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Emerging Defense Cooperation Between France and Germany: A Multi-Billion Dollar Defense Vehicle Initiative
The recent agreement of France and Germany to jointly develop a new, futuristic battlefield tank is seen as a significant triumph by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
“This is a landmark occasion,” he expressed enthusiastically.
His zealous response is justified. The project, known as the Main Combat Ground System, aimed at creating a state-of-the-art tank had been hindered by years of political squabbling, industrial contention, and neglect.
With Russia’s incursion into Ukraine more than two years ago, Europe was forced to reconsider its stance on defense spending. This was after defense budgets had been subjected to cuts in the post-Soviet era, which provoked Europe into focusing on revamping its almost depleted military production power and arsenals.
The Path Towards a Stronger European Military: Challenges and Obstacles
However, the task ahead for Europe concerns more than budgets. Sizeable political and logistical hurdles stand in the way of constructing a more synchronized and efficient defense system. These limitations could significantly cripple Europe’s efforts to reinforce its defense capabilities quickly, particularly amid escalating tensions between Russia and its neighbors.
“Within Europe, there exist 27 separate military industrial complexes,” stated Max Bergmann, a program director at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Despite celebrating its 75th anniversary this summer, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) still outlines the overall defense strategy and budget targets for Europe. Nonetheless, it doesn’t control the procurement process for equipment. Each NATO member has its own defense structure, priorities, unique culture, preferred companies, and each government maintains the final discretion on purchases.
Internal Conflicts and The Future Of Tank Development
Bergmann commented that even when NATO members purchase the same German tank, they have different builds to ensure a portion of the profits goes to their national defense companies.
This disparity caused difficulties in the development of an advanced German-French tank, expected to be operational with amenities like drones, missiles, and cloud computing by either 2035 or 2040. Even the dimensions of the tank’s main gun triggered disagreements; the Germans’ 130-millimeter preference clashed with the French’s 140-millimeter version.
Concerns Over Costs and Interchangeable Military Equipment
An irregular defense market complicates Europe’s attempts to streamline costs and guarantee the interchangeability of equipment, ammunition, and components across national borders. Political visions also differ significantly.
“There’s an undeniable fact that Europe needs to fortify our defenses,” stated Michael Schoellhorn, Airbus’s CEO. Airbus is Europe’s leading aerospace conglomerate, manufacturing military aircraft. “What does this imply, and what is our ambition?”
France and Germany, the two largest economies within the European Union, also have the largest defense budgets. However, they occupy opposite ends of the debate. Macron has consistently advocated for ‘European sovereignty’ and ‘strategic autonomy’ to counterbalance America’s dominance of NATO and openly articulated fears about European over-reliance on the US for security.
On the other hand, Germany, without its own nuclear weaponry and dependent on NATO’s arsenal, is agreeable to an uneven partnership with the US.
An Unequal Contemporary European Union
Germany’s post-World War II pacifist culture still holds strong, and the public is only beginning to accept that having a military doesn’t necessarily undermine democracy.
Currently, endeavors to replenish Europe’s drained arsenals are moving at two different speeds. Countries like Poland and Germany are importing fighter jets, missiles, and ammunition from the US and Asian allies. Meanwhile, France is advocating for a more expedited approach to a European-produced defense industry to augment self-reliance.
Conflict in these approaches is evident in responses to the European Sky Shield, a German-led initiative to establish an integrated air-and-missile defense system across Europe. It garnered support from over 20 NATO countries. However, Paris saw the system, which uses equipment made in Israel and the US, as a snub to the European industrial base.
Investments Towards European Self-Sufficiency and Defense
Countries such as France, Spain, and Italy, along with new NATO member Sweden, have called for European funding to be utilized to bolster European military equipment production, increase the resilience of supply chains, and locally produce raw materials and components instead of importing them.
In March, the European Commission echoed these sentiments when it presented its plans to strengthen Europe’s defense industrial base. Its strategy, a first of its kind for Europe, proposes to link hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to requirements for European weapons manufacturers to engage in cross-country collaborations.
Over the past two years, 78 percent of the defense equipment purchased by European Union members came from outside the bloc, mainly from American suppliers reluctant to face a hardened rivalry from Europe. The EU’s new industrial strategy calls for nations to spend 50 percent of their defense budgets on EU suppliers by 2030 and 60 percent by 2035.
In light of its location on Ukraine’s western border, Poland is spending over 4 percent of its GDP on defense. It procured tanks, battle aircraft, helicopters, rocket launchers, and howitzers from the US and South Korea, along with British-designed frigates.
Prospective Outlooks For European Defense Industry
Many believe that if Europe’s defense industry is to endure, several smaller arms manufacturers may need to merge or shut down, as expressed by Kurt Braatz, the chief communications officer for French and German conglomerate KNDS. Europe’s fragmented state with disconnected defense companies makes it difficult to compete with American defense giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics.
For the industry to be profitable, it needs large operations to create necessary economies of scale and produce sufficient arms for exportation. Yet, the idea of consolidations and mergers is highly controversial, as it implies job losses and company shutdowns in some countries.
Thus, the path forward for a stronger, more cooperative European defense industry remains fraught with political, cultural, and economic challenges.
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