Defense: The emergency is already here!

VDE dialog: In your position paper “New defense: Improving Europe’s defense with innovations”, you write that the familiar world order, and therefore also the domestic security architecture, has started to slip. When did this development begin?

Bovenschulte: It’s certainly not a completely new and surprising development. For example, airspace violations at the external borders of the European Union and disinformation campaigns in the run-up to elections have already been happening for years. Perhaps because of the dependence on Russian gas supplies, perhaps out of general naivety, people tended not to take all this with the seriousness it requires.

Preuß-Eisele: Not even after Crimea was annexed. The turning point was only recognized when Russia set out to grab the whole of Ukraine in February 2022.

Part 2 of the turning point came this year, when Donald Trump became president of the USA.

Preuß-Eisele: That’s right. The USA was always a reliable NATO partner that held a protective hand over us. But that is now a thing of the past – or at least it could be if the gloomy omens from the White House are confirmed. The problem is that Europe right now is not adequately prepared in terms of security and defense policy. That means there is an urgent need to close existing capability gaps, such as intelligence and reconnaissance, in order to remain capable of acting geopolitically and build up a credible deterrent potential.

Bovenschulte: I accept that the slogan “creating peace with even more weapons” sounds somewhat absurd even to my ears, but unfortunately it’s based on a certain logic. We have to recognize that it obviously takes a certain amount of military strength to be taken seriously by Russia in negotiations. However, we must be careful not to trigger a new arms race. Because Russia, for its part, will naturally see a rearmament as an increase in the potential threat. When it comes to negotiations, it’s necessary to acknowledge the security interests of the other side, even if you don’t share them. Only this, not military strength alone, will enable lasting and stable peace.

But does that still mean that we need to rearm?

Preuß-Eisele: Yes, a rapid but also sensible rearmament. We have world-class technologies here in Europe in a wide range of areas, so we can hold our own in this respect. The only question is, how do we deploy these technologies in time? So far, the record has been extremely subpar. For example, if you develop a frigate today, it takes ten to 15 years before it can actually be deployed – with technology that is then already outdated. One solution could be not to develop every weapons system from scratch, but to use modular designs that build on existing platforms.

At the same time, we now know that such traditional weapon systems are no longer everything in modern warfare – for example, when a tank that costs between 3 and 30 million euros can be taken out by a drone that costs only a fraction of that amount.

Bovenschulte: In principle, the trend is moving toward developing small, mobile, semi-autonomous or even fully autonomous systems that operate in a swarm and can be controlled by just a few people. However, I’m not a military strategist, so I can’t say whether we still need tanks for our defense. In fact, tanks will certainly change too, perhaps operating autonomously or via remote control so as not to endanger any crew. Technologically, this is easier to implement than self-driving cars.

Preuß-Eisele: The war in Ukraine shows that we still need large-scale weaponary such as tanks or self-propelled howitzers. Drones are state of the art there at the moment. But will they still be in 20 years’ time? With these fast-moving, disruptive technologies and innovation cycles, we simply don’t know, and we therefore need to be able to react quickly to anything. This also requires the ability to build tens of thousands of drones quickly and efficiently, preferably today rather than tomorrow, which will also act as a deterrent.

But aren’t we already in an ideal position to do this; after all, we are technologically far superior to a country like Russia?

Preuß-Eisele: On the one hand, that’s true, but on the other hand we are seeing in Ukraine that Russia can produce its few and rather simple weapons systems at an incredible scale and speed. And quantity beats quality to a certain extent.

Bovenschulte: Yemen is not necessarily a high-tech location either. And yet the militias there still manage to attack US warships with their drones.

Preuß-Eisele: I think we can certainly hold our own with our technological superiority and wealth of ideas. At the same time, in Germany we sometimes focus on developing technologically perfect products, instead of being satisfied with good products that are also available more quickly.

One year before the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, the EU Parliament called for a ban on autonomous weapons systems. Today, there is very little talk of this. In times of wars of aggression, are ethics a luxury that we can no longer afford?

Bovenschulte: That’s a good point, and there have indeed already been the first documented cases of autonomous drones that have independently led to the loss of human life. There is a great danger that such a development could lead to a complete loss of restraint, and that would obviously not be desirable. In my opinion, it always has to be the human being who presses the button.

But is that actually realistic? Drones are also already being developed in Germany that can operate autonomously at their destination if, for example, contact with the control center is lost due to enemy jamming signals. This is a technological advantage that you certainly don’t want to do without in war because of ethical concerns. And even an autonomous war robot can only make the most of its advantages if, for example, it can react autonomously to a movement and fire when in doubt.

Bovenschulte: That is indeed a difficult question and I can’t give a definitive answer. One could, of course, also argue that every landmine is an autonomous weapon that kills people without further human involvement.

