By Robbin Laird
In late 2020, Murielle Delaporte and I published our book entitled: The Return of Direct Defense in Europe: Meeting the Challenge of XXIst Century Authoritarian Powers. A major emphasis in that book was that the broad challenge was inclusive of European infrastructure and the clear need for the European Union to focus on defense of infrastructure as a core mission rather than being future military force planners.
Recently, The Wall Street Journal published an insightful piece on Europe and the question of their maritime ports in an age when authoritarian powers are engaged and threaten at the same time those ports.
So what would you get if you combined our earlier analysis with this WSJ analysis of the current situation?
I decided to do just that and this is the result of doing a juxtaposition of the two analytical efforts.
How the continent is racing to secure its ports, supply chains, and strategic assets against dual challenges from authoritarian powers
Europe finds itself confronting an unprecedented dual challenge to its critical infrastructure: immediate military threats from Russia requiring urgent port and transportation upgrades, while simultaneously grappling with long-term strategic vulnerabilities created by decades of Chinese and Russian investment in European infrastructure.
The Immediate Crisis: Militarizing Europe’s Ports
The urgency of Europe’s infrastructure challenge became starkly apparent in recent NATO planning discussions. At the upcoming NATO summit, alliance members are targeting a dramatic increase in military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP, with 1.5% specifically allocated to what officials term “nonlethal domains” – cybersecurity, infrastructure, roads, railroads, and critically, ports.
The European Union has proposed an unprecedented €75 billion ($86 billion) investment over five years to upgrade transport infrastructure for military use, representing a massive leap from the current €1.7 billion military mobility budget. This reflects a sobering recognition that Europe’s ports have become potential chokepoints in any future conflict with Russia.
European officials and NATO planners have identified 500 critical locations across the continent requiring immediate upgrades to ensure rapid troop movement to eastern borders. The challenge extends beyond mere logistics – it encompasses the fundamental question of whether Europe’s commercial infrastructure can serve dual civilian and military purposes without compromising either function.
As Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU’s transportation commissioner, explains: “The ability to move troops and military equipment quickly across Europe is a military priority, but it is not just that. It is also essential for crisis response but also for making our transport systems smarter and stronger.”
The Convergence Challenge
The infrastructure crisis reveals what defense analysts call the convergence of cyber and physical vulnerabilities. As one expert noted, “Critical infrastructure is an area where the cyber and physical worlds are converging – the operation of digital systems affects our physical world, and so a cyber incident can have direct and serious physical impacts on property and people.”
This convergence is evident in Europe’s current port security initiatives. The European Maritime Safety Agency is working to identify cyber vulnerabilities in port systems, while the Nordic Maritime Cyber Resilience Center has specifically identified Russian hackers as a significant threat to European infrastructure and defense capabilities.
European officials suspect Russia is behind multiple incidents involving damaged or severed cables and pipelines under the Baltic Sea, part of what they see as a broader campaign to test and potentially compromise European infrastructure resilience.
The Long-Term Vulnerability: Foreign Investment in Strategic Assets
While Europe races to address immediate military infrastructure needs, a parallel challenge has been building for over a decade through Chinese and Russian exploitation of European free market mechanisms. Authoritarian states have systematically invested in and gained control over key European infrastructure, creating dependencies that could be leveraged during future crises.
The scope of this challenge is staggering. Chinese companies now control 29 ports and 47 terminals across more than a dozen European countries, including a 67% stake in Greece’s strategically crucial Port of Piraeus. In France, a Chinese consortium owns nearly 50% of Toulouse airport, located at the heart of the country’s aerospace industry.
The European Union’s belated recognition of this vulnerability led to the adoption in March 2019 of a new “framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union.” This mechanism, comparable to the US CFIUS system, aims to monitor foreign investments that could affect security or public order.
The Nordic Model: Hardened Infrastructure as Standard
Some European nations are pioneering approaches that address both immediate military needs and long-term infrastructure security. Norway’s reconstruction of its F-35 air base at Ørland provides a template for how infrastructure development can prioritize security from the ground up.
The Norwegian approach emphasizes hardened facilities, secure supply chains, and workforce security. As Lt. Col. Eirik Guldvog explains: “The Armed Forces Estate Agency has built camps on the base to house workers to work on the base. Because of classifications, only Norwegian workers are being used.”
This model of “security by design” in infrastructure development contrasts sharply with the ad hoc approach of retrofitting existing commercial infrastructure for military use – the challenge now facing most European ports.
Balancing Security and Competitiveness
The tension between security requirements and commercial viability remains acute. Shipping executives fear that militarizing ports could undermine their competitiveness and deter private investment, particularly in facilities that might become targets during any future conflict.
As Katarzyna Gruszecka-Spychala, vice president of finance at Poland’s Port of Gdynia, notes: “We understand it’s needed, but still, we need to achieve competitiveness. Private investors could hesitate to put money into businesses that may be targeted by Russia.”
This concern reflects a broader European challenge: how to maintain the open, competitive markets that have driven European prosperity while protecting against authoritarian exploitation of those same market mechanisms.
The Path Forward: Integration of Security and Commerce
European officials argue that security and commercial interests can be complementary rather than competing priorities. NATO and EU planners believe that infrastructure upgrades designed for military logistics can simultaneously improve civilian traffic flows and economic efficiency.
The key lies in recognizing that robust, secure infrastructure has become a prerequisite for sustained economic competitiveness, not an obstacle to it. As the EU’s Tzitzikostas emphasizes: “These assets need to be competitive in peacetime and ready to defend European citizens when it matters most.”
A Continental Awakening
Europe’s current infrastructure crisis represents more than a response to immediate military threats – it reflects a fundamental awakening to the intersection of economic openness and national security. The continent that pioneered free trade and open markets is learning to defend these achievements against authoritarian powers that view economic integration as a vulnerability to exploit rather than a mutual benefit to preserve.
The success of Europe’s infrastructure security initiative will depend on its ability to maintain the delicate balance between openness and security, competitiveness and resilience. The stakes extend far beyond military logistics – they encompass the fundamental question of whether democratic societies can maintain their openness while defending against authoritarian manipulation.
As European leaders prepare for the NATO summit and finalize their massive infrastructure investments, they are essentially placing a bet on the possibility of “secure openness” – the idea that democratic values and market principles can coexist with the hard realities of 21st-century strategic competition.