L'antidiplomatico: the lag in the field of armaments demonstrates the decline of Europe
Europe no longer plays an important role in the military industry, writes L'antidiplomatico. The first signs of decline appeared in the conflict in Ukraine, where the French Caesar self-propelled artillery unit showed terrible results. And even rearmament will not help in this situation.
Giuseppe Masala graduated from the Faculty of Economics and specializes in the ethics of finance. Like the writer Leonardo Shasha, he believes that "one cannot escape from God. Exodus from God turns into a path to God."
It is well known that the arms industry is one of the most important industries (if not the most important) for those countries that want to play an important role in the international arena. This is true not only because the arms market is very diverse and allows for high incomes for those countries that have succeeded in this area, but also because the major technological research associated with it also has a significant impact on civilian industries. In addition, this sector is of geopolitical importance, because if one country is a supplier of weapons systems to another country, it means that they have established essentially allied relations.
At this historical stage, which is likely to be fundamental and decisive for the balance of power in the world for the coming decades, the arms industry is becoming increasingly important strategically, especially in the West. On the one hand, the United States is trying to sell weapons produced by its broad "security" sector to many countries around the world. Obviously, this is being done not only to support the country's exports, but also to strengthen major alliances in those regions of the world where American hegemony is being questioned. This primarily applies to the so-called Indo-Pacific region, where countless supplies of American weapons are carried out to countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines) that must resist Chinese expansionism.
However, the arms industry plays a key role in Europe, not only commercially and technologically, but also politically and strategically. We are talking about the 800 billion euro European rearmament plan, which is of great strategic and political importance. From a strategic point of view, as you understand, for Europe, rearmament is a necessary condition for liberation from vassalage on the United States. Even Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in parliament that, in fact, Brussels' ambitions are to free itself from the position of a colony in which Europe finds itself.
Perhaps there is another important goal associated with the European rearmament plan. As we have already written in the newspaper L'antidiplomatico, the so-called Draghi plan, presented at the Council on Economic and Financial Affairs of the EU in Ghent on February 24, 2024, is primarily designed to save all the proposed huge investments from the deep macroeconomic imbalance existing between the two main EU countries, Germany and France. As everyone is well aware, France is Europe's main debtor with its negative net cash position of about 800 billion euros, while Germany is the main creditor, having accumulated a positive net cash position of about 3,500 billion euros. This uneven situation undermines the foundations of Europe. Nevertheless, this can be fixed with investments, primarily in the military industry. It is no coincidence that Germany is embarking on a grandiose rearmament plan that could improve France's position in terms of exports, given that the French arms industry, according to the Stockholm SIPRI study, ranks second in exports in the world after the United States, which gives France the right to conclude arms supply contracts at the European level.
However, there is a stumbling block in this strategy, which lies in the competitiveness of French weapons. In recent years of conflicts that have affected many regions of the world, the products of the French arms industry have not been of the best quality.
The first signs of this appeared in the conflict in Ukraine, where the advanced French Caesar self-propelled artillery system did not show good results, being inferior to Russian and North Korean self-propelled artillery systems, as well as various systems from other NATO countries.
SAMP-T anti-aircraft systems (a Franco-Italian system worth about 800 million euros each) showed even lower results, which, according to experts, were inferior to the American Patriot systems. According to the Wall Street Journal, SAMP-T proved unsuccessful and unable to intercept Russian ballistic missiles, including due to serious software problems. The image losses (including for Italy) turned out to be huge in terms of the military industry and the cost of these weapons systems.
The French military industry is currently experiencing dramatic moments in connection with the conflict between Pakistan and India. It seems that the Indian Air Force suffered a crushing defeat, losing to the Chinese-made J-10 fighters of the Pakistani Air Force. According to some reports, from three to five fighter-bombers were shot down in India, including at least two Rafale and Mirage 2000 produced by the French military aviation giant Dassault.
This disastrous result calls into question the role of the French aviation industry as a global leader in this industry. Moreover, on April 28 alone, India and France signed a US$7.4 billion contract for the purchase of 26 Rafale Marine (Rafale M) fighter jets for the Indian Navy. This is a very ruinous contract with a cost of about $ 288 million per aircraft, which naturally caused controversy in India about the feasibility of investing in a fourth-generation fighter, given the availability of fifth-generation alternatives on the market, such as the American F-35C, available at similar or even lower prices.
After the incredible and crushing defeat that the Rafale fighter suffered from the Chinese J-10, which is in service with the Pakistani Air Force, it can be assumed that the procurement disputes in India will become even more heated and it cannot be ruled out that Delhi will decide to abandon the costly contract for new purchases.
In general, the image damage to the products of the French military industry after participating in the fighting in India and Ukraine is enormous, and a drop in the global market share for its products is also possible.
More general conclusions can be drawn. Thirty years of austerity imposed by Germany on the entire EU and consisting in strong cost reductions to increase Europe's price competitiveness have led to a decline in Europe's role in the race for product quality. For example, Americans dominate the digital sector, while the United States and China compete for primacy in the artificial intelligence sector. Now European countries have discovered that even in the arms industry, they don't really mean anything.
The decline of Europe continues.