That’s why Germany, at least, has signed the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use, manufacture, stockpiling and transfer of these weapons.

Bovenschulte: And others – such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – have just announced their withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, citing the heightened security situation on their borders with Russia and Belarus as the reason. But I don’t want such concerns to be thrown overboard too quickly. I’m simply saying that it’s important to address these issues, especially as the relationship between humans and machines is an important topic in both the military and civilian sectors.

Preuß-Eisele: It’s also an important topic given that the negative consequences of using such autonomous systems are not at all foreseeable. Because they would make warfare much faster – with action and reaction. And there’s a real danger that autonomous systems will lead to a mutual build-up and that this would be anything but de-escalating.

In your paper, you call for a new innovation ecosystem. What do you mean by that?

Bovenschulte: We currently have two relatively separate innovation systems, one for defense and the other for civilian developments. The latter is of course much larger. And it makes sense to use this for peacekeeping technologies for reasons of efficiency. This is by no means just a question for universities and research institutes, it’s also about the corporate sector. Why shouldn’t technology companies be able to set up defense subsidiaries that complement the existing defense companies – Rheinmetall, Diehl, Airbus, etc. – as new players in this field?

Preuß-Eisele: Startups should also play a much greater role in this innovation ecosystem. They’re particularly likely to come up with disruptive, clever ideas because they like to think “outside the box.” The Palladion Defence Accelerator, which was launched at the beginning of the year as part of the NATO DIANA program, is heading in exactly the right direction. This is an innovation program to promote dual-use technologies – i.e. technologies that can be used for both civilian and military purposes – at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich. Ultimately, we need to do much more to bring innovative startups together with the big players.

Bovenschulte: Both sides know about each other, of course, and also see the need to join forces. And yet there is still a lot of room for improvement in terms of communication and cooperation. We are familiar with the problem from the civilian sector, but the situation is even more difficult in the defense sector because it is traditionally much more secretive.

Preuß-Eisele: A small startup hardly has a chance of breaking through. We need accelerator programs, networking events, platforms – everything that can bring these different players together and actively promote exchange. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the US Department of Defense is also a good example of how pioneering technologies can be driven forward, for example through competitions between start-ups.

Money, at least, is not the problem anymore. However, there is of course the risk of wasting even more money if certain issues are not resolved beforehand: dysfunctional procurement practices, inefficiency, system fragmentation, proliferation of weapons systems, duplicate developments, etc.

Preuß-Eisele: That’s right. We have 27 defense industries in Europe: each country has its own.

Bovenschulte: In concrete terms, this means, for example, that there are many different types of tanks in use in Europe, all of which require different ammunition and sometimes even different fuel. This makes the entire replenishment logistics unnecessarily time-consuming and difficult. And then there are the often very expensive parallel developments. A single country like Russia, which has now fully switched to a war economy, is unfortunately far more efficient than we are here in Europe.

Preuß-Eisele: We do have organizations such as the European Defense Agency, which have been working for years to strengthen European defense cooperation, coordinate procurement projects and set standards. But these efforts are often thwarted by national egoism. There are so many different interests that have to be taken into account and that make the whole system far, far more complex. We can no longer afford this kind of national egoism. The emergency is already here!

We’ve just talked a lot about national defense in general and tanks and drones in particular. The Greens deserve credit for advocating for a broader definition of defense and security during the negotiations on the debt package. Because in today’s hybrid wars, the dangers lurk in completely different areas, don’t they?

Bovenschulte: They do! The risk is not that we’re about to be attacked by cruise missiles, but rather that there are very diverse, hybrid attack scenarios which we have to defend against. And these dangers are already very real today: an undersea cable that is cut; a parcel that suddenly catches fire in an airport logistics warehouse; attacks on rail infrastructure; hacker attacks that paralyze institutions for weeks. Then there are all the disinformation campaigns that we’re already dealing with on a massive scale. All of this is already part of everyday “warfare.” And of course it can also destroy a country from within. Addressing these issues within a security strategy is just as important as traditional military defense.

Preuß-Eisele: This hybrid warfare certainly presents us with a new kind of threat; it’s often invisible, difficult to attribute responsibility for and it aims to destabilize our societies and destroy trust. These are no longer clearly recognizable opponents in uniform, but individuals or groups acting in secret – on behalf of foreign states, often highly intelligent and barely tangible. This is precisely what makes our defense so difficult and requires us not only to upgrade technically, but also to act in a politically smart and united manner. Europe must finally recognize this threat for what it is – a serious challenge to our security and cohesion. But perhaps there’s an opportunity here to ultimately emerge from this tense threat situation as a stronger, united Europe. Simply because we have no choice if we want to regain control of the current situation.

Link to the position paper “New Defense: Improving Europe’s defense with innovations” (in German)