For nearly 30 years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European defense environment remained shaped by the post-Cold War "peace dividend." After the dissolution of the USSR, Europe's national armies were shorn of manpower and high-end kinetic capabilities and transformed from heavy-armored and conscripted static forces into more mobile, professionalized militaries.

With the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites no longer poised to roll armored tank divisions through Western Europe, the strategic dynamic across the continent abruptly changed, and the lack of an imminent conventional military threat meant governments placed a lesser focus on defense matters. Out went the large, heavily armored standing conscript armies prepping for territorial defense, and in came smaller, more specialized militaries tailored for out-of-theater security operations and peacekeeping missions.