Germany’s Tomahawk Purchase Exposes Europe’s Persistent Reliance on US Arms

Hours after the NATO summit concluded in Ankara, Chancellor Friedrich Merz informed the Bundestag that Berlin has signed a letter of intent with Washington to procure American-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and ground-based Typhon launchers for deployment on German soil. The agreement, signed by both defence ministries, commits the United States to formal approval by August and covers an undisclosed quantity of Lockheed Martin-produced systems to be operated without U.S. personnel. With a range of roughly 1,600 kilometres, the missiles would be capable of striking deep into Russian territory from German bases.

‘You Cannot Buy Guarantees’

Merz characterised the acquisition as a stopgap measure, pledging that Germany would pursue development of indigenous European systems for deployment on the continent. Yet the deal underscores a dependence that extends well beyond a single missile platform.

Guntram Wolff, author of a Bruegel report on Europe’s reliance on U.S. foreign military sales, warns the vulnerability is political as much as industrial. “You cannot buy the security guarantee of Trump by buying fighter jets,” he told RFI. Washington retains the ability to reprioritise deliveries under its foreign military sales programme at any time—a reality Switzerland experienced when its Patriot deliveries were deferred to accelerate Germany’s order.

Within NATO, the continent’s missile defence architecture remains split between the U.S.-led Integrated Air and Missile Defence system and the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative, which has drawn some 20 nations into joint procurement of the Swedish IRIS-T alongside the U.S.-made Patriot and Arrow 3 systems. Meanwhile, Russia’s arsenal—combat-tested in Ukraine with Iskander, Kalibr, and Kh-101 missiles, plus mass drone deployments that have breached Polish, Romanian, and Baltic airspace—continues to mature.

‘Germany Exposed’

Alexandr Burilkov, a defence researcher at the GLOBSEC GeoTech Center, highlights a deeper shortfall: the “strategic enablers” such as satellite networks, strategic airlift, and aerial refuelling that the United States has traditionally supplied within the alliance. “This is the place where Europe really is the weakest,” he said, noting that Germany is “most acutely” exposed due to its lack of the industrial diversity France retains.

European efforts to close these gaps without permanent reliance on Washington have yielded mixed results. KNDS, the Franco-German manufacturer of the Leopard 2 tank and Caesar howitzer, postponed a planned Paris-Frankfurt stock listing on 1 July after investors balked at a valuation exceeding €12 billion. Burilkov called the listing “a milestone in a way,” but cautioned that whether it produces genuine industrial integration remains “to a certain extent an open question.”

Before the KNDS delay, the collapse of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS)—the Franco-German-Spanish sixth-generation fighter programme—marked another failure in European defence cooperation. Paris and Berlin abandoned the project in June after Dassault and Airbus could not resolve a dispute over industrial leadership. According to Burilkov, “what eventually sank the FCAS project [was] France’s insistence on a carrier-capable jet, [versus] Germany’s reliance on American aircraft for NATO’s nuclear-sharing mission.”

Despite these setbacks, Europe has not abandoned its pursuit of defence sovereignty. At this week’s NATO summit, the United Kingdom unveiled a coalition of roughly a dozen European nations pledging more than $50 billion over the next decade to develop long-range “deep precision strike” weapons, some capable of striking targets beyond 2,000 kilometres. The initiative builds on the UK’s Trinity House defence agreement with Germany and the trilateral Stratus missile project with France and Italy. Whether this plan translates into deployed hardware on a timeline matching Europe’s security needs, however, remains an open question.

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