EU has almost 450M people. USA had the thing on lockdown for decades with < 340M people. Japan made a hell of a showing in the 80s with < 124M. Europe has the human capital. It is foolish not to use it.

There are other considerations outside of globohomo quantifiables—like workforce development, domestic know-how, self-sufficiency, robustness to supply chain failures & geopolitical upheavals… Basically, the Taleb stuff.