Europe’s governments have stepped into a ring and leveled their weapons inward, treating Israel as the sole target in the center. The trouble is that the circle is not empty ground — it is a shared defense line.
Several European countries face concrete threats from Russia and Iran, yet Denmark, France, and Norway have lately moved to impede the military readiness of the country supplying them advanced defense technology.
Norwegian officials worry that Russian gray-zone activity near Svalbard could trigger a NATO-Russia confrontation. In late September, Danish intelligence flagged the growing risk of limited Russian military action against NATO states, citing Russia’s aggressive naval behavior in the Baltic Sea. Iran and its proxies have recently plotted attacks on Danish, French, and Norwegian targets. During the recent Iran war, Tehran also demonstrated that its long-range missiles could reach much of Western Europe.
Instead of reinforcing their defenses, the three governments have restricted Israeli port access and withheld components from the German shipyards that build Israel’s warships. Norway and Denmark barred Israel’s INS Drakon submarine, even while it sailed under a German flag, from conducting trials in their territorial waters, forcing a detour of thousands of miles and causing months of delay. France has joined them in refusing certain defense components for the German yards constructing Israeli submarines and Saar corvettes. Germany has built all four of Israel’s Saar-6 corvettes and all six of its active submarines.
Political incentives help explain these choices. Israel is a fault line in the French presidential cycle, and around 10 percent of the French population are Muslims. France’s government formally recognized a nonexistent Palestine last year. Denmark’s fragile governing coalition has taken heat for defense ties with Jerusalem, and approximately 5 percent of Denmark’s population is Muslim. The measures may be symbolic, but their effect is not.
The circular-firing-squad problem is straightforward. The same governments still buy, or plan to buy, combat-proven Israeli systems to protect their own forces. Norway, which also recognizes a Palestinian state, this year began receiving Leopard 2A8 tanks fitted with Israeli firm Rafael’s Trophy active protection system — the only such system with a sustained combat record against anti-tank missiles. Without it, Norwegian armor would be more exposed to the Russian threat Oslo itself describes as growing. Norway is also acquiring British Type 26 frigates whose electronic warfare suites draw on Israeli technology.
Denmark purchased Israeli rocket artillery and has shown interest in Israel’s Barak-MX air defenses and in frigates carrying Israeli systems, precisely to counter Russian naval and aerial pressure. The shared stock is broader still: interceptor and sensor families, and parts pools that feed multiple NATO inventories.
In a circular firing squad, the danger is not only that you miss the person you meant to punish. It is that a slight misfire — in this case, a restriction that travels through the common pipeline of components and technology — could hit your ally. Europe depends on the same line it is starting to cut. Should Israel answer with reciprocal limits, the buyers would lose access to systems they have already judged necessary. Even without reciprocity, delays to Israel’s submarine and surface fleet weaken a navy that helps secure the Mediterranean sea lanes necessary for European energy imports.
For the United States, the friction is worse than ordinary disagreement between allies. NATO partners are actively complicating the readiness of Israel, a country with Major Non-NATO Ally status and which the current administration has called a model ally. A visible circular firing squad inside the broader US alliance structure undercuts domestic support for those partnerships and signals to Russia and Iran that Western defense cooperation can be fractured from within.
Washington should warn against further steps that degrade Israeli readiness and should be prepared to attach costs if the warnings are ignored. As Denmark’s foreign minister has framed his own government’s measures targeting Israel, the correction would be for Europe’s own good.
RADM Paul Becker, USN (ret.), is former Director of Intelligence (J2) for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s (JINSA) Generals and Admirals Program participant, and a member of JINSA’s Board of Advisors.
Yoni Tobin is a senior policy analyst at JINSA.
Read the original piece in Algemeiner.