It would be a bad idea in any circumstances to replace 'over dependency on the US' with 'over dependency on one EU nation', (need to have a place for UK, Turkey, Norwegian defence companies)', but there's an obvious 'don't risk doing this again in two years' element too. - ThreadSky

stephenkb.bsky.social • 21 days ago

It would be a bad idea in any circumstances to replace 'over dependency on the US' with 'over dependency on one EU nation', (need to have a place for UK, Turkey, Norwegian defence companies)', but there's an obvious 'don't risk doing this again in two years' element too.

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roterote.bsky.social•20 days ago

It is also a mindset of not thinking outside of the existing armaments paradigm. Like funding state owned production, or limit profit companies, and benefiting from existing arms companies and new public or limited profit options in the EU. Best of both etc.

neilhaughey.bsky.social•20 days ago

Imagine if Harris, Le Pen and the AFD had power today. We are being taught a harsh lesson in what sovereignty really means.

kennywell.bsky.social•21 days ago

Do they really clash or is the clash being embellished by the FT?

techpriest.bsky.social•21 days ago

Also as Poland has shown with it's blockbuster deal with South Korea, the list of "western aligned suppliers that are not America" is bigger than you think with a little imagination

Not procuring from the likes of Hyundai Rotem 🇰🇷 or Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 🇯🇵 would be self defeating

stephenkb.bsky.social•21 days ago

Right, I think Macron's 'it must have the stars and circles on it' is his version of 'of course, we don't need to break our promises on tax', it's like, I get what the political and intellectual constraint here is but you are going to need to push past it sooner or later.

acmcgregor.bsky.social•21 days ago

You can see Macron has a point, given how a few years ago we were having a lot of issues with stuff that was manufactured in Switzerland and the Swiss using contract clauses to prevent the deployment of those things to the defence of Ukraine. Avoiding that *is* important.

stephenkb.bsky.social•21 days ago

That makes it more, not less, important that European countries can buy Turkish and South Korean and British defence kit.

acmcgregor.bsky.social•21 days ago

What's important is the terms of purchase and use. Don't want to be in the situation of buying the materiel and being unable to use it. Be that Switzerland blocking for neutrality, the US turning off support, or an in-EU producer blocking use.

acmcgregor.bsky.social•21 days ago

Hate to say it, but the French point about the independence of their nuclear deterrent from outside control is seeming pretty solid at this point. Compared to the British reliance on the US system.

techpriest.bsky.social•21 days ago

South Korea is not so wedded to neutrality that it is going to stop European buyers using their arms in whatever purpose they deem necessary for European defence

Switzerland on the other hand has likely severely curtailed it's future order book with the re-export fiasco

stephenkb.bsky.social•21 days ago

Indeed.

nordiceuropean.bsky.social•18 days ago

The problem with South Korea is that it's so far away, though.

scb250.bsky.social•21 days ago

The advantages of Korea is that they're very willing to do technology transfers and allow licenced production.

andraswf.bsky.social•21 days ago

Don't buy Gidrán

tjmarsden.bsky.social•21 days ago

Given the distances and that they face threats they might have to very reasonably prioritise over delivering our orders, I'd be reluctant to rely on those places for anything that isn't very standardised, interoperable and replaceable. Just in case.

But absolute EU-only procurement is overdoing it.

rich-bryant.uk•21 days ago

luckily this isn't a difficult one, all the EU has to do is look past Macron and Marine le Pen is right there.

benrobins.bsky.social•19 days ago

Not sure exactly what Macron is arguing.

France's own defense industries are deeply intertwined with the UK.

We have several joint platforms such as Storm Shadow and PAAMS

billheywood.bsky.social•20 days ago

I think you are right

Not buying American weapons or equipment would be a good idea though

pascallth.bsky.social•21 days ago

Probably the natural compromise is to only exclude American companies, but no one wants to risk saying it out loud

jrowanbxl.bsky.social•21 days ago

One of the many fascinating things at present is just how much stuff along these lines politicians feel they can't say out loud right now for fear of inflaming an already terrible situation, but which everyone clearly understands.

jrowanbxl.bsky.social•21 days ago

Which raises the interesting question of whether the MAGA crowd have really understood what's going on, precisely because no-one is (yet) saying it out loud / to their face.

stephenkb.bsky.social•21 days ago

Yeah. I thought Robert captured this perfectly in his column this week, the way that so much of politics at the moment is in this space of knowing and not knowing.

jrowanbxl.bsky.social•21 days ago

Not read that, will do so. Just fascinating to watch politicians not be straight up on certain subjects, but with the collusion of their audience in this case; no real sense of trying to mislead, more shared euphemistic language.

