Business TV & Gustavo de Arístegui
September 21, 2026
I. KEY JUDGMENTS
First. Europe has improved its diagnosis, but not its capacity to respond: it knows what threats lie in wait, but it does not turn that knowledge into arsenals, doctrine, industry and political will at the speed that the 21st century demands.
Second. The war of the 21st century begins long before the first shot is fired. Disinformation, cyberattacks, sabotage of cables and networks, interference with navigation, and the manipulation of migration already form a continuous front against a Europe that has not declared itself at war.
Third. The most underestimated vulnerability is the absolute dependence on electricity and networks. Electromagnetic pulse weapons are barely mentioned in the European public debate.
Fourth. The decisive military gap is one of speed: Ukraine adapts in weeks; the Alliance buys in years.
Fifth. Europe has finally launched its own systems; the problem is no longer the absence of projects, but their fragmentation, their timing, and their scale. It manufactures excellent weapons in quantities that would only sustain a few days of high-intensity warfare.
Sixth. The privatization of survival by billionaires is an admission of the failure of public resilience.
Seventh. The weekend has confirmed in real time each of these theses: Houthi missile against Riyadh, the largest wave of Ukrainian drones against Moscow and the Polish warning about “accidental” Russian attacks.
II. INTRODUCTION
This Monday’s analysis is a single-issue piece. It stems from the question posed in the Reuters report by Daniel Flynn, Max Hunder, and Olena Harmash from Kyiv on September 17: Is NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) prepared for the next war it may have to fight? The most relevant news from the last 48 hours is listed in the Media Rack and the Risk Traffic Light.
Europe—the EU (European Union) and the European Alliance allies—sometimes makes the correct diagnosis, but very rarely takes the appropriate measures to protect itself and, above all, to get ahead of the new generation of aggressions, which do not wear uniforms, are not declared, and do not respect the old boundary between peace and war.
The weekend illustrated this. On Saturday the 19th, the Houthi terrorist organization, a franchise of Tehran’s oligarchic-jihadist regime, launched a ballistic missile against Riyadh for the first time. On the night of the 19th to the 20th, Ukraine fired more than a thousand drones at Russia while the Kremlin was concluding Duma elections also held in occupied territories. Two days earlier, Donald Tusk had warned the Sejm that Moscow was preparing attacks disguised as accidents to render Article 5 meaningless.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum” (“If you want peace, prepare for war”). — Vegetius, Epitoma rei militaris, book III.
The maxim remains valid; what has changed is the meaning of “prepare.” It is no longer about accumulating the systems that won the wars of the 20th century, but about building a military, industrial, technological, and social apparatus capable of learning, producing, resisting, and adapting faster than the adversary.
The analysis is organized into eight sections, each with its own facts, implications, and scenarios: the threat map; gray and hybrid warfare; disinformation and cyberwarfare; critical infrastructure and electromagnetic pulse; the “day after”; the speed gap revealed by Reuters; new European systems in light of the Iran war; and arsenals, money, and will. It concludes with a prioritized reform agenda.
III. MONOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
1. The threat map: three revisionists, three methods
Facts
Russia has opted for open violence—the invasion of Ukraine since 2022, preceded by the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014—and is simultaneously waging a sustained gray war against Europe: sabotage, cyberattacks, drones, damage to cables, interference with navigation, disinformation, and funding of extremists of both sides.
China doesn’t need to use force. It combines military pressure in its seas with strategic investment, credit that creates dependency, control of maritime chokepoints, and a monopoly over critical supply chains. According to the IEA (International Energy Agency), it controls more than 80% of solar panel manufacturing and dominates batteries and rare earth elements. Volkswagen’s plan, which increases job cuts to around 100,000, paints a picture of a Europe that has abdicated its responsibility to lead the transition it itself was demanding.
Iran , an oligarchic-jihadist regime, has sponsored terrorism since 1979 through Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and pro-Iranian terrorist organizations in Iraq. The war that began on February 28 has confirmed its role as a proliferator of Shahed drones—the same type Russia is using against Ukraine—and its interest in Chinese portable anti-aircraft missile systems. Its cyber apparatus, linked to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; in Persian, Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami), has already attacked water systems in the West.
