The Way Ahead for European Defense: An Interview with General Pasquale Preziosa

In this interview with the Italian news paper La Stampa published on 14 March 2025, Lt General (Retired) Preziosa discussed the challenges facing the way ahead in building Europen defense.

That interview translated from the Italian follows:

To really understand what this elusive European Defence is, General Pasquale Preziosa, former Chief of Staff of the Air Force, wrote a book on the subject a few years ago. It’s enlightening to read it, also because the general is very explicit. ‘Let’s say right away that we need a deterrent such that no one can think of attacking us and winning easily. Since the only threat can be nothing less than the Russians, i.e. a conventional military power but also a nuclear, space and cyber power, we need to catch up’. How to get there, however, remains to be seen. Because it’s easy to talk about artillery, tanks or ammunition. The new, futuristic but already present attack and defence technologies are another matter.

Where to start?

‘We can start with the hypersonic missile, tested by the Russians in Ukraine. The Chinese say they have it. The Americans say they don’t. The arrival of the hypersonic has changed the game. Let me explain: it’s a new generation missile, travelling at five to eight times the speed of sound, at about 12,000 kilometres per hour. This means that it takes an extremely short time from the moment it is launched to the moment it hits its target. But this means it can ‘penetrate’ any existing anti-missile defence. Even the Americans are vulnerable, let alone us Europeans who have almost no anti-missile or anti-aircraft defences’.

Why does it change the rules of the game?

‘Because the United States was convinced that it had a good defence network, but this is not the case. Just imagine if the Russians used them with nuclear warheads. Until now, nuclear deterrence was based on the number of warheads: the Russians and Americans each have about 1500 operational, then there’s China with 400 warheads but growing fast, and finally Great Britain and France with a few hundred. However, deterrence is based on the fact that if you fire a missile at me, I’ll fire one back at you. With the hypersonic missile, deterrence suddenly tilts against the Americans. I had already told them to get ready in 2016. I had written about it in good time and the State Department wanted to meet me privately. Now they’re playing catch-up. Well, when it comes to the hypersonic missile and how to defend against it, no European country could do it alone. Huge investments are needed. Perhaps it can be done as the European Union’.

Then there’s the issue of satellites. Having coverage is crucial now, otherwise you can’t communicate, you can’t guide drones, and you can’t even see the threat coming at you from the sky.

‘Everything has already been said about the European delay. What is not mentioned is that space is now a domain where an atypical war is already being fought. Attacks on satellites to blind or damage them are a daily occurrence. They are not mentioned, but they are happening. There are secret American and Chinese missions in space with spaceships that go, come, stay for two years, come back… Space must be considered as an operational domain. So if Europe wants to defend itself seriously, it will also have to have its own space capability. It goes without saying that this is another issue that can only be addressed on a continental scale’.

Any other problems?

‘The digital dimension. Everything is going digital, even war. If Europe is to achieve strategic autonomy, well, the cyber field is dominated today by large American companies. They are the ones who today possess most of the data, not Europe. The vast majority of data centres are in the United States. You only need to take a look around to see how supermarkets are being closed and transformed into data centres. In Europe, there are almost none. We are lagging behind terribly. But we make a lot of regulations…’.

But there is also a terrible delay in conventional armaments, isn’t there?

‘We should somehow reduce the competition within Europe, otherwise we’ll waste 600 of the famous 800 billion. Take tanks: we have an Italian-German centre with Leonardo and Rheinmetall, but then another German company will work with the French and the Swedes to make a different product. The same thing is happening with the fighter of the future: two opposing projects, one Anglo-Italian-Japanese and one Franco-German’.

Old story, isn’t it?

‘When we made the Eurofighter, the French were also invited. But since they wanted to do everything themselves, the other nations didn’t agree. And so now the French have their own model which, all things considered, at least in terms of numbers, has not been as successful as the Eurofighter’.

And back to the dark evil of Europe. Can national egotism coexist with a European Defence?

‘Before any other consideration, this is what we must talk about. The military prepares for a threat, but it is the political authority that must tell us what it is. The latest version of NATO’s Strategic Concept identifies Russia as a threat. It will be up to Europe to define its own’.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Pasquale Preziosa is a retired Italian Air Force officer, who served as Chief of the Italian Air Force.

From August 2003 to September 2006 he served as the Defense Attaché at the Embassy of Italy, Washington, D.C., and Chief of the Cabinet of the Minister of Defence from December 2011 to February 2013. He was appointed Chief of the Air Force in 2013.

Since retirement, he has remained extensively engaged in European defense issues and is a regular contributor to the Italian press, radio and television on defense and foreign policy issues.

Editor’s Comment: 

When considering how Europe will build out its defense capabilities, a critical question is the focus of the strategy.

What are the nations of Europe working together to defend? What forces? What domestic mobilization? And what role of the European Union in so doing?

This raises significant tax issues, bond issues, social welfare investment issues, and manpower issues.

There were two major 2014 impacts on European defense — the Crimean seizure by Putin, and the migration challenge bringing into Europe populations from Africa and the Middle East which may not be interested in European defense.

And the nature of the war in Europe will have a significant impact as well on Russia and its population. War for the Russians has almost always had a significant impact on the relationship of the rulers to the ruled. What will be the impact of this war on the future of Russia in Europe?

And the United States remains the most significant Western military power. What is the evolving nature of American strategy and its impact on the potential evolution of European defense, economic and foreign policy strategies?

We wrote about many of these issues in our book published in 2020.