“We are not investing enough in defence, and this investment is not effective enough,” French Defense Minister Florence Parley said in a radio interview with France Inter, citing 20 different types of combat aircraft in the EU compared to just six similar models in the US.

European defence planning and the development of armaments and military equipment stipulate that France will play a large role in 60% of 47 projects, most often Paris will interact with Germany, Italy and Spain.

Within the framework of recent projects, France will lead the work on more efficient tracking of ballistic missiles in outer space and will develop electronic warfare equipment together with Spain and Sweden to equip European combat aircraft in order to overcome the enemy’s air defence.

Also, together with Italy, France will develop a prototype of a new class of warships, which will be known as the European patrol corvette. There is no information about any features of this type of ship yet.

“In all these processes, as usual, there is an operational-strategic and military-technical component,” Konstantin Makienko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, explained to Website

As the source said,

the unpredictability of the current administration of the United States threatens both long-term strategic planning within the alliance and the implementation of promising programs in the defence industry.

In the field of military-technical cooperation, it is probably enough to give one example, the specialist continues, - deliveries of 5-generation F-35 fighters to the US allies.





As you know, this machine is supplied to the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, and Norway. However, the F-35 has one notable feature - the presence of ALIS (Autonomics Logistics and Information System).





It is the world's first system of centralized daily monitoring of the technical condition of F-35 aircraft in real-time. In fighters of previous generations, these functions were performed daily by several different systems. ALIS allows you to control every F-35 of all operators, regardless of the region where the machine is located, and if necessary, limit the range of missions to the aircraft.





If necessary, the expert is sure, the United States will limit its ally with a single click. Therefore, the use of F-35 aircraft by the US allies, which is not consistent with Washington, in some cases can be very problematic.





Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that these reasons underlie the desire of some countries of the European Union and Great Britain to develop their own promising fighter jets, Makienko believes.





In particular, this summer, at the Le Bourget air show, a mock-up of the fifth-generation European combat aircraft of the French company Dassault Aviation was presented. The presentation was attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and defence ministers of Germany, France and Spain. It is assumed that this fighter will become the main weapon of the European Air Force within two decades after adoption.





In turn, the UK Department of Defense presented a conceptual model of a new generation fighter, called the Tempest, during the Farnborough Air Show in 2018 as part of the launch of a new national aviation strategy.





The Tempest project is at the centre of this strategy, designed in large part to enable the British defence aerospace industry to retain its technological advantages in the development of fighter jets.





Now Italy has entered the British sixth-generation fighter program, expanding the project’s membership club to three partners. Sweden joined the Tempest program back in July of this year.

And these trends are also characteristic of many other types of weapons and military equipment, point out Konstantin Makienko. Firstly, I don’t want to depend critically on the United States, and secondly, there is no certainty that the software does not have all kinds of bookmarks from American developers who can make this weapon a pile of scrap metal at the right time.



