Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced Europe to confront an uncomfortable reality: strategic autonomy cannot be declared; it must be manufactured. The continent can announce defense spending targets, launch procurement mechanisms, and debate its dependence on Washington, but none of that will matter if Europe lacks the industrial depth, raw materials, and supplier networks needed to sustain modern defence production.
For decades, Europe built a defense posture around assumptions that no longer hold. The United States would provide the ultimate security backstop. Global supply chains would remain relatively open. Raw materials could be sourced through open market mechanisms. Industrial capacity could be scaled when needed. The war in Ukraine, growing pressure in the Indo-Pacific, and a more transactional American administration have exposed the limits of those assumptions.
Europe now faces a basic strategic question: can it build the defence-industrial capacity required for a more dangerous world without expanding the geography of its supply chains? The answer is no. European defence autonomy will depend not only on factories in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, or the United Kingdom, but also on mines, refineries, component suppliers, engineering talent, and manufacturing partners far beyond Europe. Africa and the wider Global South should therefore be seen not as peripheral markets or raw-material providers, but as essential partners in Europe’s next defence-industrial architecture.
Modern defence systems are mineral-intensive. Aircraft, drones, armored vehicles, satellites, radar systems, batteries, sensors, guidance systems, and secure communications infrastructure all require reliable access to metals and minerals. Iron ore, bauxite, titanium, cobalt, lithium, manganese, graphite, copper, and rare earth elements are no longer just development or commodity issues. They are defence-security issues.
Africa has many of these resources. So do countries across Latin America and parts of Asia. But the real opportunity is not simply to extract more minerals from the Global South and ship them to Europe. That would reproduce the very dependencies and resentments Europe should be trying to overcome. The stronger strategy is to build a new supplier compact: one that links mineral access with local processing, industrial upgrading, supplier development, research and development, and skilled employment.
Europe’s leading aerospace, defense, and industrial firms - Airbus, Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Siemens, Thales, Leonardo, Saab, and others already rely on complex webs of tier-one, tier-two, and tier-three suppliers. These networks produce components, subassemblies, engineering services, electronics, software, materials, and specialized manufacturing inputs. If Europe is serious about resilience, it must expand these networks into trusted partner countries, including in Africa. This is not charity. It is industrial strategy for survival.
From the perspective of Brussels, the mandate is unambiguous: the European Union’s pursuit of strategic autonomy is fundamentally incompatible with an over-reliance on restricted supply chains for essential components and raw materials. To mitigate this, the bloc must cultivate partnerships that are not only commercially sound but also politically resilient and geographically varied. In this context, Africa emerges as a vital ally, providing a unique combination of demographic strength, abundant resources, proximity, budding tech hubs, and an expanding industrial framework. A robust EU-Africa defense-industrial agenda should therefore integrate material diplomacy with comprehensive support systems, including workforce development, standardized regulations, export-credit assistance, and the creation of collaborative industrial zones. This builds upon an argument I presented previously, which framed such cooperation as a cornerstone of technological sovereignty for both continents.
For London, the opportunity is equally significant. The United Kingdom is repositioning itself in a post-Brexit security environment while maintaining deep defense, finance, legal, university, and Commonwealth relationships. Britain can help bridge European defence demand, African industrial capability, and Global South capital mobilization. A UK-backed supplier-readiness initiative could connect British defense primes with vetted manufacturers, engineering firms, and technology startups in Africa and other partner markets.
For Berlin, the issue is competitiveness. Germany understands better than most countries that industrial power rests not only on national champions, but on supplier ecosystems. Its Mittelstand model shows the value of specialized firms embedded in deep production networks that form industrial clusters. As Germany increases defence spending and supports Ukraine, it will need secure inputs, resilient suppliers, and new industrial partnerships. Africa and the Global South should be part of that supply-chain answer.
This agenda should also include innovation. Africa is not only a source of minerals; it is also a security geography where challenges are often more acute and immediate. Across parts of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, coastal regions, and fragile interior corridors, many countries face threats from terrorism, piracy, border insecurity, illicit trafficking, cyberattacks, climate stress, and weak public infrastructure. These pressures create demand for new defense and security technologies, including drones, autonomous systems, AI-enabled monitoring, secure communications, dual-use logistics, and resilient energy systems. European defence contractors should not simply sell into these markets. They should build, test, and innovate with them.
That means establishing R&D centres, testing partnerships, and applied innovation hubs in African and Global South markets. I made a similar case for this kind of partnership and cooperation in a 2023 piece, arguing that Africa should not be treated only as a market for imported technologies, but as a place where new technologies can be co-developed, tested, and scaled. These centres could focus on autonomous systems for difficult terrain, drone-based infrastructure monitoring, maritime domain awareness, mine-site security, disaster response, secure supply-chain logistics, and AI-enabled early warning tools. Done properly, they would create new intellectual property, train local engineers, and generate technologies relevant to both European and partner-country security needs.
There is also a migration argument that European policymakers should take seriously. Many people from Africa and the wider Global South migrate to Europe because of insecurity, weak job markets, and limited pathways for skilled economic participation. A defence-industrial supplier strategy will not solve migration pressures alone. But it can help address some of the underlying drivers by creating employment, tax revenue, technical training, and local industrial opportunity.
The choice before Europe is not between values and interests. It is between short-term extraction and long-term resilience.
A narrow strategy would secure minerals while leaving African and Global South countries at the bottom of the value chain. A better strategy would use Europe’s defence build-up to support supplier development, local manufacturing, technology transfer, and shared innovation. That would make Europe more secure while giving partner countries a clearer stake in the relationship. Of course, this must be done carefully. Defence-industrial cooperation carries risks: corruption, elite capture, human-rights concerns, technology misuse, and geopolitical backlash. Europe should not outsource its security vulnerabilities to fragile governance environments. But these risks are arguments for better design, not for inaction. Partnerships should include transparency standards, local-content rules, environmental safeguards, workforce development, export controls, and clear accountability mechanisms.
The old model of Europe’s relationship with many former colonies was built around extraction. The new model must be built around co-production. Europe does not have the luxury of building defence autonomy alone. It needs materials, manufacturing depth, innovation partners, and geopolitical relationships that can withstand a more fragmented world. Africa and the Global South need jobs, industrial capabilities, tax revenue, security partnerships, and a stronger position in global value chains. A new defence supplier network can serve both agendas.
Europe’s strategic autonomy will not be secured only in Brussels, Berlin, London, Paris, or Rome. It will also be shaped in Accra, Cairo, Nairobi, Lagos, Johannesburg, Dakar, Rabat, São Paulo, Jakarta, and beyond. The question is whether Europe recognizes this early enough to build partnerships before the next crisis forces its hand.
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