Table 1. State threat matrix
| Actor | Method | Hybrid instruments | Desired effect in Europe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russia | War of aggression and gray war | Sabotage, cables, cyberattacks, GNSS interference, disinformation | Divide, erode support for Ukraine, test Article 5 |
| China | Economic coercion | Industrial monopolies, credit, ports, cyber prepositioning | Dependency and deindustrialization |
| Iran | State terrorism | Terrorist network, cyberattacks on water, blackmail in Hormuz and Bab el Mandeb | Raising energy costs and exporting terrorism |
Source: Author’s own elaboration. GNSS: Global Navigation Satellite Systems.
Implications
The three threats are interconnected: the Iranian Shahed is manufactured in Russia like the Geran, Tehran buys Chinese anti-aircraft guns, and Senator Elissa Slotkin asked Trump on September 18 to raise with Xi Jinping the alleged Iranian use of Chinese satellite imagery in the July attack that killed three US servicemen in Jordan.
The Gulf War has now reached Europe: according to Bloomberg, Aramco will not supply crude oil to its European customers in October following the attack on its East-West pipeline, attributed to pro-Iranian terrorist organizations operating from Iraq. Iranian blackmail over the two straits—the Strait of Hormuz directly, and Bab el-Mandeb through its Houthi proxy—translates into an immediate threat to European energy security.
Each revisionist demands different instruments: air defense, sanctions, and deterrence against Russia; industrial policy and investment controls against China; counterterrorism, protection of maritime routes, and energy diversification against Iran. Europe, which has barely begun to build the first, cannot afford to neglect the other two.
Perspectives and scenarios
Base. The three pressures persist like wars of varying temperature, with a Europe that reacts late and piecemeal.
Adverse. The timing of a crisis on the eastern flank, the closure of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, and a crisis in Taiwan, which the United States could not address simultaneously.
Favorable. The energy shock catalyzes joint purchases, strategic reserves, and a coherent defense industrial policy.
2. Gray Warfare and Hybrid Warfare
Facts
Gray warfare is the intermediate zone between peace and armed conflict, where a state acts below the threshold that would justify a military response; hybrid warfare is the combination of military and non-military means aimed at the same goal. The former defines the terrain; the latter, the method. Europe must understand that hybrid aggressions are, in effect, war without being at war.
The concept is not new. George F. Kennan defined “political warfare” in 1948 as the use of all means at a nation’s disposal, short of war, to achieve its objectives. In 1999, Chinese colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui turned commerce, finance, law, and networks into battlefields ( Unrestricted Warfare ). In 2013, Valery Gerasimov wrote that non-military means often outperformed weapons; Mark Galeotti, who coined the “Gerasimov Doctrine,” later clarified that it was a diagnosis, not a doctrine. Moscow and Beijing openly describe what Europe refuses to see.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter III.
Wars are no longer declared. The last formal declaration of war by the United States dates back to June 1942. Korea, the Gulf War in 1991, and Afghanistan in 2001 were all based on UN resolutions or authorizations from Congress. That is why the demands by some members of Congress to formally declare war on Iran are absurd, and sometimes made in bad faith.
The Oslo confession. Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide acknowledged on September 16 that Russia is testing capabilities to sabotage underwater infrastructure in the North Atlantic and that allies are still not good enough at responding below the Article 5 threshold. The EU’s Arctic envoy announced that the new Arctic strategy, expected by the end of October, will for the first time have security as its central pillar, and warned that it only takes an instant to sabotage a cable and disconnect Iceland, Greenland, or Svalbard.
Warsaw’s warning. Before the Sejm, Donald Tusk stated that, according to Polish intelligence, the Russian plan includes drone and missile attacks against countries that support Ukraine, including Poland, which Moscow would present as accidents to sow doubt about the collective defense clause. A Russian drone crashed a few kilometers from the Polish border during the latest attack on western Ukraine.
