Understanding Europe’s missile needs

Today’s conflict between the US Israel and Iran is marked by round after round of long-range missiles unleashed deep within enemy territory. In the spring of 2025, India and Pakistan slugged it out by trading missile strikes. And for four years now, Russia and Ukraine have each been trying to gain the advantage through deep precision strikes (DPS) designed to inflict maximum damage on energy infrastructure and military production. Is Europe equipped for such warfare asks Viktor Szabo?

Faced with the growing Russian threat since Crimea’s annexation in 2014, Europe has worried about how to defend itself against DPS, launching the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) and other slowly progressing IAMD (integrated air and missile defence) initiatives. It was only after Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022 that Europe began to focus on building offensive capabilities, highlighting them in the seven priorities of the EU’s March 2025 White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030.

Writing for Bruegel, Alexandr Burilkov and Guntram B. Wolff argued that Europe needs to quickly learn from Ukraine’s experience that drones are much more effective as FPV on the front than as deep-strike weapons, that air defence is too expensive and difficult to ensure and that US missile production cannot be relied on. Only modern missiles can provide deterrence from Russian aggression because, “…missiles are far more likely than drones to succeed in destroying targets vital to Russia’s military machine, including command centres, bridges and underground oil, gas and munitions facilities.”

Missile expert Fabian Hoffmann offered the same assessment that Europe needs to “adopt a punishment-based conventional counterstrike strategy” and that “Europe would need to complement existing stocks with hundreds, if not thousands, of long- and deep-strike weapons, while also investing in the necessary storage facilities and logistics.”

The question then begs, what long-range weapons should Europe be pursuing? And, can they produce them?

Long-range, precision missile options

DPS go after a range of high-value targets: mobile and fixed, hardened (bunkers/buried) or not, with most protected by sophisticated IAMD. Recent events have given considerable attention to ballistic missiles in the Red Sea fired by Houthis, in Ukraine and in the Middle East fired by Iran against Israel. As of March 13^th, Iran had launched approximately 789 ballistic missiles since the beginning of the current conflict.

In most cases, mass-produced ballistic missiles with easily accessible technology and low costs are rarely effective against a well-constructed, well-equipped IAMD system. Despite superior speeds and ranges (up to several thousand kilometres), these missiles typically suffer from trajectory predictability and lack pinpoint accuracy. Successful ballistic missile strikes are linked to weak IAMD (as in the Donbas region against Iskander-M missiles) or to highly sophisticated versions such as MaRV missiles with warhead technology similar to nuclear missiles’ which comes at a high cost (in terms of both ownership and effectiveness), making them incompatible with mass production and deployment. Therefore, ballistic missiles, whilst important for nuclear deterrence, might not be Europe’s best short-term option.

Hypersonic technology, meaning arms (hypersonic ballistic/cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles) travelling at Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) or more, has received a lot of recent attention. Although promising in the long run, many argue the hype is exaggerated as they are not as precise or immune to IAMD as claimed and experts are heatedly debating whether weapons already in use are actually hypersonic. They are also extremely expensive which makes them currently an impractical choice for Europe. As a report from Ifri argued, the cost “…would doom it to the status of a strategic weapon with an even more limited set of uses.”

Therefore, the current trend is towards acquiring a combination of cruise missiles with complementary characteristics: stealth, range, manoeuvrability, speed and launch environments including sea (surface or submarine), air and land. Their appeal lies in their ability to carry a military payload commensurate with a target’s resilience whilst outmanoeuvring sophisticated defences. Michael Bohnert, engineer at RAND, argued: “Low-altitude cruise missiles and strikes drones now have a 35-year history of destroyed air defenses, shattered command and control, obliterated munition storages and ruined infrastructure such as power facilities and oil refineries. The combination of high survivability, success, and cost effectiveness will result in cruise missiles and their strike drone counterparts continuing to be the go-to first strike option for the U.S. and other major military powers.”

China’s parade on 3 September 2025, which showcased cruise missiles in the conventional section, is an unambiguous demonstration of this. Possessing a sufficient stockpile of these missiles does not preclude the use of drones to saturate enemy defences, or occasionally sophisticated and costly ballistic solutions, but the proportion of development efforts must take these factors into account.

Scale-up European production

If Europe decides to increase long-range deep strike capabilities with cruise missiles, it better hurry because Russia is enhancing its arsenal with eyes on NATO. Europe’s one long-range domestic option, the sea-launched MdCN used against Syria in 2018, has had more limited production because before 2022, using such weapons was “strategic” or political to send a message such as “crossing the red line.” Today’s geopolitical context has changed this and mass production of such weapons is now necessary. Ifri contended: “It is likely that a weapons delivery system procured in greater numbers would avoid being classed as a strategic weapon and would give the armed forces a broader range of options to respond to growing threats.”

For DPS solutions, some countries still turn to the US The Netherlands purchased Tomahawk missiles for its frigates and Germany is considering it, but this continues reliance on American-controlled technology lacking missile sovereignty and operational freedom for European users. Plus, given Tomahawk delivery time is estimated at 2-3 years during peacetime, foreign orders will now be significantly delayed as “…it will take years to replace” the 168+ Tomahawks Washington just used against Iran – and U.S. orders take priority.

All this points to Europe’s need to develop and produce its own long-range missiles. Given development costs and the advantage of economies of scale when multiple countries place orders, some governments are already working together on this endeavour through joint initiatives.

This includes the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) programme, announced in 2024, uniting France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the UK and Sweden in the pursuit of European-made long-range capabilities of 1,000+ km. Initial expectations were for ground-launched capabilities given researcher Timothy Wright’s observation that “no European NATO member except for Turkiye possesses a conventional ground-launched missile with a range greater than 300 kilometres” and that Poland and France signed a letter of intent in July 2025 to cooperate on land-based cruise missiles. Wright claimed a design such as MBDA’s Land Cruise Missile (LCM), a ground-launched evolution of its MdCN with a demonstration launch expected by 2028, was most likely. But whilst ELSA participants recently signed a letter of intent to continue the program, it only mentions progress in the area of low-cost, one-way effector-style saturation weapons, and not in the category of heavy-payload, DPS weapons Europe needs.

Europe’s current missile capabilities are no match for Russia’s and filling this gap might be the only way to deter further Russian aggression as Putin would not want to risk massive deep strikes on infrastructure and high-value targets. To make this possible, Bruegel argued: “Stocks of missiles capable of reaching deep into Russia need to be increased, signalling a crippling cost for Russia in case of any attack on EU territory. European governments should order more from, and become more reliable long-term customers of, European missile producers.”

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