Denial Won’t Do: Europe Needs a Punishment-Based Conventional Counterstrike Strategy

Russia's missile and drone production significantly outpaces Europe's ability to produce defensive interceptors, rendering a denial-based missile defense strategy unsustainable. The current European approach of acquiring more defense systems is cost-inefficient and cannot keep up with the scale of the Russian threat demonstrated in Ukraine. Given this imbalance, a denial-based strategy is no longer viable for comprehensively mitigating the threat. The continent should instead adopt a punishment-based conventional counterstrike strategy to deter Russia by demonstrating the ability to respond in kind to coercive or large-scale missile use.