Table 2. Selective chronology of hybrid aggressions
| Date | Made | Attribution |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Attack on the Ukrainian power grid (225,000 customers without power) | Russian GRU |
| 2017 | NotPetya: approximately $10 billion in damages | Russian GRU |
| 2022 | Attack on the KA-SAT satellite network: 5,800 German turbines left unattended | Russia |
| 2023 | Baltic connector damaged by the anchor of the Newnew Polar Bear | Hong Kong ship |
| 2024 | Cancellation of the first round of the Romanian presidential election; damage to the Estlink 2 cable | Russia; ghost fleet |
| 2025 | Nineteen Russian drones in Polish airspace | Russia |
| 2026 | Attack on more than thirty water networks in Minnesota | Without definitive attribution |
Source: Compiled by the author using data from CISA, the Council of the EU, Reuters, and open sources. GRU: Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff.
Implications
If even open wars aren’t declared, the gray wars never will be: waiting for a declaration to react is tantamount to never reacting at all. Moscow doesn’t need to defeat the Alliance; it simply needs to demonstrate that Article 5 is, as Tusk fears, more theoretical than practical. The response requires a graduated repertoire—public attribution, immediate sanctions, boarding the ghost fleet, cyber countermeasures—that imposes costs without crossing the threshold. Drug trafficking, human trafficking, and arms trafficking must cease to be treated as mere police matters.
Perspectives and scenarios
Base. Continuous incidents with incremental allied responses and no activation of Article 5.
Adverse. A Russian drone causes casualties in Poland or the Baltic; Moscow claims an accident, and the allies are divided.
Favorable. NATO adopts an explicit doctrine of graduated responses and public attribution becomes routine.
3. Disinformation and cyberwarfare
Facts
The EEAS (European External Action Service) groups these attacks under the concept of FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference), whose aim is not to convince people of a lie, but to destroy trust in any truth. Romania annulled the first round of its presidential election in December 2024 due to a coordinated campaign on TikTok; the Doppelgänger network cloned European media websites; and, according to NewsGuard, the pro-Russian network Pravda published some 3.6 million articles in 2024 to contaminate artificial intelligence models, which repeated its falsehoods in about a third of the tests. Networks linked to Moscow attempted to manipulate Moldova’s 2024 European referendum and the 2025 parliamentary elections through vote-buying and disinformation. High-level forgeries now allow for the fabrication of false calls for surrender or false evacuation warnings capable of provoking panic before any denials can be issued. In Spain, pro-Russian analysts attribute the Iranian protests to Mossad and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The aim is not to restrict freedom of expression, which is precisely what distinguishes us from Moscow and Tehran, but to rigorously expose who is amplifying what, with what funding, and in whose interests.
There is no ceasefire in cyberspace. NotPetya spread across the globe; the 2022 attack on Viasat reached Germany; and in 2024, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned that the Chinese group Volt Typhoon had prepositioned itself in energy, water, and transportation networks to sabotage them in the event of a crisis: the digital equivalent of mining an adversary’s bridges in peacetime. The most profitable targets are hospitals and water networks protected with municipal budgets, as demonstrated by CyberAv3ngers, linked to the IRGC, in 2023 and the attack on Minnesota in July 2026, which I consider a trial run.
Finland teaches how to detect disinformation from primary school onwards and consistently tops the Media Literacy Index of the Open Society Institute in Sofia. — Open source data.
Implications
The SRI 2 directive (Network and Information Systems Security; NIS2) was conceived with a regulatory, not a defensive, mindset. Europe needs cyber deterrent capabilities, reservists, and blackout exercises. The Russian Duma elections, also held in occupied Ukrainian regions, are themselves an information operation: the Kremlin wasn’t seeking a result, but rather a narrative to justify the war.
Perspectives and scenarios
Base. Interference campaigns in every election and opportunistic attacks against basic services.
Adverse. A coordinated cyberattack against basic services coincides with a military crisis and the extensive forgery of a European leader.
Favorable. Strict application of the Digital Services Regulation, Finnish-style media literacy, and mandatory prepositioning audits.
