Germany’s Federal Court of Audit warned that a ‘signal of unlimited willingness to incur debt’ could lead prices in defence industry to soar, with incentives for industry to charge higher prices for the same services due to ‘almost unlimited availability of financial resources and increased demand.’
The €150 billion SAFE fund will come into force on May 29, offering loans to EU states for defence procurement, that will require 65 percent of all purchases to be of European origin, with contractors required to fully control design to avoid new dependencies.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found the number of personnel deployed on peacekeeping operations around the world fell by over 40 percent between the years 2015 and 2024 because of budget cuts, refusal of host states and geopolitical tensions, and noted the growing reliance being placed on private military companies.
A greenfield facility being set up by Reliance will support the supply of explosives for medium and large caliber ammunition to Rheinmetall and is expected to have an annual capacity of 200,000 artillery shells, 10,000 tons of explosives and 2,000 tons of propellants.
The German military has stationed a permanent presence abroad for the first time since the Second World War with the activation of a new brigade in Lithuania that will number 5,000 and with headquarters near the Belarusian border.
U.S. forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 in a widely-criticised and mismanaged evacuation of over 120,000 people from Kabul, with around 200 casualties.
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius outlined a plan for Germany to increase military expenditure as a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.2 percentage points per year over a period of seven years.
An agreement between the EU and the UK has included the first steps towards allowing British companies to compete for orders paid for by a €150B loan program intended to boost European defence, that would otherwise only be serviced by European firms.
Indian Army on Sunday: “As far as continuation of break in hostilities, as decided in DGMOs interaction of 12 May are concerned, there is no expiry date to it.”
According to Helsing, hundreds of SG-1 Fathoms can be deployed with the Lura AI software platform by a single operator to autonomously detect threats at 10% of the cost of crewed Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) patrols.
At the end of the 2023/2024 financial year, the order backlog stood at €11.7 billion, but the figure has now risen to €18 billion after significant orders from Germany and Singapore.
The proposed 2,000+ km range deep precision weapon planned to be fielded in the 2030s could fill a capability gap uncovered by the death of the INF Treaty between Russia and the U.S., which barred land-based intermediate range missiles.
The U.S. Air Force has already flown multiple prototypes of the new F-47 fighter, which is part of the Next Generation Air Dominance program that includes uncrewed loyal wingman drones and new adaptive engines. It is planned to be cheaper than the F-22, with a larger fleet and an export version.
Europe appears to have accepted the prospect of acting independently of the United States, with a new rearmament program proposed by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, last week.
Ukraine has agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia in exchange for resumption of suspended military aid and intelligence after talks between the two countries in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
