The idea of a bridge across the Strait of Messina has captured imaginations since the time of Pliny the Elder, including in rhetoric from figures such as Charlemagne and Benito Mussolini. In the 2000s, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government drew detailed plans for a two-mile-long suspension bridge that would connect the Italian mainland with Sicily. In the coming years, the project may well become a reality, which is partly due to new spending plans adopted by NATO at a summit in June.
The summit set an ambitious 5 percent target for defense spending, with 3.5 percent allocated toward core defense requirements and 1.5 percent for defense and security-related investments. Italian officials immediately seized the idea of the bridge as a dual-use project, integral to Italy’s defenses—and thus part of the 5 percent spending commitment. Italy has historically underspent in the alliance, with defense amounting to less than 1.5 percent of GDP in 2024.
The bridge across the Strait of Messina illustrates a broader point. While Europe must make up for earlier underinvestment in its own defenses through increased spending, the how of additional spending is as important—if not more so—as the how much. That is true for both the core 3.5 percent target and the 1.5 percent target.
Some countries are taking the task seriously. Poland, for example, is planning to use around $6.9 billion from the European Union’s post-COVID-19 recovery fund, ostensibly allocated to green projects, to build roads for tanks and shelters. Similarly, the Netherlands is planning road and bridge improvements, as well as investments in cybersecurity. In Sweden, plans are underway for building stockpiles of food, fuel, and medicine.
Decisions by other governments to spend on their pet projects—some of them very tenuously related to defense—is raising eyebrows. The British government would like to count its investment into rural broadband as part of improving defense infrastructure. A non-European member state, Canada, is pushing the envelope, too; it’s keen to rebrand improvements of transport links for its mining industry as defense infrastructure spending. After all, it is ultimately about “critical mineral supply chains.”
What some of the more questionable examples suggest is a need to impose discipline on what infrastructure investment should and shouldn’t count toward the NATO’s collective goals. NATO’s secretary-general may have to take a more hands-on approach in shaping the thinking about which infrastructure projects can be included in the 1.5 percent target—and which ones are a bridge too far.
The first step toward a degree of coherence across the alliance would be to narrow the scope of the 1.5 percent target to specific forms of infrastructure, particularly hard transportation infrastructure. The second would be to set common criteria for evaluating prospective projects. For one, does the investment project in question (say, a bridge to Sicily) meaningfully add to the country’s defensive capabilities? And, if not, does it solve a problem of connectivity that could matter for NATO as a whole, along some of the critical corridors that the alliance might need, especially in a war with Russia?
Seen through those lenses, two major categories of projects should take precedence over others.
First, focus should be on projects that secure Europe’s ports and connect them to its rail infrastructure. Ports, such as the one in Antwerp, play a critical role in NATO’s logistics. None of them have been stress-tested to see if they could handle a surge of material during a major continental war.
It’s particularly important that supplies are able to move seamlessly, without the need for middlemen, between ports and the rail network—something that is currently not the case in major European ports such Genoa, Italy, or Barcelona, Spain. Similarly, the Italian port of Trieste is a key NATO shipyard, yet the railway system around the port area is subpar and in urgent need of investment.
Another concern is China’s economic presence in the ports of Piraeus, Greece; Valencia and Bilbao, Spain; Zeebrugge, Belgium; and Rotterdam, Netherlands. While China has a stake in keeping transportation links with Europe open, one must worry about the weaponization of Chinese investment if NATO needs to defend itself against a Chinese-backed Russia. European ports must be considered critical supply hubs and treated accordingly—the alliance cannot afford to leave them exposed to outside interference.
Second, Europe must upgrade critical railway corridors. The European Commission has identified a number of worthwhile projects under the aegis of the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) policy. Some of those are also salient in the context of defending NATO. The North Sea-Baltic corridor and its Rail Baltica project are particularly important because of the imperfect connections between Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the rest of Europe. Further integrating Baltic countries into the European rail network should be a priority for NATO. In a wider confrontation with Russia, Eastern European countries would be the front line. More cross-border rail connections would mean more flexibility for NATO and fewer chokepoints and vulnerabilities.
Both NATO’s continuing support for Ukraine in the war against Russia and the prospect of Ukraine’s EU accession strengthen the case for projects that address the difference in gauges between the two railroad networks (Ukraine’s gauge is wider than the standard 1,435-millimeter gauge, adding time and cost for trains crossing the border). Along key corridors that would help resupply the alliance in times of war, it is worth investing into facilities that would allow the operation of freight trains longer than the standard 2,460 feet. System conversion is not an overnight project but having NATO-wide standards for modes of transportation helps remove barriers for seamless collaboration between countries.
There is more work to be done along other European rail corridors. A key project of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor is the Brenner Base Tunnel. The EU is already covering half of the cost, and the rest is split between Austria and Italy. Further east in the alliance, north-south connectivity remains limited, which could be a major liability in times of conflict. Expanding high-quality transport infrastructure—by meeting TEN-T standards of rail speeds above 62 miles per hour—and modern rail traffic systems would begin to alleviate this challenge in Romania and Bulgaria.
A more interconnected and technologically aligned Europe would be better prepared to defend itself. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illustrates how strategically important logistics and supply hubs are. It is not a coincidence that Hostomel Airport was first on Russia’s list of targets. Although contested thanks to Ukraine’s skillful use of unmanned surface vessels, the Crimean port of Sevastopol is key for Russian naval operations. Now, Russia is poised to take the city of Pokrovsk—a major rail hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. NATO should pay attention and learn how to protect and strengthen its supply routes across Europe, the Arctic, and the Atlantic.
Setting high standards for infrastructure investment would demonstrate a seriousness of purpose. The 1.5 percent target should not be seen as a way of appeasing the Trump administration in the United States while continuing with status quo policies. Rather, it is an important complement to buying new military equipment, building up Europe’s defense industrial base, stockpiling, and preparing the continent for a dangerous decade or two.
Unfortunately for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her government, a road connection over the Strait of Messina is unlikely to pass muster. Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and infrastructure minister, said that the money for the bridge’s construction— $15.6 billion—will also be used to build other infrastructure like schools and congress halls, even though that is not . Such comments, given the Italian government’s history with funneling funds for personal gain and mafia ties, should not be taken lightly.
Italy’s ports and air bases, in contrast, are a different story—as are the country’s shipyards and other elements of defense-industrial infrastructure. Some forms of desirable infrastructure investment may not contribute directly to military mobility on, say, the Eastern flank but may provide heft for defense-industrial production, which Europe is sorely lacking. The Brenner Base Tunnel is one example. Another would be faster connections between Germany’s industrial heartland and Eastern Europe (a Dresden-Prague connection, for instance), where Rheinmetall’s weaponry, fresh from the factory, might one day be needed.
In short, what NATO needs is a good-faith conversation about the best ways that individual countries can contribute to collective capabilities, both in terms of raw military power and defense infrastructure. The answer can, and should, be tailored to the particularities of each member state, including Italy. In other words, NATO must make its 1.5 percent target more rigorous in defining military relevance and more open-minded in recognizing different national contributions. It remains to be seen whether Europeans can rise to the challenge.