4. Critical infrastructure and electromagnetic pulse
Facts
European societies are extremely reliant on electricity and digital technology, an interdependence that multiplies efficiency in normal times and catastrophe in times of crisis: water, payments, fuel, hospitals, the cold chain, transport, and communications all depend on the grid. On April 28, 2025, approximately 15 gigawatts, 60% of Spain’s electricity demand, disappeared in about five seconds. It wasn’t a cyberattack, but a cascading voltage control failure; that’s precisely why it’s so revealing. What a technical failure did for hours, a deliberate attack could do for weeks.
Around 99% of intercontinental data traffic travels via submarine cables. The Baltic Sea is the testing ground for their sabotage, and Europe has very few repair vessels, almost all of them privately owned. GPS (Global Positioning System) interference is commonplace in Eastern Europe, and electrical grids, telecommunications, and markets depend on satellite time synchronization.
An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, induces power surges that burn out electronics and transformers. A high-altitude nuclear detonation (HEMP) could affect areas thousands of kilometers away without a shockwave on the ground. The U.S. Starfish Prime test (1962) damaged transmission lines in Hawaii up to 1,445 kilometers away; the Soviet Test 184 set the Karaganda nuclear power plant ablaze. Nature offers its own warnings: the Carrington Event of 1859 set telegraph stations ablaze, and the March 1989 storm left six million people without power in Quebec for nine hours. The U.S. Congressional EMP Commission warned in 2004 and 2008 of prolonged, subcontinental blackouts. There are also high-power microwave non-nuclear weapons, such as the CHAMP missile tested in 2012, and Russia and China treat electromagnetic pulse as a form of electronic warfare, which lowers the psychological threshold for its use.
Table 3. Vulnerabilities of European critical infrastructures
| Sector | Main vulnerability | Protection |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical grid | Transformers without immediate spare parts; digital control | ● Low |
| Submarine cables | Limited surveillance; few repair ships | ● Media |
| Drinking water | Poorly protected industrial controllers; electrical dependence | ● Low |
| Telecommunications | Base stations with batteries that last only a few hours | ● Media |
| Payments | Total digital dependence; decline of cash | ● Media |
| Satellite navigation | Weak signals; no terrestrial alternatives | ● Low |
| Health | Obsolete systems; generators of limited autonomy | ● Low |
Source: own elaboration.
Figure 1. Cascade of failures after a prolonged blackout or an electromagnetic pulse attack
Implications
Europe lacks a common policy for dealing with electromagnetic pulses. Protecting large transformers, whose replacement takes months, maintaining spare parts, ensuring blackout start-up, and preserving analog backup systems costs a fraction of what the catastrophe would cost. The attack on the Saudi oil pipeline also demonstrates that infrastructure located thousands of kilometers away can jeopardize European supply.
Perspectives and scenarios
Base. Incremental improvements in cables and cybersecurity, without a common policy against electromagnetic pulse.
Adverse. Cable sabotage and cyberattack against the network in the middle of winter, with crude oil above one hundred dollars.
Favorable. Part of the 1.5% committed in The Hague is dedicated to transformers, a European cable repair fleet, and terrestrial alternatives to GNSS.
5. The “days later” and the alert that Europe refused to believe
Facts
According to Wired , Mark Zuckerberg is building a 570-hectare complex with an underground shelter on Kauai; Peter Thiel obtained New Zealand citizenship and bought land in Wanaka. Evan Osnos reported in The New Yorker (2017) on Reid Hoffman’s estimate that more than half of Silicon Valley billionaires had “apocalypse insurance,” and Douglas Rushkoff recounted how investors asked him how to maintain the loyalty of his security detail when money became worthless.
In contrast, Finland has some 50,500 shelters for 4.8 million people; Sweden sent the guide “If Crisis or War Arrives” to its 5.2 million households in 2024; and the European Commission recommended a 72-hour survival kit in 2025. It’s a start, not a policy.
In 2022, US intelligence announced the Russian invasion in detail, and much of Europe didn’t believe it: the head of the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service) was in Kyiv on February 24 and had to be evacuated by land. It wasn’t a failure of information, but of interpretation.
