If Europe is ‘ignoring the barbarian at the gates’, what are we doing?

Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine has shattered many long-held, post-Cold War myths that dominate contemporary Western thinking, particularly for Europe.

Whether it was the unrestricted liberalisation and “globalisation” of the global economy resulting in a hollowing out of national economic bases, the hubristic belief that liberal democracy had once and for all triumphed over the archaic models of autocratic governance, ultimately culminating in the “End of History” as championed by Francis Fukuyama.

Fast forward to today, and we now know that the heady days of optimism and hubris have been shattered with autocratic nations on the march across the globe and the post-Second World War economic, political, and strategic order in retreat, with the world’s formerly great imperial powers not far behind.

Across Europe, whether in the major powers of the United Kingdom, France, Germany or Italy or even the smaller yet equally consequential nations like Spain, Denmark, Finland or Sweden, the increasingly contested and multipolar nature of the world is presenting major challenges to the security of the European continent.

Yet this isn’t exactly a recent development, as each European nation, especially the larger powers like Germany, Italy, and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain, among others, effectively abrogated their responsibility, preferring instead to rely on the seemingly inexhaustible might of the United States in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This was reinforced by the collective security provided by the protective umbrella that is the multilateral North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Europe’s once great military, economic, and industrial powers were content to live high on the hog, providing niche forces and developing fabulously expensive and questionably effective platforms that could only be procured in small numbers, presenting European industry with a scalability problem should the strategic environment change.

Europe’s vulnerable reality has not gone unnoticed, as many in the defence policy community have recognised the increasing vulnerability of the European powers and a severe disconnect between their repeated public commitments and their capacity to deliver.

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Equally, “barbarians”, mainly Putin’s Russia in this case, coupled with an increasingly belligerent and revisionist Turkey under autocrat Erdoğan, the ever-present threat of domestic radical Islamic extremists, and mounting domestic political polarisation have smelled blood in the water.

Highlighting this, Martin Ivens, writing for The Australian Financial Review, in a piece titled, Europe ignores the barbarians at its gate, issues a timely warning not only for Europe’s leaders and public, but also for Australia’s own policymakers and public.

Europe not responding to cracking foundations

Setting the scene, Ivens compared contemporary Europe to its ancient Roman forebears who found themselves beset by enemies both foreign and domestic, all combined with the mounting economic pressure of bribing barbarians and maintaining an empire that spanned the “known world”.

“If you want peace, prepare for war, was the Roman maxim. Following that injunction, the US maintains its place as first among superpower equals, even if it is no longer the hyperpower that it was in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But with its depleted armed forces unprepared to fight a major war, or perhaps any kind of war, on its own, Europe (Brexit Britain included) has come to resemble the rich and feeble late Roman Empire that depended on unreliable mercenaries for its security,” Ivens stated.

In spite of the fact that we’re now nearly two years since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war of attrition between the two nations, Europe appears to have only partially awoken from its slumber, with progress towards rearming and reshoring industrial capacity and energy security (*cough* Germany *cough*), ultimately presenting an increasingly vulnerable target for future Russian aggression.

In the German context, despite the central European nation’s status as a global industrial power and a globally recognised leader in the realms of advanced manufacturing, Germany’s military modernisation, in the aftermath of the Cold War, has been somewhat lacklustre, resulting in major delays to acquisition programs, faulty equipment, costly overruns for major programs – if all of this is starting to sound a little familiar, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

With the war in Ukraine shedding light on the lack of preparedness across Europe and the broader Western world, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has moved to remedy the predicament, recently approving a €100 billion “special fund” to overhaul the German military and prepare it for the era of great power competition.

Scholz detailed this shift, stating in February of 2023, “It is clear that we must invest much more in the security of our country in order to protect our freedom and our democracy.”

Chancellor Scholz’s comments were reinforced by Alfons Mais, Lieutenant General of the German Army, who explained, “The cupboards are almost bare,” and by André Wüstner, chairman of the German Bundeswehr Association, who added, “We continue to be in free fall.”

Germany isn’t alone, the situation with the United Kingdom is equally devastating, particularly following an admission by a senior US general who had a pointed warning for the United Kingdom’s then-defence secretary Ben Wallace: “Bottom line ... it’s an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies for a decade.” This was further compounded by a series of concerning details outlined about the state of readiness of the British Armed Forces, namely:

• The British Armed Forces would run out of ammunition “in a few days” if called upon to fight.
• The Royal Air Force lacks the ability to defend its skies against the level of missile and drone strikes that Ukraine is enduring.
• It would take five to 10 years for the Army to be able to field a warfighting division of some 25,000 to 30,000 troops backed by the required tanks, artillery, and helicopters.
• Thirty per cent of the UK’s forces on high readiness are reservists who are unable to mobilise within NATO timelines.
• The majority of the Army’s fleet of armoured vehicles, including tanks, was built between 30 and 60 years ago, and full replacements are not due for years.

