You hear the live feed crackle, then silence — a briefing room that depends on a faraway server goes dark. I’ve stood in those rooms; you feel the options shrink to outlines on a map. The question becomes immediate: can Europe unpair from U.S. tech without hollowing its own defenses?
In Munich, Emmanuel Macron told delegates Europe must be a geopolitical power — Military leaders say that ambition collides with reality
I’m with the politicians on the need for more sovereignty; you can hear the urgency in speeches by Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen at the Munich Security Conference. But when uniformed officers map dependencies — satellites, command-and-control links, classified cloud storage — the ideal of sudden independence looks like a blueprint without foundations. A European defence built like a cathedral on rented foundations will not hold under strain.
Can Europe cut ties with U.S. tech?
You want a clean break; I get it. Politicians talk about laws to favour homegrown platforms and stop using American services such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom — France has already moved some government use to the French platform Visio. But unnamed European military officials told the Financial Times that most operational systems rely on American back ends, and “it’s not realistic or helpful.”
At the French government offices, staffs switched conferencing software last month — That shift tests politics against logistics
I watched similar rollouts: paper plans collide with network contracts and encryption keys. You can pass a law; replacing cryptographic modules, satellite access or secure messaging across an alliance is another matter. Military leaders warn such laws could create capability gaps, fragment operations, and even weaken intelligence-sharing that NATO depends on.
Would banning American tech weaken military capabilities?
Yes, according to those who run the systems. European militaries rely on U.S. providers for secure comms, satellite feeds, intelligence fusion and data storage — the kind of plumbing you rarely see until it stops working. Officials argue that a hurried cut would be like a ship trying to swap its engine at sea: technically possible only at unacceptable risk.
On the ground, NATO systems are wired to U.S. platforms — The hurdles are both technical and legal
You should know how entangled this is: procurement contracts, shared encryption standards, and joint exercises all lean on American vendors. Military staff point out that laws restricting U.S. tech could create holes in cybersecurity posture and hamper combined operations. They raise a fear of a theoretical U.S. “digital kill switch” that could, some argue, render interconnected systems unusable in a crisis.
The U.S. response has been to reframe the threat: rather than an American control problem, officials like United States National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross told an audience in Munich that the true division is between an American tech stack and a Chinese one, and that the “kill switch” claim is not a credible argument, according to Politico.
At command centers, officers weigh strategy against supplier realities — The choice is political but the cost is operational
I’ve sat through classified briefings where analysts laid out timelines measured in years and billions, not rhetorical pledges. You can legislate preference for European suppliers; you cannot instantly rebuild secure clouds, replace satellite uplinks, or reconfigure warfighting software without time and budget. The Commission’s work on tech sovereignty is real, but military caution is not obstruction — it’s inventory.
What does “tech sovereignty” actually mean for defence planners?
For planners it means predictable supply chains, interoperable systems under European control, and less reliance on providers outside the bloc. For politicians it is a lever of geopolitical power. For you and me it raises a simple question: do we accept a slow, funded program to re-home critical systems, or do we push for fast political wins that could widen capability gaps?
If Europe is to shrink its dependence on American big tech without creating new vulnerabilities, the path will be long and deliberate — not a single law or a public statement. So where does responsibility lie: with capitals that demand speed, or with defence staffs that warn of the cost of haste?