In The Strange Defeat (1940), Marc Bloch attributed the French collapse to a command incapable of conceiving of a war different from the previous one. — Paraphrase in indirect style.
Implications
When those who have built the networks lose faith in states’ ability to guarantee the continuity of social life, the social contract begins to crumble. The answer is not to emulate billionaires, but to make their preparation unnecessary by having a state that prepares its entire population. In 2022, Europeans projected their own economic rationale onto the Kremlin and assumed that Moscow would not bear the cost of an invasion. Tusk’s warning today poses the same test as in 2022: whether Europe will believe an allied intelligence agency before or after the predicted event occurs.
Perspectives and scenarios
Base. Citizen preparedness remains at the level of recommendations outside the north and east.
Adverse. A credible warning is once again being ignored in western and southern capitals.
Favorable. The Nordic total defense is being extended: guides in all homes, shelters inventoried, and blackout drills.
6. What the Reuters report reveals: the speed gap
Facts
Five Ukrainian and Western officials told Reuters that some NATO weapons and tactics risk becoming obsolete: Ukraine adapts in weeks, while the Alliance takes years or decades to acquire them. This comes amid rising war spending and pressure from Trump, while the Pentagon reviews its presence in Europe.
Denys Shtilerman of Fire Point argues that tanks are “worthless” against a $5,000 drone. The truth lies somewhere in between: a Leopard 2 costs between €30 and €35 million and, without an anti-drone bubble, is an extremely expensive target. Oleksandr Pivnenko, commander of the Ukrainian National Guard, observed that allied troops are effective in assaults, but they don’t look upwards. An exercise in Estonia assumed allied air superiority, something that can no longer be taken for granted, and some NATO training materials are still based on World War II.
Air and missile defense is the most difficult vulnerability: Europe depends on the American Patriot and Ukraine suffers from a critical shortage of interceptors.
Ukrainian officials describe their country as a growing leader within the Alliance, but also point to the difficulty the allied military bureaucracy has in absorbing its lessons. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense called its use of drones and electronic warfare “unparalleled in the world”; NATO did not respond to the criticism.
“The only thing more difficult than putting a new idea into the military mind is getting an old one out.” — Attributed to B.H. Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War (1944).
Implications
Procurement has become a strategic vulnerability. The weekend illustrated this: Ukraine launched over a thousand drones against Russia in a single night—more than 1,900 according to CNN—hundreds of them against Moscow, damaging a refinery and killing two people in the region. A country that is not part of NATO now produces a mass of unmanned systems that no European ally could match. The lesson is not tactical, but industrial and doctrinal: exercises that presuppose air superiority train officers for a war that no longer exists, precisely Marc Bloch’s warning.
Perspectives and scenarios
Base. NATO absorbs Ukrainian lessons at a slow pace through the JATEC (Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre).
Adverse. The Pentagon is reducing its presence in Europe before the gaps in air defense, drones, and ammunition are closed.
Favorable. Mass co-production with Ukraine, multi-year framework agreements, and exercises in disputed airspace.
7. New European systems and the Iran war as a laboratory
Facts
Europe is building its own alternatives. The Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG, with the MBDA Aster 30 B1NT (Matra BAe Dynamics Alenia, a European missile consortium), was chosen by Denmark over the Patriot and is expected to be deployed in Ukraine. In July, Ukraine and nine allies launched the Freyja coalition for a cheaper anti-ballistic missile system, with FirePoint as the main partner. The German IRIS-T, with its combat-proven system, forms the backbone of the ESSI (European Sky Shield Initiative), which has been joined by more than twenty countries. The EDF (European Defence Fund) and PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation) are funding the HYDEF and TWISTER anti-hypersonic missile programs, coordinated by the Spanish company SENER, and the TWISTER program, which in my opinion are among the most important and slowest-moving programs on the continent.
