Even though downscaled, the largest European navies have managed to preserve multipurpose fleets allowing them to pursue multiple, primarily low-end tasks. Over the past decades, European countries have engaged their navies in counter-piracy operations (off the coast of Somalia or in the Gulf of Guinea), arms embargo policing missions (such as operation IRINI in the Mediterranean Sea), or in direct support to military interventions (like the Libyan operation in 2011). European navies have nonetheless been stretched increasingly thin. NATO’s reliance on the United States during the Libyan campaign in 2011 was a demonstration of Europe’s underinvestment in its navies. European members of the coalition suffered from the limited availability of their aircraft carriers and quickly faced a shortage in naval cruise missiles. More recently, the tensions in the Strait of Hormuz in 2019 provided another example of these shortfalls as European countries struggled to mobilize ships for their maritime security coalition.
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