Overview

Reflecting the decline of state power, the armed forces of Europe diminished in size in the course of the late twentieth century. From their apogee during the Second World War, the armed forces have steadily shrunk until they are smaller now than they have been since before the Napoleonic Wars and the levée en masse. With the massive increase in Europe's population in the intervening two centuries, Europe's armed forces are minuscule in comparison with their historic forebears. It is possible that increased strategic pressure within Europe and Afghanistan may reverse this trend, but it is unlikely. Budgetary pressures do not suggest that any augmentation of military force will be possible; politically it is unlikely that European states will be willing or able to increase defence budgets. However, the armed forces of Europe today are not simply smaller, they are fundamentally different from their mass forebears of the twentieth century. Today's forces are smaller in number than the mass forces, but in many ways they are more potent. The fundamental dynamic of European military transformation today is not so much down-sizing as concentration.

The trajectory of European military transformation is becoming clear. Europe's militaries are much smaller than their twentieth-century predecessors, but in many ways they are more potent. By concentrating resources on elite forces, they are more mobile tactically and strategically than NATO's armoured divisions. They can deploy globally but, crucially, once deployed, they are able to manoeuvre around a dispersed and relatively empty battlefield.