European states have known since the early 2000s that they will need to develop a replacement for their existing fighter aircraft.
Concepts for a ‘next generation fighter programme’ go beyond the development of just a jet. Plans to include a combat ‘cloud’ and uncrewed systems to operate alongside fighter jets have been around for almost the same amount of time.
But difficulties around the German-French-Spanish fighter project – the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) – demonstrate that even in a strategic context transformed by the Ukraine war and US disengagement, cooperative defence development in Europe remains fraught with difficulty.
The original plans for a next generation fighter were co-developed by several European states, including the UK and Italy, in the early 2000s. In 2017-19, the FCAS grouping around France, Germany and Spain was formed, primarily driven by President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The idea was, in part, to create an aircraft that could complement or compete with the US’s F35 next generation fighter.
However, the collaboration between industrial partners Airbus and Dassault has been challenging from the start. The partners have struggled to agree how to divide work packages, leading to delays and deadlock – several deadlines to secure the fighter’s future passed without agreement. And both Airbus and Dassault have spoken about developing the fighter separately, or moving forward only the ‘cloud’ element, leading to speculation that the fighter collaboration would end. On 8 June, finally, the Financial Times reported that Germany has informed France it wants to withdraw from the joint fighter jet and continue working on the combat cloud.
Part of the challenge has been that Germany and France are looking to develop different types of aircraft. For France, the ability to carry nuclear weapons and to land on an aircraft carrier is essential if it is to replace its existing Rafale fighter jets, which currently carry out part of France’s nuclear mission and fly from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. Germany meanwhile, is primarily looking for a conventionally armed fighter jet, without the requirement for carrier operations.
Looking to develop two separate aircraft – possibly with new partners – while continuing cooperation on the joint cloud and uncrewed systems, might work. But it would presumably undo a significant part of the cost savings promised by collaboration.
Leaders in Germany and France are frustrated by the disagreements at the technical level. It seems to demonstrate the limits of their ability to set incentives for private industry where industry does not want to cooperate.
The competition
The situation is further complicated by the many other competing European projects. There are three other significant European future fighters.
Since December 2022, the UK, Japan and Italy have been working on the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP). Even though this collaboration started several years after FCAS, it now seems to be on surer footing with governance structures agreed and work on some aspects of the system underway. But the UK Treasury is reportedly worried the project’s international nature will make costs hard to rein in.
Separately, Saab has also announced work on a next generation fighter that would succeed its Gripen programme. Gripen was originally developed as a non-NATO alternative for states that did not want to buy US or European equipment and has become a big export hit: Most recently, Ukraine has selected Gripen to form the backbone of its fighter wing, in part for the aircraft’s ability to operate in harsh conditions and from improvised airstrips. Saab is presumably seeking to capitalize on this and other export successes with a new project. Turkey, another NATO member, is also developing a new stealthy fighter jet.
Meanwhile the UK, Italy, Germany and many other European powers are purchasing the US F35 aircraft: only last year the UK doubled down on its F35 investment, announcing a purchase of the nuclear-capable F35A variant, in addition to its F35Bs. Germany is reportedly considering buying more F35s, as the FCAS project stalls.
Ashes to ashes
With four next-generation fighter programmes underway – perhaps soon to be five – Europe risks replicating the mistakes of late 1980s and1990s, when Europe developed three competing fighter designs:
The Eurofighter Typhoon, a collaboration between the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain originally included France, but Dassault preferred to go at it alone then, too and developed Rafale separately. Gripen also competed.
At that time Europe’s strategic defence partnership with the US through NATO seemed solid. That meant European defence industrial projects had the luxury of developing fighters while pursuing goals other than defence: they could be as much about investing in local industry, keeping skills and production capabilities alive, and competing for a lucrative export market.
However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and faltering US commitments to Europe’s security, mean these incentives have changed significantly. There is a clear need for Europe to take its own defence more seriously. The wisdom of European NATO members pursuing multiple next generation fighter projects with broadly similar capabilities is questionable. Separate programmes mean countries spreading their resources thin rather than pooling them. It also means separate projects competing for the same export business. That hardly speaks to a Europe that is pulling in one direction on defence.
Part of the problem is that GCAP and FCAS still have some elements of the ‘old’ European defence procurement model, in which equal weight is given to international prestige, domestic economic growth and exportability rather than focusing on Europe’s increasingly urgent defence requirements.
With US disengagement looming and the Russian threat significant, the emphasis must shift to prioritizing the quality of kit and the speed with which it can be delivered. Equally, there is no longer an argument for a separate Swedish project to target an export market that does not want to buy NATO kit: Sweden is now also a NATO member-state.
There is an urgent reality that European countries must confront: if they are unable to produce a European alternative to the US F35 programme, they will be stuck relying on an increasingly unreliable US for a crucial part of their defence equipment – a platform they might conceivably have to rely on until well into the 2040s. That would dash the stated wishes of both President Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Were European countries to begin by focussing on NATO interoperability and strengthening European deterrence, it would make more sense to pool money and resources and produce a single next-generation fighter system. If Sweden and Turkey cannot be persuaded, the so called ‘E3’ powers of the UK, France and Germany should at least live up to their rhetoric and invest in a joint outcome.
Of course, that raises the question of the extent to which European governments can influence their defence industries – who know how politically hard to kill international prestige projects like next generation fighter jets are. If one company does not play well with others and prefers to go it alone, what tools do governments have to influence them? The lesson of FCAS is: not many.