The D Brief: Europe’s wartime crossroads; F-35’s training gap; Army’s to-do list; Space Force seeks boot camp; And a bit more.

NATO’s new chief wants more defense spending across Europe, where nations should shift to a “wartime mindset,” Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Thursday in Brussels. “It is true that we spend more on defense now than we did a decade ago,” Rutte said. “But we are still spending far less than during the Cold War, even though the threats to our freedom and security are just as big—if not bigger.” 

Rutte’s advice comes amid open speculation NATO will raise its defense spending target to 3% of GDP by 2030. “During the Cold War, Europeans spent far more than 3 percent of their GDP on defense,” Rutte said Thursday, though he stopped short of formally setting that 3% target just yet. 

Reminder: 24 of NATO’s 32 countries meet the alliance’s current 2% GDP target. But Russia’s estimated 6% GDP spending on its military, along with its open shift to a wartime economy, strongly suggests NATO’s 2% goal won’t cut it, Rutte said, warning his audience Thursday, “We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years” if defense spending does not rise further. “I can tell you, we are going to need a lot more than 2%,” he said. 

To be clear, “I don't want to spend more because [U.S. President-elect Donald Trump] wants [it],” Rutte said—though Trump could theoretically help Europe buy more U.S. weapons, he added. “We have to spend more because our deterrence is at stake. Our security is at stake.”

Europe is already under attack on multiple fronts, Rutte said, and noted, “We are not at war, but we are certainly not at peace either…Look what happened in the UK, where we had cyber-attacks at the National Health Service. In Belgium, where we had cyber-attacks at the ports. We have seen jamming in the Baltics of civil aviation. And we have seen assassination attempts in the UK and in Germany.” 

One big ask: “Let's never again talk about hybrid [war],” Rutte asked the audience at Brussels. “Because hybrid gives you—it's such a silly word, because it's not covering at all what is happening. What is happening is sabotage.”

But, he warned, this growing pressure to spend more on defense is not just about Ukraine, Russia, and Europe. “This is global. And it is impacting on South Korea, Japan. It is impacting directly on the United States.”

And it’s not just Russia pressuring Europe, Rutte said. “China is ramping up defence production,” with “a couple of big Chinese defence industrial companies in the top 10. Years ago, there were none. Now we have three or four big Chinese companies in the top 10 of big defence companies worldwide. So, this is evidence that they are really charging ahead and that they will overtake us in terms of the overall spending and overall defence capacity.” 

His advice: “Give our industries the big orders and long-term contracts they need to rapidly produce more and better capabilities,” Rutte said to alliance members. “Dare to innovate and take risks!” he admonished defense industries. 

“We have to get rid of that idiotic system where every ally is having these detailed requirements, which makes it almost impossible to buy together, to have joint procurement,” he said. “Come up with solutions to the swarms of drones and other new war tactics. Put in the extra shifts and new production lines!”  

Consider: “Since 2022, European NATO Allies have spent $184 billion in the U.S.,” said Rutte. “So, about half of all the defence spending, where it goes in terms of procurement, goes to U.S. companies, and the other half stays in Europe.” However, he warned, “If we don’t spend more together now to prevent war, we will pay a much, much, much higher price later to fight it. Not billions, but trillions of euros…and that’s if we win.”

Additional reading:

• “No Limits? The China-Russia Relationship and U.S. Foreign Policy,” which is a new report from Robert Blackwill of the Council on Foreign Relations and Center for a New American Security CEO Richard Fontaine, with 14 policy recommendations for U.S. officials;
• “Europe Begins to Ask if Syrians Can Go Home After al-Assad’s Fall,” the New York Times reported Friday; 
• “Trump to Europe: Overseeing a Ukraine Cease-Fire Would Be Your Job,” the Wall Street Journal reported Friday; 
• “Europe can make up the Ukraine funding shortfall if the U.S. withdraws, analysts say,” CNBC reported Friday; 
• And “Europe tries to boost economy as Trump presidency looms,” the BBC reported Thursday. 

Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1887, Alvin York was born in Fentress County, Tennessee.

Around the services

The defense policy bill is handing the Army a to-do list. The House-passed 2025 NDAA, which now awaits Senate action, would push the service to add anti-drone systems, make robotic targets, pick a point office for open-source software, and more. Defense One’s Meghann Myers has a bit more.

Navy F-35s can’t play well with others, so the service is betting big on sims. The Navy’s most advanced fighter jets can’t partake in a key aspect of modern tactical training: “injecting” distant or even imaginary aircraft into their systems so aviators can practice scenarios too difficult or costly to arrange in real life, Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams reported Thursday from the I/ITSEC conference held last week in Orlando. 

“The fact that we can get the F/A-18s, the EA-18s, and the E-2Ds all into the inject-to-live environment, and they can fight together on the range is fantastic,” Capt. Andrew Mariner, deputy commander of Naval Air Warfare Development Center, said at the conference. “But I bet you can guess who doesn't play still: can't get the F-35s to see the same thing synthetically that the rest of the air wing can see. So if I have F-35s at [Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada], they can't play when I do the inject-to-live.”

This is a problem, Williams reports, because the Navy—along with the rest of the Pentagon—is increasingly relying on this kind of live-virtual-constructive training. Continue reading, here. 

Space Force’s goal for 2025: Get its own boot camp, Air and Space Forces Magazine reported Tuesday off remarks from Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman at the Spacepower Conference in Orlando. 

It’s an ambitious goal that will likely take some time to achieve, he admitted. “We’re trying to figure out what’s the right scope, what’s the right scale, what’s the right evolution away from [having] the Air Force training our inductees and getting to a more Guardian-focused environment,” said Saltzman. 

Three possible locations, according to Greg Hadley of Air and Space Forces Magazine, include: 

• “Patrick Space Force Base, Fla. The Space Force is in the process of relocating Space Training and Readiness Command there, and moving a subsidiary program like BMT could be an obvious solution.
• Schriever, Peterson, or Buckley Space Force Bases in Colorado. Long a hub for USSF activity, these bases have a strong concentration of Guardians, even if they aren’t home to launch facilities.
• Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. With a large swath of land and a steady, but smaller number of launches compared to the Florida Space Coast, this West Coast base could also have the space needed for a training facility.”

Worth noting: “The Space Force recruits far fewer new Guardians each year—only around 800 compared to tens of thousands for the other services,” Hadley writes. “Its recruits also tend to be older and more highly educated, and that suggests different requirements and needs for basic training.” More, here. 

Related reading: 

• “Air Force Academy Sued Over Race-Based Admissions Policy,” the New York Times reported Thursday; 
• “Air Force names first female SERE specialist to chief master sergeant rank,” the service’s public affairs team reported Monday; 
• “A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care,” ProPublica reported Friday; 
• And some weekend reading: “Army-Navy Game Is Money Bowl for Military Academies,” Sportico reported Thursday ahead of the annual big game on Saturday. 

Lastly today: Don’t miss the latest episode of Defense One Radio, where Patrick Tucker and Audrey Decker recap the predictions, expectations, and trepidation coming out of the recent Halifax and Reagan national-security conferences. Listen in, here.

Have a safe weekend, and we’ll be back again Monday.