Microwaves, GPS, drones, duct tape, the personal computer - these are just a short list of everyday items that have their origins in military research laboratories. Their dual use - in both the military and civilian spheres - is known in defense circles as "military-civilian symbiosis".
Now, as Europe is about to allocate massive funding to its defense sector and reverse decades of defense neglect, the hope is that the continent can harness the same military ingenuity to improve its weak manufacturing performance, writes "Politico" in its analysis on the subject.
European projects are already underway that rival the US in scale, from continental missile shields to low-orbit satellite constellations that could replace Elon Musk’s increasingly unreliable Starlink.
The expectation is that all of this investment will eventually lead to technological innovations that will trickle down to the civilian economy, boost productivity, and pay for themselves.
But is this realistic—or is it an illusion? In the short term, economic pressures will undoubtedly be inevitable, requiring cuts in other sectors.
"It is about spending more and spending better," NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in a speech earlier this year, acknowledging Washington’s long-standing complaints that Europe is not doing enough for its own security. Although two-thirds of NATO member states already meet the 2% of GDP requirement for defense, he says it is "still woefully inadequate".
Rutte will clearly get what he wants. The European Commission has opened the door to €800 billion in military spending. In parallel, Germany, the continent's largest economy, has announced a trillion-euro investment plan to modernize its military and repair its infrastructure.
Robo-warriors
Where public funding goes, the private sector follows - and a new wave of defense companies is emerging to meet Europe's needs.
Loic Moujol is a defense entrepreneur with deep family roots in the military industry. His father worked on nuclear deterrence in the French navy, and he himself spent nine years in a defense company before leaving in 2022. - after the Russian invasion of Ukraine - to co-found his own company, Comand AI.
"We will never be able to out-manufacture a strategic adversary like China," says Moujol, CEO of Paris-based Comand AI. "We need to be able to conduct operations 10, 100 times more efficiently than them. That's the starting point of Comand AI."
He claims to have developed an artificial intelligence-based platform that can interpret orders, create task sequences and analyze terrain - with the goal of significantly speeding up battlefield responses. "With Comand AI, one officer can do the work of four," he says.
For now, the company is focused entirely on defense, but he sees the technology as having civilian applications, such as navigating robotic deliveries or protecting private companies from coordinated cyberattacks.
New space races
Putting new inventions in the hands of companies like Comand AI or European satellite and missile defense initiatives is a risk. History shows that it is possible - but there are no guarantees.
"Military spending has been a major driver of technological progress in the United States," says Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts University and author of "Chip Wars: The Battle for the World's Most Important Technology". "The Ministry of Defense often funds basic research and prototypes that are then implemented by private companies into civilian technologies with global impact - such as chips, GPS, displays."
A study by the Kiel Institute, published ahead of the Munich Security Conference in February, estimates that productivity in Europe could increase by 0.25% for every 1% of GDP invested in defense research.
"There is growing evidence that major technological breakthroughs, especially in computing, stem from research that began during the space race," says Ethan Ilzetsky of the London School of Economics and co-author of the study.
The competitive nature of war and the existential stakes drive efficiency and innovation. While the EU today does not want to repeat the experience of another Thirty Years' War, it was the rivalries in early modern Europe that laid the foundations for its technological superiority in the 18th and 19th centuries.
"There is an incentive to be at the forefront of technological progress - even to be ahead of it", says Ilzetski.
Plans to strengthen defense in Europe are already drawing criticism, especially from the left, which warns that cuts to social spending will fuel populism.
"Military spending is no longer subject to fiscal constraints, while welfare and paid parenting are under the knife," economists Tom Krebs and Isabella Weber write in a commentary for Project Syndicate. "This will inevitably increase discontent."
The Labour government in Britain has already signaled, announcing £4.8 billion in welfare cuts while increasing the military budget by £2.2 billion.
Of course, there are positive effects. Military spending will give a short-term boost to the economy - defense companies' revenues will rise, new manufacturing jobs will be created, and wages will flow back into the economy. According to Daniel Krall, a leading economist at Oxford Economics, the scale of investment could help Europe emerge from stagnation through growth driven by domestic demand.
But the production of weapons and bombs counts in GDP, while there is no long-term productivity from mines that just lie in the ground or howitzers covered with tarpaulins. They may provide security, but their contribution to the final economic results is difficult to measure.
And this is a problem, since rearmament plans will be financed mainly through new debt. And public debt is already high, which in the long run could damage the economy.
Dilemmas of choice
One way to deal with the problem is "smarter investment". To retain maximum value in Europe, the EU will have to develop products itself that it currently buys from the US - without worsening relations with the protectionist administration in Washington. More than half of European military orders go to American companies.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called on governments to replace Patriot missiles and F-35 fighter jets with European alternatives such as SAMP/T and Rafale. Brussels openly supports local industry as part of the rearmament effort.
But frontline countries like Poland and Finland are emphasizing immediate needs—even if that means buying from the United States, South Korea, or Israel.
"The Baltics see the fire, Central Europe sees the smoke, and the rest see nothing," says a European diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Currently, too much of Europe's defense spending goes to established, slow-moving national giants. In contrast, Ilcetsky's report describes how the U.S. Department of Defense is encouraging competition through parallel procurement—buying weapons systems from multiple companies to stimulate competition. These public procurements are often open-ended and do not favor established players.
Such tenders "reach a wider range of companies - smaller, younger, technology-oriented ... [and] lead to more patents and dual applications," the Kiel report says.
That's why about 16% of US military spending goes to research and development, compared to just 4.5% in Europe. This helps American companies maintain their technological edge and increases the chances of creating something useful for the civilian sector as well.
To succeed in the long term, any coordinated EU rearmament effort will need to open up more space for new players - more agile and technologically advanced, says Dan Breznitz, an expert on innovation policy at the University of Toronto.
"You have to be able to disrupt the status quo," he says. "You have to accept that new players will emerge. And some of them will become the new giants. And that, frankly, I'm not sure the EU is good at doing."