Europe Goes Its Own Way on Defense, Unnerving Washington

Portugal’s Air Force is considering scrapping its plan to buy $2.2 billion worth of American-made F-35 fighter jets. Instead, it would buy Swedish-made Saab Gripen war jets — at half the price.Denmark and Poland are inviting France, the only European Union nation with its own nuclear weapons, to station some in their countries. “We invite you to extend nuclear sharing also to our territory,” President Andrzej Duda of Poland told Bloomberg in remarks published Friday.Like canaries in the proverbial coal mine, these two obscure news items could signal a bigger European shift toward greater defense independence from the United States. Tough love statements from Trump Administration officials, a tilt toward Moscow in the Russia-Ukraine war, and a pause in military aid to Ukraine, have shaken — if not broken — European trust in America’s post World War II defense guarantees.Europe has responded with a five-year, $171 billion ReArm Europe plan to boost weapons production in the EU, Ukraine, and Norway. In a sign of the times, a new European Commission White Paper for European Defense Readiness 2030 refers to strengthening defense industries 96 times in 23 pages.After three decades of atrophy, Europe’s surge in defense spending is so abrupt that the share price of Germany’s largest defense contractor, Rheinmetall, has more than doubled this year. Rheinmetall now is moving to convert two of its car factories to military production. Confident of future sales, it is eyeing the purchase of Volkswagen’s struggling car plant in Osnabrück.Last week, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger told German business daily Handelsblatt that the company could boost its order book to $341 billion by the end of this decade.Similarly, Europe’s largest defense contractor, Britain’s BAE Systems plc, plans to build three new sites in Britain to produce RDX explosives, the key component for 155mm artillery shells. Britain’s defense secretary, John Healey, said the defense industry “is the foundation of our ability to fight and win on the battlefield.”Europe’s turnaround is so fast that the Trump administration now faces an acute case of “You reap what you sow.” Secretary of State Rubio is browbeating European officials that they should buy American.Trump Administration officials “are upset about the ReArm proposal, and that the U.S. is excluded,” one senior European official told Reuters. Mr. Rubio reportedly leaned on the foreign ministers of the three Baltic nations in late March and, again, two weeks ago, at the NATO meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels.European defense procurement rules could become a bargaining chip if a full-scale trade war breaks out this summer between America and Europe. But, for many Europeans, the impression lingers that America is not a “reliable supplier.”By switching gears on aid to Ukraine, Washington disclosed in February that it has ultimate control over satellite intelligence, long distance rocketry and fighter jets supplied by the United States. Europe’s new lack of confidence in America strengthens Saab’s pitch to sell fighter jets to Portugal.A minor player in Europe, Portugal, a NATO founding member, plays a major role in patrolling the mid-Atlantic from Lajes Field in the Azores, a joint air base with the US Air Force. With its fleet of 28 F-16s approaching retirement dates, the natural step for the Portuguese Air Force would be to step up to Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters.Two weeks ago, Saab’s chief executive, Micael Johansson, told Sweden’s Dagens Industri that the Swedish aerospace giant is in talks about supplying its Gripen, or “griffin,” fighter jets to Portugal. One attraction is price. A JAS 39 Gripen carries a $40 million price tag — about half the price of an F-35. The hourly operating cost of a Gripen is $7,000 — compared to $35,000 for an F-35.The news hit the rarefied world of defense procurement like a bomb. Online news site Bulgarianmilitary headlined: “Portugal’s bold pivot to Gripen shocks F-35 backers in NATO.”While any deal is far away, the site noted that Hungary has increased its Gripen fleet to 18, and the Czech Republic has extended its lease on 14 Gripen war jets for another decade. Saab gained credibility with Sweden’s entry into NATO one year ago.“The Gripen, alongside France’s Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, represents a European-built alternative to U.S. systems, aligning with calls for greater self-reliance,” the military defense publication said. “Could this deal mark the beginning of a broader European pivot away from U.S. systems, or will it remain an exception in a market still dominated by American giants?”Similarly, many European leaders, including Germany’s future chancellor, Friedrich Merz, wonder about the value of America’s nuclear deterrent if the White House becomes chummy with the Kremlin. “We simply must become stronger together in nuclear deterrence in Europe,” Mr. Merz told Deutschlandfunk radio after discussing with President Macron the extension of France’s nuclear “umbrella” to Germany. Any discussions with Paris and London should take place, he said, with a view to “complementing the American nuclear umbrella, which we of course want to maintain.” Similarly, President Duda of Poland stressed that he would like America, as well as France, to station nuclear weapons in Poland. “I believe we can accept both solutions,” he told Bloomberg in an interview in Warsaw. “These two ideas are neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive.”Used to throwing their weight around Europe, some of Uncle Sam’s envoys are having a hard time adjusting to the new reality — one that they created. The Economist reported last week: “Pentagon figures recently questioned one ally about why it was still supplying weapons to Ukraine — a challenge that was ignored.”

Europe Goes Its Own Way on Defense, Unnerving Washington

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