In drone defense, the Rheinmetall Skyranger 30, the Saab Nimbrix missile, and the 15,000 STRILA interceptor drones financed by Germany for Ukraine stand out; in laser defense, the British DragonFire, costing around ten pounds per shot, and the French HELMA-P. The 2030 Defense Readiness Roadmap sets out four flagship initiatives—drones, eastern flank, air shield, and space shield—with initial drone capability by the end of 2026. An expert quoted by the European Parliament’s Research Service warned that a “drone wall” may do more to reassure the population than deter Russia: without retaliatory capabilities, a wall merely shifts the target. NATO, at least, is experimenting: the Eastern Phoenix 26 exercise in Romania, held in April, evaluated more than 200 systems against drone swarms, with Ukrainian experts playing the role of the adversary.
The Iran-Contra war has brought the shortage of interceptors to a head: according to Zelensky, the Middle East used up more than 800 Patriot missiles in three days, compared to 600 PAC-3 MSE missiles manufactured in all of 2025, with up to eight missiles against a single target and $6 million SM-6 missiles employed against Shahed drones. Since March, some 200 Ukrainian specialists have helped coordinate the air defenses of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates; according to Ukrainian figures, interceptor drones accounted for more than 70% of Shahed drone shootdowns over Kyiv in early 2026. On Saturday, Saudi air defenses intercepted the first Houthi ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh, and CENTCOM (United States Central Command) announced it had escorted one billion barrels of oil and more than 2,000 ships out of the Gulf.
Table 4. Main European air, missile and drone defense systems
| System | Function | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| SAMP/T NG | Medium-range ballistic missile | ● Real alternative to the Patriot |
| Freyja | Low-cost ballistic protection | ● Uncertain schedule |
| IRIS-T SLM / ESSI | Medium range; layered architecture | ● Accredited |
| HYDEF and TWISTER | Antihypersonic interceptor | ● Too slow |
| Skyranger 30 and interceptor drones | Short-range anti-drone | ● Effective |
| DragonFire and HELMA-P | Laser | ● By climbing |
Sources: Reuters, European Commission, manufacturers and open sources.
Figure 2. The arithmetic of cost per shot: the cheap attacker versus the expensive defender
The novelty bias. Not everything old is obsolete. The A-10 Thunderbolt II, which the US Air Force wants to retire, has been decisive in the Gulf against IRGC fast attack craft, as have the Apache helicopters. That’s why Iran’s acquisition of Chinese portable anti-aircraft guns is so serious; US sources confirmed to CBS News on September 18 that Iran had shot down at least two MQ-1s.
Implications
Firing millions of interceptors against thousands of drones is losing the war of attrition before it even begins: the answer is a layered defense. Ukraine, the Gulf, and Europe are also competing for the same resources; every Houthi missile fired at Riyadh means one less interceptor for Kyiv or the eastern flank.
Perspectives and scenarios
Baseline. Staggered deliveries of the SAMP/T NG and initial anti-drone capability, insufficient to cover the deficit.
Adverse. The Houthi escalation and a US offensive against Iran are depleting global stocks of interceptors.
Favorable. Freyja and the anti-drone programs are being mass-produced with SAFE funding and in co-production with Ukraine.
8. Arsenals, money, and will
Facts
It is impossible to possess the world’s best air-to-air missile, the Meteor, and lack sufficient arsenal for more than a week of conflict. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) concluded in 2023 that even the United States would not sustain certain key munitions for more than a week in a war over Taiwan. The Draghi report noted that the EU uses twelve types of tanks compared to the US’s one.
In 2025, all the allies reached 2% of their GDP (gross domestic product) for the first time. In The Hague, they committed to 5% by 2035: 3.5% for strict defense and 1.5% for related investments, the budgetary space for resilience against hybrid warfare. The ReArm Europe plan aims to mobilize €800 billion, and the SAFE instrument (Security Action for Europe) offers €150 billion in loans.
Figure 3. Defense spending of selected allies in 2025 versus the Hague target (*France: 2026 budget)
According to Gallup International, only 32% of Europeans would voluntarily defend their country: 45% in Poland, 29% in Spain, 23% in Germany, and 14% in Italy. No material rearmament will be sustainable without moral rearmament.
