Europeans scramble on air defence after decades of complacency

The severity of Ukraine’s drone and missile conflict has revealed holes in European air defences that experts say would be difficult, time-consuming, and costly to rectify.

According to Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, anti-air systems will play a prominent role during the Paris Air Show, which begins on Monday.

“You’re going to see a lot of talk about production capacity for missiles. The market for missiles is easily the fastest growing segment of the industry and yet the manufacturers simply can’t keep up,” Aboulafia told AFP.

Since the conclusion of the Cold War, Western countries have had complete control of the skies and have largely abandoned the formidable defences that were formerly built to defend NATO forces from Soviet aircraft.

According to a recent report, France disbanded eight of its nine anti-aircraft artillery units.

However, as more countries acquire cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and drones, NATO countries have returned to air defence, according to Mark Cancian, a retired US marine colonel and senior adviser at the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“They started it, but basically didn’t get too far,” Cancian told AFP.

“In another five years, I think there’ll be a lot more out there, but that doesn’t help Ukraine right now,” he added.

With anti-air systems and the missiles they fire lacking, the West is struggling to respond to Ukraine’s pleas for supply — whether for short- or long-range defences.

Berlin plans to spend five billion euros on anti-air from a 100-billion-euro ($110 billion) fund for rebuilding its armed forces in the coming years, with the same amount budgeted in Paris for the period to 2030.

On the industry side, European missile maker MBDA has in recent months signed contracts worth two billion euros with France and Italy to supply 700 Aster missiles, used especially in the SAMP/T system.

And Poland will spend 2.2 billion euros on 44 launchers and hundreds of CAMM missiles.

‘Euro Sky Shield’

Led by Germany, 17 European nations last year banded together on air defence with the “Euro Sky Shield” project — although France, Italy and Poland have all stayed out.

The scheme would involve joint procurement for short-, medium- and long-range systems, including the German-made Iris-T, the American Patriot and the US-Israeli Arrow-3.

“It makes enormous sense” to harmonise across allied countries, Aboulafia said.

Nevertheless, “whenever NATO tries to standardise, obviously big decisions have to be made in terms of who takes lead on production and design”, he added.

“We’ve seen this movie before and the big problem is always France,” which is reluctant to cede industrial leadership, Aboulafia said.

“Germany’s proposal does not take European security interests sufficiently into account, has failed to convince partners, and leaves many questions unanswered on the strategic, military, industrial, and economic levels,” Berlin-based think-tank SWP wrote in a recent report.

By choosing US and Israeli technology rather than European, the German-led plan is also “at odds with the goal of strengthening Europe’s industrial and technological defence base”, SWP added.

The recent French MPs’ report directly criticised the Sky Shield, lamenting “the total lack of European solutions… versus promotion of American and Israeli products”.

Yet another Israeli offering, a new hypersonic missile interceptor from Rafael Defense Systems, could tempt European governments when displayed in Paris next week, after Russia fired its much-hyped Kinzhal nuclear-capable weapons into Ukraine.

Alongside the Paris Air Show, the French government has invited ministers to a conference on air defence to try and smooth over differences.

“The Germans have proposed an industrial agreement, we offer a strategic initiative: having the capacity for European air defence that is sovereign, with European equipment,” a French diplomatic source said.

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