As Russia massively ramps up its missile and drone production, Europe’s current missile defense strategy is proving unsustainable, outpaced, and cost-inefficient, according to War on the Rocks. Despite efforts to acquire interceptors and defense systems, Europe is unable to match Russia’s industrial output. Analysts argue that Europe should shift from a denial-based approach to a punishment-based conventional counterstrike strategy. This would involve developing long-range strike capabilities to deter Russian missile attacks by threatening retaliation against high-value, non-civilian targets. While the shift poses logistical and political challenges, it may be the only viable way to maintain credible deterrence against Russian aggression. They write:
Explosions over Kyiv and other Ukrainian population centers are daily reminders that Russia’s missiles can reach deep and strike hard. Beyond the immediate implications for the war in Ukraine, these barrages raise a sharper question for Europe: how to respond to a Russia that wields conventional long-range strike power as a tool of coercion and war.
There is now broad agreement among policymakers and analysts that Russia’s missile buildup cannot go unanswered. In response, European states have embarked on a major expansion of their missile defenses, covering short-, medium-, and long-range systems designed to counter everything from low-flying drones and cruise missiles to high-altitude short and medium-range ballistic missiles. But Europe’s current emphasis on missile defense is a losing strategy. […]
Unfortunately for Europe, its ambitious missile defense acquisitions do little to comprehensively mitigate the threat. There are three reasons for this. […]
- Interceptor Shortage: Europe gets only ~600–700 interceptors yearly, while Russia produces up to 1,000 missiles. Defense is costly and outpaced.
- Limited Coverage: Too few launch units mean only partial defense; many areas remain exposed.
- Drone Overload: Russia’s cheap drones can overwhelm Europe’s expensive, limited interceptor systems.
As the scale of Russia’s missile ramp-up became clear, along with Ukraine’s struggles to sustain its missile defenses and the enormous costs of Europe’s own missile defense plans, European focus shifted toward complementing missile defense assets with a preemptive strike capability — at least rhetorically — following the motto “shoot the archer, not the arrow”.
For example, the website of the German armed forces recently cited the need to destroy “launchers of long-range missiles” as an important reason for acquiring a deep-strike capability. […]
If war nonetheless breaks out, it plays a key role in deterring Russian horizontal escalation against European civilian infrastructure and population centers to prevent the atrocities we are currently witnessing in Ukraine.
Read more here.
