Why European Militaries Collectively Downsized After the Cold War

Throughout the Cold War, European militaries were very well-armed and capable of fighting intense conflicts over an extended period. Centuries of warfare on the European continent had conditioned people throughout Europe that war was a fact of life. Yet by the 1990s and early 2000s, European defense budgets were drastically cut. The end of the Cold War created complacency and the United States assumed a greater defense burden in Europe through NATO. As the war in Ukraine continues, the reasons these budgets were cut are more important than ever.

Throughout the Cold War, the rise of NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to a major standoff between militaries backed by Washington and Moscow. Countries west of the Iron Curtain feared the spread of communism, having seen the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. Major US investment into postwar Europe included providing aid to rebuild the militaries of former Axis powers or countries occupied by the Axis powers. For instance, when the Bundeswehr was created in 1955, the United States poured money and weapons into the organization. As a result, it became a major military power reminiscent of the Prussian army in the 19th century. In addition to the need to strengthen forces near the Iron Curtain, Western European militaries deployed abroad to fight colonial wars and in Korea. This ensured that even though European governments struggled to rebuild after World War II, defense budgets remained high.

However, there was a reluctance to use military power directly against the Eastern Bloc. When the Soviets crushed the Hungarian and Czech uprisings in 1956 and 1968 respectively, NATO formally protested but did not take direct action. The Korean War was the closest NATO members came to fighting the Soviets directly. It became a source of embarrassment that many Western European militaries would be employed fighting police operations in their former empires throughout the Cold War. Additionally, high defense budgets and conscription became unpopular in several NATO countries. The Portuguese army’s 15-year war in its African colonies led to massive desertion and draft evasion.

On the face of it, NATO and the Warsaw Pact looked like mirror images of one another. Both were military alliances backed by nuclear superpowers. However, there were key differences. NATO had members that often pursued different courses of action that did not always align with the wishes of the United States. For instance, the US did not approve of the Turkish decision to invade Cyprus. Yet, when it did so, there was little action taken by other NATO members because they desired to keep the Turks in the alliance. On the other hand, the Soviets refused to allow any effort by Warsaw Pact members to make decisions without their consent. After the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring, Albania withdrew from the alliance. Most efforts to reduce Soviet influence in the region were futile due to Moscow’s overwhelming power. This had major ramifications for the Cold War’s trajectory.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact led to an entirely new security paradigm for NATO. The alliance had to contend with the regime changes in Eastern capitals and the breakdown of stability. While the collapse of Communist rule in Eastern Europe was mostly peaceful, the breakdown of Yugoslavia in the 1990s led to a series of horrific wars. After serious lobbying efforts by the United States, NATO sent forces to stop Serb attacks on Bosniaks and Kosovars. Additionally, several European militaries assisted the war effort of the United States in pushing Iraqi forces out of Kuwait during the First Gulf War. This was the biggest military challenge that some European militaries faced in the latter period of the Cold War and displayed the importance of maintaining effective conventional forces.

However, the collapse of the USSR and the switch to UN peacekeeping missions and counterterrorism led to a major change in how European countries viewed security. Warsaw Pact members were no longer adversaries; indeed many of them were actively seeking to join NATO. The addition of new members meant that NATO had more militaries to rely on and no longer needed to police its borders with military personnel. Warsaw Pact militaries did seek to adjust their forces to NATO standards with new ammunition and equipment. However, this was a lackluster process that has continued to this day because of the desire by Eastern European countries to prioritize social services first.

The 9/11 attacks led European militaries to prioritize counterterrorism and expeditionary forces. Nearly every European NATO member sent forces to Afghanistan after the toppling of the Taliban. It wasn’t necessary to maintain large mechanized units that cost a lot of money. European militaries restructured their budgets for counterinsurgency operations, which are less expensive than major defense expenditures. A major French-led EU force which was deployed to the Sahel in 2014 relied heavily on American logistics and intelligence support. Knowing that America was still willing to provide major forces to protect Continental Europe, European governments were keen to cut defense budgets. With Serbia tamed and Russia weak, European governments felt that they could allocate more money to domestic expenditures.

The downsizing of European militaries was due to several reasons that still exist in European societies today. European governments struggled to contend with the aftershocks of the Great Recession. Cutting defense budgets became a necessity due to austerity measures. Additionally, unpopular conscription policies were mostly scrapped except in a couple of countries such as Finland. This cut costs as countries did not need to spend as much money on barracks and training facilities. However, it also cut manpower significantly, reducing the number of personnel available for foreign expeditions and national defense.

In some European countries, the military was seen as a bastion of autocratic power. Poland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Romania all had military regimes during the Cold War. These regimes often used their power to quell political opposition. This had a serious impact on the way civilians viewed the military in these countries.

For many political parties, cutting the defense budget and troop numbers was a popular position, even after the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Georgia. Heavy equipment, especially tanks, artillery, and armored vehicles cost a lot of money, and cutting their numbers helped with Europe’s debt and deficit challenges. For instance, the Dutch army sold all of its tanks thinking it did not need any of them. Counterterrorism measures became a budget priority, especially after terrorist attacks from ISIS and al-Qaeda in the early 2000s. Because the United States’ defense budget did not drop a lot from the end of the Cold War to the War on Terror, a sense of complacency set in for European countries. They came to believe that the United States would protect them at all costs in the case of any threats from other global actors.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, several European countries became more willing to spend higher budgets on defense. Vladimir Putin’s desire to return Russia to superpower status meant that Moscow drastically increased its defense budget from 2000 to 2024. Combined with domestic turmoil in American politics, European countries started to realize that it was necessary to bring back the militaries they had during the Cold War. The new Iron Curtain is no longer in the middle of Germany—it has moved to the east of the Baltics. Additionally, the Russian garrison at Kaliningrad started to be perceived as a threat due to its arsenal.

Several European countries have started to meet NATO’s requirements to spend 2% of GDP on defense, but others have never reached that figure. When the war in Ukraine first began, European countries found it difficult to provide large amounts of aid to Ukraine’s defense, lest they weaken their own security. Only after they began increasing equipment production and raising their budgets did they become more capable of assisting Ukraine. Debates continue in European capitals on whether or not they should cut social budgets to help Ukraine. The downsizing of European militaries was an anomaly in European history that will likely take decades to correct.