The security order Europe has not named - opinion

The security map exposes what diplomacy obscures: across much of it, European and Israeli interests align more closely than either does with Washington. Politically, Washington looks closer; geographically, militarily, and industrially, Europe does.

For generations, Europe and Israel anchored their security in the United States until alliance became dependence: Europe outsourced critical protection; Israel embedded American finance, supply, and technology in its force structure.

The 2026 US National Defense Strategy codifies the divergence, leaving Europe to lead against threats Washington deems less severe for itself as US power concentrates on homeland defense and the Indo-Pacific. Washington is organizing for itself; Europe and Israel must do the same.

America can choose its theaters; Europe and Israel cannot. Geography fixes theirs: from the Arctic and Baltic through the Mediterranean and North Africa to the Levant, the Red Sea and the routes to Asia.

This geography forms one security system in which missiles and drones, maritime coercion, trade and cable disruption, energy and cyber vulnerability, Russian power, Iranian projection, and Turkish leverage transcend the nominal divide between European and Middle Eastern security. Sovereignty has one test: What stops when an external power says no?

Greenland and Cyprus expose the same flaw at opposite ends of this system. Denmark and Greenland rejected US demands to acquire Greenland, accelerating European military activity in the Arctic.

In Cyprus, Turkey sits inside NATO and the Republic of Cyprus outside it; Turkish coercion against Greece, Cyprus, or Israel places the coercer inside NATO’s consensus mechanism.

That is the Veto Map: every foreign gate capable of halting a sovereign function.

A friendly veto remains a veto.

Europe depends on American protection; Israel on American permission through licenses, components, replenishment, and export approvals. Washington’s February 2026 arms transfer strategy codifies it: arms transfers advance US foreign policy; foreign demand expands US industrial capacity.

The 2016 memorandum of understanding between the United States and Israel must not become the model for its successor. By tying US financing to US goods and services and phasing out Israel’s domestic procurement allowance by 2028, it subsidized capability while embedding donor control.

Aid that dictates expenditure is donor industrial policy inside the recipient’s defense economy.

The MOU shaped the force structure and supply chains inherited by future Israeli governments, constraining industrial choice when Washington and Jerusalem diverge. Its expiry must unwind, not renew, that dependency. After 2028, the question is not what Washington offers but how much dependency Israel will buy with it.

Europe has the same deficit: defense spending cannot buy strategic autonomy while critical functions remain externally controlled. Spending measures resources; sovereignty measures control.

Permission Exposure measures how much sovereign capability depends on another state for production, modification, integration, replenishment, transfer, or operation. Sovereignty After Purchase asks who still decides after delivery.

Strategies and sovereignty 

Germany's Arrow 3 and Finland’s David’s Sling capture the contradiction: Israeli systems underpin European security while American approval remains embedded in their export architecture. 

SAFE, the EU’s joint procurement instrument, curbs foreign dependence yet permits substantial external content and partner participation as Turkey seeks deeper access, risking Turkish vetoes in place of American ones.

A weapon that cannot be adapted, replenished, or transferred without foreign permission is possessed, not sovereign. Europe and Israel need substitutability, not autarky: irreplaceable components, sole sourcing, and inescapable licenses create leverage. Foreign content creates jurisdiction that can become a veto.

India exemplifies the alternative: deep partnership with Washington without making it indispensable to production, sustainment, or political choice.

Europe needs Israel’s wartime endurance independent of Washington and its combat-proven capabilities in missile defense, intelligence, unmanned systems, electronic warfare, and integration; Israel needs Europe’s industrial scale, aerospace and naval depth, strategic transport, space infrastructure, finance, and continental geography.

Israel has a direct security interest in a Europe able to defend itself without America and defy Washington when necessary, even when that means opposing Israel.

Diplomatic convenience is not a strategic interest. A sovereign Europe gives Israel alternative suppliers, routes, industrial depth and a second Western power center, reducing the cost of an American refusal.

Europe faces three forms of exposure: Russian territorial aggression, Turkish obstruction inside NATO, and American indispensability embedded in permissions, supply chains, and infrastructure. Fragmentation gives Moscow time, Ankara leverage, and Washington jurisdiction over sovereign decisions.

When interests diverge, and Washington preserves a dependency, veto, or Turkish lever that Europe or Israel must dismantle, deference becomes a security risk.

Article 42(7) of the Lisbon Treaty supplies Lisbon 2.0’s legal core: if an EU member suffers armed aggression on its territory, the others owe it aid and assistance by all means in their power. Turkey is not an EU member and cannot condition that obligation.

Lisbon 2.0 operationalizes it through sovereign European capacity and parallel commitments with non-EU partners. NATO remains Europe’s principal military instrument against Russia, but no longer the monopoly through which European security is organized. When coercion comes from within, consensus becomes constraint.

Washington and Ankara exploit different asymmetries: Washington converts allied dependence into leverage; Turkey converts membership into leverage. Greenland showed that even an alliance does not preclude territorial pressure when American interests diverge.

Ankara’s strategic arbitrage keeps it Western enough to preserve protection and access, yet revisionist enough to monetize its indispensability while easing Russian isolation and expanding Iran’s latitude. The Mecca pact institutionalizes that Double Bind, keeping Turkey inside NATO while adding a second defense framework with Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan.

It is neither an Islamic NATO nor a mirror of Lisbon 2.0: Riyadh imported dependencies; Lisbon 2.0 is built to remove them.

In Athens, former Hellenic Army lieutenant colonel Savvas Kalenteridis draws the corresponding conclusion: Greece must organize around states with shared interests or threats, placing Cyprus and Israel at the core.

The architecture already exists in law, procurement, force structure, and geography; declaration lags reality. Israel, though outside the EU mutual assistance obligation, belongs inside Lisbon 2.0 because Europe’s southeastern security perimeter extends beyond the Union and rests on Israeli power and strategic position.

Israel is not an adjunct but Lisbon 2.0’s principal non-EU military pillar on that flank.

From Greenland and the High North to Israel and the Red Sea, every European defense euro and every Israeli defense shekel must be measured by the veto point it removes.

The writer is founder and principal of Line of State, a strategic practice working with governments, institutions, and decision-makers on strategy, risk, access, and security decisions in high-stakes environments.