For decades, European policymakers and regulators have used the term “dual-use” to categorise technologies as either civilian or military. The framework for the term was designed for a world where technologies could be cleanly separated into civilian and military streams. That binary logic may have been effective for jet engines or radar during the Cold War, but today it’s outdated. Technologies now operate simultaneously across multiple domains, shaping economies, health systems, resilience, and security all at once. We live in an era of omni-use.
Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, is a vivid example. In Ukraine, consumer-grade printers are producing drone components on the frontlines. Across Europe, militaries are deploying AM labs to print spare parts near the battlefield, reducing logistical exposure and improving readiness. During the COVID-19 pandemic, those same systems pivoted to produce ventilator valves and protective gear. In future natural disasters, AM could just as easily print water filtration systems, energy grid components, or replacement parts. These are not dual-use but rather omni-use in practice; one technology underpinning defence readiness, industrial competitiveness, health security, and societal resilience simultaneously.
Recent research confirms the limitations of the dual-use paradigm. A new study by scholars at the University of the Bundeswehr shows how rigid dual-use classifications often slow innovation, impose compliance burdens, and discourage collaboration between the public and private sectors. Interviews with investors, regulators, and military officials revealed how new technologies frequently cross domains with minimal adaptation. The same AI technology can manage hospital logistics one day and drone swarms the next. The latest ethical and security dilemmas we face are precisely because these tools are omni-use, yet our policy frameworks still treat them as if they belonged in separate silos.
As noted in the Bundeswehr study, Europe is particularly vulnerable if it clings to outdated categories in an era of convergence. This vulnerability arises due to fragmented governance, inconsistent definitions across member states, and risk-averse funding norms, which slow Europe’s ability to adapt. While the United States and China are building agile, well-financed ecosystems for omni-use technologies, Europe risks falling behind, leaving its industries, militaries, and critical infrastructure dependent on others for the very tools that underpin resilience and security.
To adapt, the EU must embed omni-use thinking into its laws and strategies. A first step is to revisit the EU Dual-Use Regulation. While this law governs exports of goods and technologies with both civilian and military applications, it remains rooted in a binary logic that recent developments have eclipsed. Updating it to recognise omni-use technologies would align export controls with the fact that the same system often serves defence, commerce, health, and infrastructure simultaneously. The Commission’s recent 2025 update of the EU Control List of Dual-Use Items demonstrates its willingness to expand controls in light of emerging technologies. But further reforms are needed to anticipate omni-use rather than retrofit regulations after the fact.
Europe’s broader industrial strategies already hint at omni-use without naming it. The European Chips Act addresses semiconductors, a textbook omni-use technology vital for AI, defence, communications, and consumer electronics. The Cyber Resilience Act imposes cybersecurity obligations on digital products across sectors, recognising that vulnerabilities in consumer devices can cascade into defence supply chains or critical infrastructure.
Research and innovation frameworks also need a relook. The Commission’s Expert Group on the Economic and Societal Impact of Research (ESIR) has recommended a “dual-use by design” approach for EU-funded projects. In practice, Europe should move further and adopt “omni-use by design.” Horizon Europe and the European Defence Fund should require applicants to anticipate cross-sectoral applications, ensuring that well-designed innovations with civilian, defence, and resilience needs in mind from the outset.
Governing structures must adapt as well. Separate ministries operating in silos cannot manage omni-use technologies. Defence ministries, health agencies, industrial regulators, and civil protection authorities need standing coordination mechanisms to govern these technologies. Regulatory sandboxes could provide start-ups space to test omni-use applications across multiple domains without being paralysed by compliance burdens from a simpler era.
Omni-use is not a semantic upgrade but a recognition of how new technologies function in society. Readiness and competitiveness in this century will be defined by what Europe can adapt, repurpose, and produce when and where it is needed most. Additive manufacturing illustrates this vividly, but AI, semiconductors, quantum sensing, and biotechnology all point in the same direction.
If Europe continues to govern technologies under an obsolete framework, it will stall innovation and erode its ability to defend itself and compete globally. To lead, the EU must make omni-use an organising principle of its technology, industrial, and defence strategies. That means revising export controls, aligning industrial policy, expanding research, and building governance that reflects the world as it is, not as it was.
Chris Kremidas-Courtney is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre, lecturer on hybrid threats, resilience, and global strategy for the Institute for Security Governance, senior researcher for the US Naval Postgraduate School, Associate Fellow for the Geneva Center for Security Policy, senior advisor for Defend Democracy, and member of the civil experts groups for NATO, the Hybrid CoE, and Euro-Atlantic Resilience Centre.
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