“Readiness 2030” vs. “Disney power”
(European security and defence on the subject of the 72-hour survival kit)
Pedro Froufe [Editor of this blog and Key Staff Member of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “Digital Citizenship and Technological Sustainability” (CitDig)]
“Readiness 2030” is the new name for Europe’s security and defence plan. In fact, the specific programme, presented by the President of the Commission on 4 March, for a total amount of 800 billion euros, is called “SAFE”. Thus, “Readiness 2030” is the overall plan – which includes “SAFE” – that aims to propel Europe towards a dimension of power, also of “hard-power”, capable of having “strategic autonomy” in matters of common security and defence.[1]
But what may be a curious note is the fact that this “Readiness 2030” plan has been renamed – insofar as Ursula von der Leyen initially presented it as simply the “ReArm Europe” plan. It was changed from “Rearmament” to “Readiness” under the influence of Italy and Spain. Giorgia Meloni made it clear that she did not like the term “rearmament”, as it would be a misleading name for citizens; Europeans are called upon to strengthen their defence capabilities, but that does not just mean buying arms in a trivial way. For Meloni, the focus should be broader, encompassing operability, essential services, energy infrastructures, supply chains – everything that cannot be done simply with weapons. Pedro Sánchez shared the same view, in the sense that “rearmament” would be an incomplete view of the problem of security and defence.
These opinions – well-founded and understandable – nevertheless reveal a certain discomfort with the crudeness of the term “rearmament” – and a certain very European sensibility that tends to soften the crudeness of reality. In other words, although they rationally express a correct vision of common security and defence, they show a certain uncomfortable prejudice towards reality – and specifically towards the reality of war.
Indeed, we all experience some discomfort (to say the least). However, European history shows that this discomfort has led to dangerous and misguided decision-making. We tend to think that the humanist worldview and democratic appetite – which characterise a free Europe – are both universal truths. We tend to see the world in a Eurocentric way, according to which all people, countries and regimes, deep down –sometimes very deep down – always have something good and recyclable. This is why, for example, at the Munich Conference in 1939, some European statesmen believed that it would be possible to calm Hitler’s madness by giving him the Sudetenland “on a silver platter” and at the expense of Czechoslovakia, which the Third Reich had invaded – all in the hope that there would be no war. As we know, there was a war, with disastrous consequences.
In the same vein, during the first 15 years of Putin’s regime, Germany (and others) tried to see Russia as a new pan-European partner, much for economic convenience. There was enough information about Putin – but the European authorities acted with complete complacency and bonhomie towards the “Putinist” Kremlin. That is why Europe is now confronted with the unavoidable need to face reality as starkly as it demands.
In the same way that in February 2022 Putin’s Russia forced us to overcome the illusion of the historical impossibility of a return to territorial wars, at the beginning of 2025 Trump’s United States is forcing us to face up to the new geostrategic circumstances that are emerging. There is the prevalence of a non-valuative hard-power that forces us to assume ourselves as a power, as well as to take advantage of the resources that already exist in Europe and that remain dormant – much because of the illusions we believed in.
We know that international relations are no longer guided, nor should they be guided, by a logic of territorial expansion. However, Donald Trump does not know and is completely unaware of any sense of historical becoming that is not – as they now say – “transactional” (and therefore non-valuative). The worst thing is that Putin – and, discreetly and moderately, Xi-Jiping – also think like this, or it suits them that Trump thinks like this.
With his erratic and unrealistic (and, above all, not very strategic in the medium term) position, Trump is jeopardising the natural role of the United States in the international order. An order and a role that the United States itself has built, as the leader of the Western – read free and democratic – world, in competition with other powers from other quadrants. With this, Trump will give Putin’s Russia a victory “off the field” – which, in three years, it has not achieved on the ground. In the end, he will be heading the United States towards definitive geopolitical decline. This is because Russia and China, in this championship without value references, will be much more capable of supplanting Trump’s America than the other way round! Firstly, because Russia and China do not know the constraints of public opinion in a democracy or the “hassle” of free elections! Trump may also try to ignore the mechanisms of democracy, but the American people and their institutions, although apparently neutralised, are learning about them.
That is why it is crucial to rearm Europe – or, preferably, to be in a state of “Readiness”. If we do this, perhaps by 2030 Europe will have more power than the United States, at least in terms of influence based on force – because this is the only language that the old territorial powers recognise. At this rate, in the medium-term Trump’s America will continue to be influential only in cultural formatting, via spoken language and the Disney Channel. It risks becoming a “Disney power” in the eyes of the world.
In any case, this state of “Readiness” is justified because Europeans are facing daily threats at various levels, not just the threat of territorial invasion. European democracies are attacked daily by hybrid threats, whether it’s the cutting of submarine fibre optic cables that are essential for communications, the blocking of computer systems that control hospitals and airports, the manipulation of information or interference in electoral processes, etc. – this is why the “EU Preparedness Union Strategy” was launched on 26 March 2025, with the aim of supporting Member States and strengthening Europe’s capacity to prevent and react to emerging threats.[2]
The strategy includes a list of 30 concrete actions that EU Member States should take to increase their preparedness against potential future crises, from natural disasters and industrial accidents to attacks by malicious agents in the cyber or military fields. Perhaps the most emblematic measure is the one that urges Member States to ensure that citizens have an emergency kit that will allow them to survive for a minimum of 72 hours if they run out of essentials – including, for example, food, water, medicines, a portable radio, a torch, spare batteries, chargers, money, copies of important documents, prescriptions, spare keys, warm clothes and basic tools such as knives. The European Commission’s plan aims to harmonise guidelines across the 27 Member States to ensure that all Europeans “at different levels have, to put it this way, a manual of what to do when the sirens go off” – said a senior EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity.[3] If anyone had any doubts about what it means to be in a state of “Readiness”, the 72-hour survival kit is the symbol of Europe’s historic circumstance in April 2025.
[1] European Parliament, “Defesa: como a UE está a reforçar a sua segurança”, 25 June 2019, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/pt/article/20190612STO54310/defesa-como-a-ue-esta-a-reforcar-a-sua-seguranca.
[2] European Commission, “EU Preparedness Union Strategy to prevent and react to emerging threats and crises”, Press Corner, 26 March 2025, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/ip_25_856.
[3] Alice Tidey, “Brussels asks EU citizens to put together a 72-hour emergency kit to face crises”, Euronews, 26 March 2025, https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/26/brussels-ask-eu-citizens-to-put-together-a-72-hour-emergency-kit-to-face-crises.
Picture credit: Marco on pexels.com.
