Asked at a Times event if the UK’s Strategic Defence Review was fit for purpose, the historian Niall Ferguson was admirably succinct in his response: “No.”He went on to paint a grim picture of the state of defense in Europe, predicting the collapse of Ukraine into “unviability” and a Russian invasion of Lithuania.Asked what he considered the worst-case scenario for the UK in particular, he said nuclear evisceration was not out of the question. After all, he added, we do not even have fully independent use of nukes.Grim Forecast for European DefenseSo it seems we have lots to look forward to. But it would be tempting to brush off Ferguson’s predictions as more of the same from a man known for his contrarian stances and fondness for winding up his peers.This, after all, is the guy who outraged mainstream scholars when he claimed that had Germany won the First World War, Europe would have become a peaceful and prosperous continent, neither communism nor Fascism would have emerged, and Britain would have held on to its empire.But Ferguson is not the only one troubled by the present state of European defense. Almost all the region’s major governments, no longer sure of the United States’ support, are scrambling to beef up their militaries.A two-thirds majority of Bundestag parliamentarians voted for a massive increase in defense and infrastructure spending; Keir Starmer said he would ramp up spending on defense to 2.5 per cent of GDP from 2027; Emmanuel Macron urged the EU member states to agree on “massive, common funding” to push hundreds of billions of euros towards defense and security.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via AFPAnxious Governments, Rattled AlliancesWhether or not they subscribe to Ferguson’s view, that Vladimir Putin aims to show the worthlessness of NATO’s Article 5, which enjoins all its member countries powers to respond should one be invaded, or the view of, say, the philosopher John Gray, who thinks Putin is building “a Third Rome” charged with the task of redeeming the sinful West, Europe is rearming.Senior ministers have told defense companies that Europe has less than 18 months to be ready for an invasion.If only it were as simple as boosting spending. There is in fact something faintly naïve in the suggestion that if only Europe could scrape together enough cash, it could fend off a rival, battle-tested military force.Largely thanks to the security guarantee provided by the US, Europe is rather out of the habit of repelling foreign incursions on its territory. Consequently, it has not had to think too hard about where its defense spending goes.For decades, a small number of established contractors able to meet the basic defense needs of peacetime have absorbed the vast bulk of the region’s defense budgets, which have been falling steadily. But in the present circumstances, this will no longer do.Money Alone Won’t Save UsAcross the pond in the United States, the government directs money to small, highly creative companies through initiatives like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is charged with developing emerging forms of technology for military use.In my country, political strategist Dominic Cummings has been saying for years that the military needs a British version of DARPA, not just because it is vital for defense but because there are broader economic benefits. (Just a few happy side-effects of US military spending include the creation of the internet, the semiconductor industry, and Google’s search engine.)Cummings got his way with ARIA, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, but at the moment, it is little more than a policy gesture.Innovation Gaps and the DARPA DivideIn the absence of working agencies like DARPA, in the UK, as elsewhere in Europe, the very companies that we badly need to be doing what they do best — innovating quickly to shore up our defenses — are largely ignored by those at the government level.Money continues to flow to the established contractors, who do not and cannot innovate at the speed we need.If it were not a truism that technological dominance is military dominance (on our wind-battered island, the Battle of Agincourt immortalized the longbow), Ukraine has thrown it into sharp relief, pioneering the mass use of commercial drones — often cheap, modified quadcopters and FPV drones — for reconnaissance and strikes, thus levelling the playing field against Russia’s more industrial military.A Ukrainian soldier preparing to launch a Leleka-100 UAV. Photo: Dmytro Smolienko / AFPWhy the Right Voices Go UnheardThe question, then, is how these smaller, more innovative defense and dual-use companies can make themselves known. They lack the lobbying clout and public profile of the so-called primes — Lockheed, say, or BAE.The answer is by communicating. Not only do they need to be seen, but they need to find the language to explain why their work matters, which is not always straightforward.As in the space sector, the technical language often used out of habit by defense operators muddles the water, obscuring both the impact and potential impact of the work in question.The rest of the sector gets what you are driving at, but not, in many cases — forgive me for being blunt — those that matter.The Language of RelevanceIn most cases, these companies need to get generous and sustained investment, nudge policy in the right direction, and build trust as much with the politicians as with the public.This counts doubly in Europe, where the word “defense” has, since the mass bloodletting of the mid-20th century, acquired chiefly negative associations, and hence put off civilians and investors: many firms flatly refuse even to consider defense spending, and outdated environmental, social, and governance requirements exclude it.Rebuilding Trust in European DefenseGiven all of this, it is no exaggeration to say that Europe’s ability to defend itself rests, to a far greater extent than might be obvious, on the ability of its hungriest, most energetic, most creative companies to make themselves known.If they are seen as untried and untested, deep in the technical at the cost of the practical, then Europe’s defense department leaders will do what seems to them to be rational: stick with what they know and forgo those companies developing the weapons and technology of tomorrow.That, to put it mildly, is a concern.Harry Readhead is Creative Director at Sonder London.The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people – do you want to send us yours? 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