging European strength. 

Lamont Colucci

Ariane has long carried another meaning. Independent access to space became a European strategic objective precisely because political autonomy is difficult if another state controls the means of reaching orbit. The delays surrounding Ariane 6, the retirement of Ariane 5, and the loss of access to Russian Soyuz launchers briefly exposed how quickly that independence could disappear. Ariane 6 has now restored the capability and has begun establishing an operational record.

Yet technological excellence does not settle the question of spacepower. A satellite may be European in manufacture, owned by one government, operated through another institution, used by NATO, and dependent upon components or services originating outside Europe. In a crisis, what matters is not simply who built the system. It is who can use it, who can protect it and who decides.

Strategic (dis)unity

The institutional map explains much of the problem. The ESA develops technology, exploration, science, launch systems and an increasing number of capabilities related to resilience and security. The EU controls major common programs, funding and has begun treating space as part of its security and defense responsibilities. NATO regards space as an operational domain and integrates space-based support into alliance planning. European governments retain sovereignty, military command, budgets, intelligence systems and different relationships with the U.S.

The boundaries are becoming less rigid. In April 2026, the ESA and the European Defence Agency began a joint effort to identify gaps in European Earth-observation capabilities for security and defense. This would have been more difficult to imagine during the earlier civilian era of European space activity. The EU’s Space Strategy for Security and Defence similarly speaks of protecting assets, responding to threats, reducing dependencies, and maintaining autonomous access to space. Europe is therefore integrating. It is not necessarily unifying.

France approaches space through a tradition that gives considerable weight to sovereignty, military independence and freedom of action. Germany has traditionally placed greater emphasis on European cooperation, industry, science and economic strength, although the Russian threat has produced substantial change. The UK remains a major European military actor but stands outside the EU while remaining deeply embedded in NATO and the Five Eyes intelligence relationship. Poland and other states closer to Russia tend to see American military engagement as a foundation of European security rather than a dependency Europe necessarily needs to free itself from. These differences are not bureaucratic inconveniences. They reflect different histories and different understandings of national interest.

This competition also has a less visible dimension. Europe possesses considerable expertise in international and space law and has traditionally emphasized international rules, multilateral institutions, transparency and norms of responsible behavior. China has demonstrated a greater willingness to treat law itself as an instrument of strategic competition (lawfare), using legal interpretation, institutional influence and norm-shaping to advance national objectives. The problem is not that Europeans fail to understand space law. It is that an approach primarily designed to strengthen a rules-based order may be less adept at confronting a competitor willing to use the interpretation and evolution of those rules to alter the strategic environment. In space, important advantages may therefore be established through law and precedent before they are ever contested through military force.

Ukraine and the meaning of autonomy

The war in Ukraine provides the clearest practical test. Space-enabled communications, commercial imagery, navigation, targeting support and intelligence became part of the conduct of the war almost immediately. Commercial systems demonstrated that the boundary between civilian and military space had become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Europe contributed important capabilities, but the conflict also demonstrated the continuing importance of American systems and companies. This raises a question budgets or satellite inventories alone cannot answer: Could Europe sustain a major war if American space support were sharply reduced? The answer today is probably not.

Europe could provide some communications, Earth observation, navigation, and other services. What it does not yet possess is an independent architecture able to reproduce the scale, persistence, military integration, warning, intelligence and commercial depth available to the U.S.

Could Europe sustain a major war if American space support were sharply reduced? The answer today is probably not.

Lamont Colucci

This does not mean Europe needs to separate itself from America. Alliances exist because states achieve more together than they can separately. It does mean that strategic autonomy has limits when essential capabilities remain beyond European control.

IRIS² and GOVSATCOM are EU initiatives designed to provide secure, independent and encrypted satellite communications for governmental, military and critical-infrastructure needs. Alongside greater cooperation between the ESA and defense institutions and expanding national space commands, these are not simply new programs. They are attempts to close the distance between European technological capability and European strategic freedom of action.

The industrial question

European aerospace companies remain technologically sophisticated, but the global space economy has changed. SpaceX altered launch economics and launch frequency. Large commercial constellations changed the scale of satellite production. Venture capital and private entrepreneurship became more important. China built a large state-supported space sector while also encouraging commercial entrants. Europe has responded more slowly.

Part of the reason lies in the structure that produced Europe’s earlier successes. National industrial interests, the ESA’s geographical-return system, public procurement, European regulation and the desire to preserve capabilities across several countries all served political purposes. They did not always produce the speed or scale now demanded by commercial competition.

