With Vladimir Putin set for a fifth term as Russian president and Donald Trump possibly on track for a second win in the US, Europe needs a mindset shift in a dangerous world after 25 years of underinvesting in defense. Military spending is set to rise by $33 billion this year as the primarily soft-power region makes up for lost time: Tourist hotspot Greece, no stranger to geopolitical tension or budget cutbacks, hiked defense spend to almost 4% of gross domestic product in 2022.
Yet Greece is also a symbol of another daunting challenge for European defense: innovation. Greek startup Lambda Automata, set up by former Apple Inc. roboticist Dimitrios Kottas, raised €6 million ($6.5 million) last year as part of a nascent wave of European defense-tech newcomers hoping to emulate the success of Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Palantir Technologies Inc. Lambda’s flagship product, autonomous surveillance towers, is an example of startups’ ability to “make more with less,” Kottas tells me, in a world where relatively inexpensive hardware can pose big risks to European security.