The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on European Defense Industries from the Perspective of Weaponized Interdependence

The illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Russia-Ukraine war represent the returning of territorial defense in the list of European security and defense. The European indigenous defense industrial bases have been suffering unstable supply chains, shortage of national order and soaring cost of R&D within the context of uncertainty. The majority of European defense acquisitions are from outside the EU, account for 78% of EU countries’ 2022–2023 commitments (Maulny, 2023). Hence, the related capabilities hinder the EU's ambition as security actorness. How to reestablish defense industrial capabilities is a prominent issue for the European Union.
Weaponized interdependence means the vulnerabilities generated by interaction. Asymmetric network structures create the potential for “weaponized interdependence”, in which some states are able to leverage interdependent relations to coerce others.(Farrell & Newman, 2019) The networked defense industries have security consequences. This paper focuses on the EU how to utilize weaponized interdependence to promote indigenous defense industries. The EU may leverage network structures as a coercive security policy instrument under the present international security circumstances. There are three-fold approaches: the advanced dual-use technologies and manufacture, industrial policy and coercive power stem from international law order. The triple approaches can be interwoven to strengthen the EU's defense industrial capabilities and its geostrategic actorness. For the first, the EU is capable of many of the advanced dual-use technologies that the international communities rely on; for the second, active industrial policy promotes the priorities for defense affairs; for the last, the EU's economic sanctions and export control regimes underpin the EU's technological edge, meanwhile, differentiates between allies and practical and potential adversaries.
There are three subsections constituted by theoretical framework, empirical case and conclusion. Theoretical framework analyzes the coherence of state-of-the-art technology and manufactures, industrial policy and economic statecraft (economic sanctions and export control). The empirical case is the EU's defense industrial capabilities are insufficient towards the defense aids to Ukraine. The conclusion is policy suggestions to the predictable European security landscape.