theangelofhistory.bsky.social•21 days ago

What MAGA want depends on which of the MAGA tribes we’re talking about - but the MAGA closets to the Don’s views want, to quote Joe Biden, “small yard high fence”: better to totally dominate a small area (eg Panama & Mexico) than have “influence” over a larger area. Because soft power is a lie.

iainl7.bsky.social•21 days ago

It’s all very curious, that one - because Biden spent four years badgering Europe to increase defence spending as well, but then there was a clear subtext of “and preferably spend it with our defence companies”. A position that clearly doesn’t hold when he’s telling them to cut off Ukraine.

jrowanbxl.bsky.social•21 days ago

Yeah, have they realised what this means for (at the very least medium-term) US arms sales? Or do they not care? The techbro wing of MAGA think all this stuff is old-fashioned rubbish anyway.

kitbird.bsky.social•20 days ago

We're perhaps not that far away from a ban on US arms sales to Europe which would resolve this particular difficulty

arnabdutt.bsky.social•20 days ago

Not sure the US defence contractors would be thanking Trump as they laid off staff and reduced production capacity and watched profits tank.

kitbird.bsky.social•20 days ago

Turning off supplies to Ukraine hasn't provoked any comment

arnabdutt.bsky.social•20 days ago

They're probably in shock and waiting to see what happens next.

kitbird.bsky.social•20 days ago

Aren't we all.....

markfreed.bsky.social•21 days ago

Turkey dislikes Putin. They may not be our favourite country but they could do good.

jahauthor.bsky.social•20 days ago

Disappointingly short-sighted if this becomes an EU-only structure given vast non-EU military spending by nations keen to stand up to the threat from Russia and China.
Needs a level of commonality to reduce costs - do we need >15 types of tank or so many different types of manned combat aircraft?

fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social•21 days ago

I think in practice the big question is whether you can get away with two nations providing a required shared capacity, or whether you need at least 3.

maxieq.bsky.social•20 days ago

But what's to stop the UK running to the yanks with the Mega Secret Blueprint for the Totally Awesome Cruise Missile as soon as the next president says the magic words "special relationship"? The last decade has show that part of the UK loathes Europe. And they could be in control soon.

stephenkb.bsky.social•20 days ago

I appreciate that it is a scary time, but this question is an example of you inventing a thing to worry about. The UK is not going to do that for four years, when, as with every nation in Europe, there is an electoral risk from a pro-Putin force.

dangerouscorner.bsky.social•21 days ago

This can be dealt with by drawing on existing experience of common programmes, and making sure there's two sources of everything, from consortia which are set up to not entrench geog/political divides, except the intractable ones (UK/Spain, Greece/Turkey). Keep Hungary out of all of them, obvs.

samhufton1.bsky.social•21 days ago

One eu nation couldn't replace the US sustainably I'd imagine. The key is how the Americans do it, distributing their arms industry across multiple states

amrk.bsky.social•21 days ago

Coming up with a new hilariously bleak theory of derisking where we want to put our geopolitical eggs in the baskets of countries whose fascist parties still have anti-Putin foreign policy (Poland, Italy, the nordics)

aphclarkson.bsky.social•21 days ago

The UK's defence eggs have been substantially in the Italian basket via Leonardo for several decades will navally the UK becomes joined at the hip with Spain via Navantia's acquisition of H&W. Never mind how Airbus is structured. There is no getting around interdependence with EU states.

stephenkb.bsky.social•21 days ago

I don't think that really rebuts or is relevant to Arun's bleak joke.

aphclarkson.bsky.social•21 days ago

Those eggs were put in that basket several decades ago. It's a point about how a lot of this was baked in long before now.

stephenkb.bsky.social•21 days ago

Sure, but it was a joke! No-one actually thinks you can reorient your interdependency to only the places where the far right is anti-Putin.

wrathofgodbot.bsky.social•21 days ago

Goes the other way as well doesn't it? BAE Systems owns lots of Nordic defence companies

amrk.bsky.social•21 days ago

Yeah I mean I’m pretty much the Anglosphere’s #1 Pedro Sánchez Stan I’m not actually arguing we should *only* engage with Poland lol

stephencobden.bsky.social•21 days ago

I mean, their was (briefly) a fascist Allied combatant during WWII

dangerouscorner.bsky.social•21 days ago

Finnish fash are not anti-Putin.

theangelofhistory.bsky.social•21 days ago

Why?

Logically, the risk of over dependence on any EU nation is much lower.

dean5150.bsky.social•21 days ago

Getting European nations to agree on defence projects has a poor history. This needs to change, but defence companies always lobby their respective governments for preferential treatment, all over the world.

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