The Nordic model of total defense—and the integration of Finland and Sweden into NATO—is the benchmark. The neutral states—Ireland, Austria, Malta, and Cyprus—must be reminded, without embellishment, that Article 42.7 of the TEU (Treaty on European Union) obliges them to assist the attacked state “by all means at their disposal.”
Implications
The European paradox is one of mass, not quality. What’s needed are robust production lines and realistic reserves, capable of ramping up when necessary without being dismantled when not. The 5% is not a gift to Washington, but the price of our own security, and the 1.5% of related investments must be genuinely dedicated to resilience against hybrid warfare, not become an accounting catch-all.
The will to defend is the least considered variable. Societies that have lived under the Soviet boot know this; those that have been under the American umbrella for eighty years have forgotten it. Ireland, which hosts transatlantic cables and critical data centers without the means to monitor its waters, illustrates that the vulnerability of one partner is the vulnerability of all.
Perspectives and scenarios
Base. The north and east are approaching the Hague target; the south, with Spain and Italy at 2%, continues to lag behind.
Adverse. Energy inflation becomes a pretext for postponing commitments while Washington reviews its deployment.
Favorable. SAFE and streamlined procurement unlock massive joint purchases and European industrial champions.
Prioritized reform agenda
| Scope | Extent | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Anti-missile and anti-drone defense | SAMP/T NG, Freyja, ESSI, HYDEF; interceptor drones and co-production with Ukraine | Maximum, immediate |
| Recruitment and arsenals | Emergency procedures, multi-year contracts, Meteor and Aster en masse | Maximum |
| Response below the threshold | Graduated reprisals, public attribution, boarding of the phantom fleet | Maximum |
| Cyber defense and disinformation | Deterrent capacity, reservists, Digital Services Regulations | Very high |
| Infrastructure and electromagnetic pulse | Monitored cables, repair fleet, protected transformers, black start | Very high |
| Social resilience | 72-hour kit, shelters, guide to all homes | High |
Source: own elaboration.
IV. MEDIA RACK
AFP (Agence France-Presse) and AP (Associated Press), via CBS News (September 19-20). The Saudi-led coalition confirmed that the Houthi terrorist organization launched a ballistic missile at Riyadh, which was intercepted; an Aramco depot near King Khalid International Airport was set ablaze. This is the first time the capital has been directly targeted. Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait condemned the attack, and US embassies in nine countries issued security alerts.
Fox News and Axios (September 17-20). Trump declared himself in “decision mode” regarding Iran, choosing between devastating the country, economically strangling it, or reaching an agreement, and indicated he was open to meeting with Pezeshkian at the UN General Assembly.
Al Jazeera (September 19). Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said he sent his conditions via Qatar: an end to the war on all fronts, unfrozen funds, and an end to the naval blockade.
Bloomberg (September 18). Aramco leaves its European customers without crude oil in October after the attack on the East-West pipeline.
Al Jazeera and AFP (September 20). Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until Washington meets the conditions it has conveyed. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan rejected the idea of Saudi Arabia being drawn into the Iran-US war. CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with President Al-Sisi in Cairo to discuss the wars in Iran, Gaza, and Sudan, as well as maritime security.
AP and CNN (September 20). Largest wave of Ukrainian drones in the war against Moscow: damage to a refinery, two dead and about 20 wounded. Mayor Sobyanin linked it to election day.
Bloomberg and CNN (September 20). United Russia leads with around 57% in the Duma’s initial count, with an official turnout of 56.66%; final results not expected before September 25. Voting also took place in constituencies created in occupied Ukrainian regions, which Kyiv and Western capitals do not recognize.
CBS News and CENTCOM (September 19). Admiral Brad Cooper stated that the volume of crude oil, cargo, and liquefied natural gas crossing the Strait of Hormuz in the last two weeks is the highest it has been in the six months of the trade war. Brent crude closed the week around $103, after reaching $109 on September 10.
Arab News (September 17). Pakistan will defend Saudi Arabia “as far as necessary,” according to its military spokesman. The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, signed last month with Turkey, outlines a Sunni collective defense architecture outside of NATO.