Ivens added further colour to the precarious situation in Britain, explaining, “Britain devotes just over 2 per cent of GDP to defence, the minimum NATO requirement. Many of its European allies have a worse record. Yet as recently as 1984, five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, 5.5 per cent of the UK’s GDP was devoted to the military.”

All of this is further compounded by concerns about the return of Donald Trump and his willingness to “hold NATO” to account, particularly when it comes to pulling their weight materially in support of Ukraine, and for those anti-Trump people in the audience, Trump isn’t necessarily out of line here.

Highlighting this is a piece for The Wall Street Journal by Max Colchester, David Luhnow, and Bojan Pancevski, titled, Alarm Grows Over Weakened Militaries and Empty Arsenals in Europe. The trio explained, “European nations have pledged billions in aid to Kyiv but have said they face economic constraints and production limits on weapons. If the US pulls back from providing the bulk of aid, Europe doesn’t have the stockpiles to make up the difference, nor can it resupply Ukraine and rebuild its own forces at the same time. The head of NATO’s military committee, Dutch Adm. Rob Bauer, said this year that Europe could now ‘see the bottom of the barrel” in terms of what it could offer Ukraine.

“The European Union looks unlikely to keep a promise to supply a million desperately needed artillery shells to Kyiv by this spring, achieving only around a third of that so far. North Korea, an impoverished dictatorship with a population of 25 million, has shipped over a million shells to Russia in the same period, according to Western officials and Russian government statements,” they explained.

Ultimately this spells doom for a Europe facing down a Russia that, despite the media rhetoric in the West, isn’t collapsing and in fact has outperformed many developed economies across the globe, but especially in Europe.

Ivens added further detail here, stating, “In a war of attrition, Ukraine, minus Western aid, loses. Russia’s economy is nearly 14 times bigger than Ukraine’s and its defence budget amounts to 6.5 per cent of GDP, having risen by 68 per cent last year. Western enthusiasm for the fight is flagging, while $US61 billion (AU$92.4 billion) worth of American military assistance to Ukraine has been held up by Trump’s Republican supporters in Congress, who want the money spent on domestic programs.

“The European Union has also failed to deliver on its promise to send a million artillery shells to Kyiv by next month. Last summer, Ukraine was firing 7,000 shells a day in its counteroffensive against Russia. Now, that’s down to 2,000 a day,” he explained.

All of this conveys one message not only to Russia, but also to the broader “revisionist” powers whether Iran, China or even asymmetric threats across the globe: Europe is weak.

Only enhancing this is comments made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on 22 December 2022, when he stated, “When it comes to Russia’s war against Ukraine, if we were still in Afghanistan, it would have, I think, made much more complicated the support that we’ve been able to give and that others have been able to give Ukraine to resist and push back against the Russian aggression.”

Arguably, the same can be said for Australia.

Sounding a little familiar?

If this lack of preparedness and, indeed, acceptance of the seriousness of the geostrategic environment sound a little too familiar, don’t worry, I have thought so too.

Closer to home, the Albanese government’s Defence Strategic Review, released in late-April 2023, has moved to fundamentally reshape the Australian Defence Force and is a recognition that it is no longer fit for purpose in the era of increased great power competition and multipolarity, heralding a shift away from a “balanced force” towards a “focused force” in the face of mounting great power competition in the Indo-Pacific.

First and foremost is the rapidly deteriorating geopolitical, tactical, and strategic situation emerging across the Indo-Pacific, necessitating the development of a flexible, future-proofed force capable of reliably responding to the tactical and strategic requirements placed upon the service by the nation’s policymakers, yet the dial doesn’t seem to have shifted all that much.

It is clear each and every day the wolves are getting closer to our door, the dog is barking, the silhouettes are visible on the house walls and yet, we collectively seem to be sitting down to watch television.

So why the delay?

Final thoughts

Australians seem reluctant at best or indeed, even oblivious at worst that the world is increasingly becoming “multipolar” and our own home, the Indo-Pacific, in particular, is rapidly becoming the most hotly contested region in the world.

As we grapple with the challenges presented by the rapidly evolving global geopolitical order, enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic economic, diplomatic, and military capability serve as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities and commitment to supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia.

Equally embracing this approach presents the Australian people with exciting opportunities to embrace and take advantage of collectively, while serving to reinforce the the post-Second World War order upon which our wealth and stability are built, because without it, many Australians will blindly simply go with the flow and watch as we fade into the pages of history.

Our economic resilience, capacity, and competitiveness will prove equally as critical to success in the new world power paradigm as that of the United States, the United Kingdom, or Europe, and we need to begin to recognise the opportunities presented before us.

Expanding and enhancing the opportunities available to Australians while building critical economic resilience, and as a result, deterrence to economic coercion, should be the core focus of the government because only when our economy is strong can we ensure that we can deter aggression towards the nation or our interests.

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..