February 09, 2026

There’s a Way Forward for Sovereign European Space Intel, but Is There the Will?

By: Cameron Olbert

This article was originally published in Space News.

Germany’s top intelligence officials made waves last year by calling for the creation of a European spy network to lessen Europe’s dependence on American intelligence. After Washington’s sudden freeze of American intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March, German officials — and their European counterparts — have grown increasingly attuned to deficiencies in key capabilities they need to deter Russia amid a less-reliable United States security commitment. One such deficiency lies in the realm of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites. European countries need to scale up their ability to share satellite data through existing EU institutions, or risk being left blind and deaf to aggressive Russian activity if the American security commitment to Europe continues to wane. European states have the mechanisms to begin solving this problem, but only if they have the political will to pool information traditionally kept in their respective capitols.

European states need to overcome the fragmentation of effort and overclassification of data that inhibits their ability to replace American intelligence data.

Europe’s militaries could not operate without access to space. Satellites provide much of the intelligence, navigation and instant communications capabilities relied on by land, sea and air forces every day. Currently, much of that access is brought by the U.S. — European states only operate 17% of NATO’s military satellites. If the U.S. was unable or unwilling to provide this critical data — thanks to, say, a crisis in the Indo-Pacific or a large-scale withdrawal from Europe — Europe would lack this critical data. The EU launched its Space Strategy for Security and Defense in 2022, but Europe’s space capabilities remain less than the sum of their parts due to European states’ persistent lack of cooperation in sensitive defense areas. This situation could embolden Russia to take more aggressive steps if it believes it can avoid detection from space-based assets.

Read the full article on Space News.

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