CBS News (September 18). Senator Slotkin urged Trump to make alleged Chinese satellite support for Iran a central issue in his meeting with Xi Jinping this week.
Kyiv Post (September 18). Tusk warned the Sejm that Polish intelligence anticipates Russian drone and missile attacks disguised as accidents.
ArcticToday (September 16). Eide admitted that NATO still doesn’t know how to respond below the Article 5 threshold.
V. RISK TRAFFIC LIGHT
Twelve-month horizon. Red: very high or critical; dark orange: high; amber: medium; green: favorable. Trend: ↑ upward, → stable, ↕ uncertain.
| Risk | Level | Trend | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Houthi escalation against Saudi Arabia | ● Critic | ↑ | First ballistic missile launched against Riyadh; Saudi crude suspended for Europe |
| “Accidental” Russian attacks on the eastern flank | ● Very high | ↑ | Tusk’s warning; objective: empty article 5 |
| Interceptor exhaustion | ● Very high | ↑ | Ukraine, the Gulf, and Europe are competing for the same stockpiles. |
| Major US offensive against Iran | ● High | ↑ | Trump in “decision mode” |
| Russian gray war and cyberattacks against essential services | ● High | ↑ | Cables, drones, GNSS; Minnesota trial |
| European energy security | ● High | ↑ | Brent above $100 |
| Russian retaliation after the wave of attacks on Moscow and the Duma elections | ● High | ↑ | The Kremlin needs to respond to the biggest attack against its capital. |
| Informational interference in electoral processes | ● High | ↑ | Artificial intelligence and ultra-forgeries |
| Chinese industrial coercion | ● High | ↑ | Cars, batteries and rare earths |
| US military decoupling | ● High | ↕ | Pentagon deployment review |
| Electromagnetic pulse attack | ● Low, extreme impact | ↑ | Anti-satellite weapons and Russian and Chinese doctrine |
| New European systems and Nordic integration | ● Favorable | ↑ | The main allied asset |
VI. EDITORIAL COMMENT: PREPARE FOR THE WAR THAT IS COMING, NOT FOR THE ONE THAT HAS PASSED
Europe is in a state of denial. It doesn’t lack information, nor even money; it lacks the mindset, the speed, and the political will. Its political class has become accustomed to thinking that security is a service provided by others.
The war is already here, even if we don’t see it: in the hoaxes that poison our conversations and now also our machines, in the code hidden in our water and electricity networks, in the anchors that drag phantom ships across the Baltic, and in the drones hovering over our airports. Behind it all looms the threat that almost no one names: an electromagnetic pulse capable of plunging a hyper-connected society back in seconds to an era without light, without water, and without communications.
The last few days have made it clear to anyone who cares to see it. An allied minister publicly acknowledges that NATO doesn’t know how to respond below the Article 5 threshold; the Polish prime minister announces, with intelligence on his side, attacks disguised as accidents; a terrorist franchise of the oligarchic-jihadist regime in Tehran launches a ballistic missile at Riyadh, leaving European refineries without Saudi crude; and a non-NATO country launches more drones against Moscow in a single night than many European militaries have in their inventory. None of these signals are ambiguous.
Nor does the rhetoric of excess help. Asking aloud when to “blow up” an entire nation is not a strategy, but an outburst. Pressure on Tehran is necessary, but a serious plan for the day after a potential regime implosion is still lacking; one can only hope that the US system and figures like Marco Rubio will impose prudence.
Mark Rutte warned in December 2025 that Europe must prepare for a war on the scale of those experienced by our grandparents. He is right about the scale, but this war will be fought with drones and missiles, in cables, in networks, in the electromagnetic spectrum, and in minds. The democratic response is not the billionaire’s bunker, but total defense in the Nordic style.
Peace, as Vegetius taught, is preserved by preparing for war. Preparing well in the 21st century means producing more, making faster decisions, learning from the front lines, protecting what keeps us alive, and accepting, without embellishment, that collective defense is everyone’s responsibility.