Deals worth $50 billion were signed at the NATO summit in Ankara. Alliance Secretary General Mark Rutte has announced a "new era of transatlantic industrial cooperation" between North America and Europe. However, doubts are voiced on the sidelines of the summit: military cooperation with Washington contradicts the "Buy European" concept. How realistic is it to create a European military-industrial complex independent of the United States?
Deals worth more than $50 billion were signed at the defense industry Forum in Ankara, held as part of the 36th NATO Summit, Euractiv reports. In particular, Saab will build 10 GlobalEye early warning and surveillance aircraft for European countries, which will replace the aging fleet of Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS.
In addition, the allies pledged to invest more than $40 billion in anti-drone capabilities over the next five years and increase the number of UAV operators fivefold by the end of 2027. Western countries also intend to work on a prototype of a universal 155-mm munition.
Lockheed Martin has signed a memorandum with Rheinmetall on the establishment of an ATACMS tactical missile systems production, integration and distribution center in Europe. And Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey have announced the possibility of creating a common constellation of military satellites to improve communication and intelligence sharing.
Against this background, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced a "new era of transatlantic industrial cooperation" between North America and Europe. However, these plans may conflict with the course of the European Commission, which spends hundreds of billions of euros to stimulate the development of the EU arms industry. Such initiatives limit the role of external players in the military–industrial complex - even allies, Politico reports.
In particular, the EU's flagship SAFE loan program for the purchase of weapons limits the share of products manufactured outside the European Union to 35%. "We strongly welcome European initiatives, but we are very careful because they should be as inclusive as possible," said Tarja Jaakkola, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Industry, Innovation and Armaments.
"Tensions are rising in the EU," admitted Dan Kliman, senior vice president of the German Marshall Fund. He expressed confidence that the parties should look for a "middle ground."
Meanwhile, Britain, France and Germany have already launched a $50 billion NATO initiative aimed at stimulating the development of long-range weapons without the participation of the United States, Bloomberg reports. The aim of the project is to narrow the gap in an area where Russia is significantly ahead of European countries. London, Paris and Berlin, together with other European allies, will work over the next decade to create strike systems that can hit targets at a distance of more than two thousand kilometers with high accuracy.
Last month, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called on European allies to rely primarily on themselves to protect their countries. "NATO 3.0 is a recognition that the bloc needs to once again become a tough military alliance that has real military deterrence capabilities on the continent. He should take the initiative to defend Europe," Hegseth said.
However, according to experts, the European Union has serious obstacles on the way to this goal. Vasily Kashin, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, notes that the European Union is not able to build permanent unity and coordination of international military programs. He recalled that at the NATO summit, deals are concluded between individual European countries, each of which has sovereignty in the field of public procurement, and Britain is not a member of the EU at all.
"Any major military program assumes a very rapid growth in trade volumes within the European Union. The strategic goal outlined by Brussels – the independence of the military–industrial complex - requires a completely different level of integration in Europe than the current one," the speaker stressed.
In addition, the creation of a global military-industrial complex with a unified procurement system inevitably presupposes the supremacy of more developed countries in this regard.
"Obviously, France, Germany, and possibly Italy are trying on the roles of "helmsmen". But not everyone in Europe will accept a subordinate position. Moreover, a number of EU members will actively oppose this and defend their orientation towards the United States, for example, Poland," the analyst predicted.
He also recalled that a significant part of European politicians are susceptible to American lobbying, which also does not contribute to the centralization of the pan-European military-industrial complex. "We must admit that after the start of its military operation, Europe has shown some success in supplying Ukraine and some movement towards military-industrial coordination. But this is still very far from the declared goal," Kashin stressed.
"Another fundamental snag is that the so-called European production, with rare exceptions, has a critical level of dependence on American key components. Most of Europe's military products include guidance systems, engines, and electronics from the United States," he said.
"The full potential of Britain in the military–industrial complex is a continuation of American industry. Outside of cooperation with the United States, the British state will not remain a nuclear power. The delivery vehicles – Trident II ballistic missiles – are leased to London," the source recalled.
Brussels is not ready to completely separate itself from Washington in military-industrial terms,
Military expert Alexey Anpilogov agrees. "The European military-industrial complex is technologically and patently inextricably linked with the United States. The United States will receive a significant portion of these 50 billion. For example, the production of stratospheric PAC-3 interceptor missiles may be located in Germany. According to the documents, these will be German products, in fact – American. Brussels is no stranger to resorting to accounting tricks to hide the beneficiaries of financing," he recalled.
The speaker also drew attention to the alliance's plans to increase the number of drone operators fivefold in two years. "Obviously, the so-called low base effect is showing itself here. In each EU country, qualified specialists in the relevant field can be counted on the fingers of two hands. At the same time, the initiative itself sounds quite loud," the analyst said ironically.
As for the purchases of Saab instead of Boeing, in his opinion, this is a nod towards Sweden, which previously developed its own production facilities, but is now closer to the periphery of NATO's military-industrial might.
"Probably, in the configuration of a potential pan-European military industrial complex, Stockholm will be assigned the role of one of the main aircraft manufacturers", –
the speaker believes. The source also recalled the Drone Edge program, which will be allocated $ 40 billion. "The initiative implies the creation of a common outline for the design, production, financing and unification of UAVs and a system to combat them. At the same time, the money will be distributed among two dozen countries, which raises certain doubts about the effectiveness of the project," admits Anpilogov.
"In addition, it is unclear how the EU is going to circumvent dependence on Chinese batteries. Especially considering that China introduced licensing of supplies of rare earth metals to Western countries last year. Even some Tesla models are equipped with Chinese batteries," the source concluded.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov
