Five hundred years after the Battle of Pavia, Aspen Institute Italia’s international conference in this city brought together important personalities and the leaders of the armies of France and Spain. Armies whose forerunners’ clash – on 24 February 1525 – ushered in a new era for Europe. The aim of the conference was to foster a reflection on the topic of common European defense, starting from the similarities between the Battle of Pavia and today’s challenges. The hope is that the open and interdisciplinary debate promoted by this event will help create a safer and more peaceful world, with shared prosperity and intergenerational solidarity around the common and constitutional values of Italy and of Europe.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 disrupted a state of long-standing peace on the European continent, prompting the European Union to reconsider its international role and defense commitment. As emerged during the conference, the priority value of peace for citizens and for democracies calls for careful consideration of geopolitical developments, with diplomatic activities to prevent and resolve conflicts being flanked by sufficient investment in defense. The aim here is to provide the necessary protection for European citizens and businesses in all – even worst-case – scenarios. The peace and security that Europeans have enjoyed in recent decades must also be protected using effective military instruments that can deter each and any party from embarking on the sort of hostile action that sadly occurred in Ukraine in 2022. As in its previous three editions, the conference highlighted the central role to be played by a shared culture of security and defense. It highlighted, therefore, the need for European public opinion to grasp the importance of stability and the need to defend democracies with instruments that are credible and fit for purpose, and of espousing the values of the armed forces.
Another consideration is that investments in security have a high economic and technological return that cannot be underestimated: the jobs, research, technologies, and end products they generate are of benefit in many spheres, from civil protection to numerous civil applications and social development. From an industrial point of view, European investments in the defense sector need to be channeled as far as possible towards the development of companies within the EU, thus fostering European innovation and technological developments. Over the last five years, Europe’s defense industry has experienced an increase in consolidation through new mergers and acquisitions, driven by the need not just to shorten production chains, integrate different technologies, and streamline production processes, but also to reduce business fragmentation. The current transformation is moving towards the creation of European industrial champions with the ability to compete with their global counterparts in terms of size and capacity for innovation. This process is reshaping the industrial landscape by concentrating development and production capabilities in the hands of a smaller number of larger, more integrated actors.
The conference also saw the publication of the fourth edition of the report entitled “The Battle of Pavia and the Future of European Defense (1525-2025)“. The 2025 report included an in-depth analysis of the land dimension of European defense, not least in the light of events in Ukraine. In land operations, the simultaneous presence of three dimensions of conflict is worthy of note: a traditional dimension, reflected in the large-scale use of vehicles, equipment and artillery; an innovative, technological dimension that sees the extensive use of new weapons systems, such as the various models of drones now in use, hypersonic missiles, and cyber attacks; and lastly, a hybrid dimension, with increasing recourse to activities that hover below the threshold of armed conflict, such as sabotage or disinformation strategies, which in effect extend the confrontation to the cognitive dimension and broaden the concept of threats to national security.
All EU states must now assess how, in this new landscape, they can ensure adequate investment in common security and defense – to the correct degree and with balance – after such investment was lowered following the end of the Cold War. Public opinion needs to appreciate the burdens and of the risks of defense systems that are unprepared to address the challenges of our times, from traditional conflicts to asymmetric conflicts and hybrid warfare. This important and complex mission is entrusted primarily to the political and institutional spheres, rather than to the armed forces and their instruments, which are already well prepared to follow the instructions that the EU gives them. The commitment to common defense should in any case be seen not as an alternative to the role of NATO but as complementary to it, with relations between Europe and the United States continuing to be a pillar of common Western security.