This is beginning to change. European governments and the ESA are encouraging new launch companies. The European Commission is attempting to strengthen secure communications and the industrial base behind them. The ESA’s 2026 economic assessment places considerable emphasis on competitiveness, investment and market access. Ariane 6 is increasing its capability and launch record.

Europe therefore faces a familiar strategic choice. It wants sovereign capability, competitive markets, national industrial participation, European integration and lower costs. These goals can reinforce one another, but they can also collide.

Strategic autonomy or strategic resilience?

The phrase “strategic autonomy” has created unnecessary confusion because Europeans do not agree on what they seek autonomy from. For France, the concept has long included greater freedom from dependence upon American power. Eastern European states are understandably less enthusiastic about any interpretation that weakens the American security commitment. Other governments see autonomy principally as the ability to act when the U.S. chooses not to. Space suggests a more practical interpretation.

Europe may not need complete independence. It does need sufficient resilience so that an outside government, company, supply chain or launch provider cannot prevent it from defending its essential interests. That is a lower standard than complete autonomy. It is also much harder to achieve than it sounds.

Galileo addressed one dependency. Ariane addresses another. IRIS² aims to provide secure connectivity. New Earth-observation and military programs are beginning to address others. Viewed individually, these programs can appear disconnected. Viewed together, they reveal Europe slowly building the infrastructure required for greater freedom of action. To succeed, it needs a political structure that can keep pace with technological development.

Europe and the Earth-Moon system

The challenge facing Europe will grow as strategic geography expands beyond Earth orbit. Europe already plays an important role in exploration. The ESA supplies the European Service Module for Orion and participates in the Artemis architecture. European science and industry will remain crucial to lunar exploration, while programs involving communications, navigation, logistics and in-space services are beginning to look beyond the traditional satellite economy. Participation, however, is not the same as leadership.

The U.S. and China are constructing competing architectures whose consequences may extend well beyond individual missions. Transportation, communications, navigation, standards, logistics, resources and permanent infrastructure will influence who possesses freedom of action as activity expands through the Earth-Moon system.

Europe therefore confronts a question familiar from its terrestrial history. Will it help determine the political and strategic structure of a new geography, or will its considerable technological capabilities operate primarily within systems shaped by others?

A fifth model of spacepower

The preceding articles in this series have shown that there is no single path to spacepower. The U.S. combines national military power with alliances and an unusually dynamic commercial sector. China has connected its space program to national rejuvenation and a highly centralized state. Russia increasingly uses inherited space capabilities to offset weakness through denial and disruption. India seeks a larger global role while remaining constrained by South Asia’s strategic demands.

Europe represents something else. Its capabilities are distributed among sovereign governments, supranational institutions, an alliance, scientific organizations and commercial companies. No single authority controls the whole. Yet these actors increasingly cooperate because the strategic environment gives them fewer alternatives.

This model should not automatically be dismissed as fragmentation. Distributed capability can provide redundancy, specialization, political legitimacy and resilience. Europe may not need to become a federation to become a stronger space power. The real test will come when interests diverge, or a crisis demands rapid action.

Read more on space

• Who will own outer space?
• The rocketing significance of space
• China, Latin America and the new space race

Institutions perform well when agreement already exists. Grand strategy becomes necessary when difficult choices must be made among competing interests. Europe has spent decades learning how to integrate capability without eliminating national sovereignty. Space may now determine whether that achievement can be extended into the realm of strategic power.

Europe enters the next phase of great-power competition with an unusual combination of strengths and weaknesses. Its scientific record is considerable. Its industrial base remains sophisticated, its security and commercial programs provide capabilities few powers possess. The weakness lies elsewhere.

Europe is becoming more serious about space at precisely the moment when space itself is becoming less forgiving of political ambiguity. Military dependence, commercial competition, launch requirements, hostile counterspace capabilities, legal and normative competition and the emerging Earth-Moon system all place greater value on speed, resilience and strategic direction.

The European response is already taking shape. It is not the centralized model of China, the sovereign-commercial model of the U.S., the denial strategy of Russia or India’s search for global influence while managing regional burdens.

Europe may be developing a fifth model: spacepower created through the integration of capabilities that remain politically distributed. Whether that model succeeds will tell us something larger than Europe’s future in space. It may help answer one of the central questions raised by the return of great-power competition itself: whether technological capability and institutional cooperation can produce strategic power without a unified sovereign authority.

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