EC report proposes a European defence shield against UAS and other airborne threats

By Kylie Bielby

The European Commission (EC) has published a defence and security preparedness report by special adviser to the EC and former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö. “We need preparedness and strength not to wage war, but to maintain peace,” Niinistö says in the report, adding that “the risk of Russian aggression beyond Ukraine cannot be excluded”. 

“The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has brought the potential of drones to the forefront,” the report notes, adding that sometimes, counter-measures have been produced within weeks of lessons learned on the battlefields, requiring “a more agile procurement and development approach than is customarily pursued in the defence sector”. 

In addition, drones that make use of relatively low-level technologies and components are readily accessible to a growing number of non-State actors, making them weapons of choice for attacks against critical infrastructure. 

European air defence shield an “urgent and critical requirement”

Niinistö proposes developing a European air defence shield to protect against missiles, uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) and other threats in and from the air domain, saying such a system is “a critical requirement”. This large-scale project, if approved by Member States, would integrate air defence systems across borders, strengthening operational readiness.

“We see in Ukraine daily how an effective air defence system saves lives and protects critical infrastructure, but also how damaging successful attacks are. Beyond adversarial State actors, non-State actors such as the Houthis in Yemen are developing their capacity to strike with drones at strategic distances, even reaching the southern parts of the EU. And with the lowering threshold other non-State actors, such as terrorist organisations, can potentially use these vehicles as weapons,” the report states. 

Niinistö believes Europe has an urgent need to build and sustain an “anti access and area denial” capability for the air domain. The EU has already identified air and missile defence among key priorities that need to be addressed, with various proposals recently made by European governments alongside different ongoing projects. “Air defence is an area where a comprehensive system architecture is needed, with different layers and system modules allowing for multi-stakeholder contributions,” the report notes. “The different ongoing and proposed Member State initiatives in this field could mutually complement each other.”

Contested and congested space

The safety and security of space systems and digital services against growing contestation and threats is another key element of the report. “Space is increasingly congested. The risk of collisions is developing rapidly and can have a catastrophic and cascading effect: More than 1 million pieces of debris larger than 1 cm are currently orbiting the Earth, in addition to an increasing number of satellites, with more than 50, 000 additional satellites expected to be launched over the next decade.”

Niinistö says the ability to autonomously detect and track space objects of interest is limited due to gaps in the sensor network and to the low sensitivity of available sensors. Space is also an increasingly contested domain. “The ability to detect threats in space should be enhanced at the EU level, including through capability development for space situational awareness,” the report notes, citing potential threats from Russia and China in particular. “The EU must be able to respond to threats in space as a global actor.”

In the event of a crisis in space severely impacting the delivery of EU space-based services, Niinistö says the EU would face important capability gaps. More generally, he says the EU needs to be prepared for potential crises in space that are likely to arise in the near future. “The EU should leverage its regulatory power to set up common rules for the resilience, safety and sustainability of space activities in the EU.”

In closing, Niinistö calls for a European-wide ‘preparedness and readiness investment framework’ to jump start these and other European defence and security priorities outlined in the report.

The findings and recommendations of the report will contribute to the work of the EC by providing guidance for various upcoming initiatives, including the Preparedness Union Strategy and the White Paper on the Future of European Defence.