2023-11-05 08:30:00
The promise of a “post-Covid world”, radically different from the old one, will not have stood the test of facts. Placed under cover, Europe suddenly emerged from the torpor into which the pandemic had plunged it with the rumor of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. In the former Soviet empire, the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia had resumed in 2020… Long before the new confrontation between Israel and Hamas reopened the wounds of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East. In Asia, growing tensions between Taiwan and China also raise the specter of worse. So many conflicts, present or potential, which are fueling the increase in global military spending – those which are agitating Ukraine and Taiwan in the lead. For the eighth consecutive year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), a reference organization, observed a jump in resources allocated to weapons in the world, 3.7% in 2022 for a total amount of 2 240 billion dollars, without inflation being responsible.
The year 2023 should follow the same trajectory. Enough to nourish a trade whose changes hardly affect its vitality. In addition to causing a reorientation of flows towards Europe, the war in Ukraine is reshuffling the cards within the largest supplier countries. Withdrawn on the needs of its forces deployed in Ukraine, Russian industry is seeing its share of exports decline, despite growing demand from its Chinese and Egyptian partners. Between the last two periods studied by Sipri, from 2013 to 2017 then from 2018 to 2022, Russia’s exports fell from 22% to 16%, and its main recipients went from 10 to 8 countries. A crumbling that international sanctions taken against Moscow should accelerate, signaling the end of the Russian-American duopoly in sales of military equipment.
Increased dependence in the United States
Consequence: the United States consolidates its role as the planet’s armory. Especially since in their frenetic race to rearmament, the countries of the Old Continent have rarely played the local card. So little that “acquisitions outside the European Union represented 78% of commitments made between 2022 and 2023, with the United States totaling 63% of this share”, notes in a study the Institute of International and Strategic Relations ( Iris), which estimates the total volume of orders placed by EU countries over the past year and a half at 100 billion euros. Himars rocket launchers, Chinook helicopters, and the essential F-35 fighter produced by Lockheed Martin: the United States continues to garner orders from Europe.
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This choice of “made in USA” is not only due to stocks and production capacities across the Atlantic. “The majority of sales were made through Foreign Military Sales (FMS). These State-to-State commitments make it possible to enter into contracts more quickly than in Europe. It is also clear that European capabilities are partial in certain areas , as in anti-missile defense”, explains Jean-Pierre Maulny, the deputy director of Iris, for whom this increased dependence on the United States, although dictated by circumstances, is not without danger. “The risk is that the European defense industrial and technological base (BITD) will find itself in difficulty around 2040, because its own market will have escaped it to the benefit of the Americans,” he warns.
In the short term, if the European market has escaped an industrial base, it is that of France. With 2.5 billion euros in orders, France does not even reach 3% market share. Whatever. Each year, France consolidates its position as the third largest arms exporter in the world with three main customers: India, Qatar and Egypt. In 2022, its aeronautics sector, driven by the famous Rafale, captured 63% of the 27 billion euros of French equipment delivered abroad. Discussions between Dassault and Saudi Arabia, relating to the purchase of 54 French combat aircraft, could further increase France’s share of exports, or even allow it to overtake Russia.
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Provided the deal goes through. Because it was on the Eurofighter Typhoon that Riyadh had initially set its sights. For good reason: the Gulf power already has a fleet of these devices developed by Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy. But Berlin rejects this new transaction: since 2018, the German government has imposed an embargo on its arms sales to the petromonarchy due to its involvement in the war in Yemen and in the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Conclusion: “Saudi Arabia’s interest in the Rafale is perhaps just as much due to its desire to push Germany, or the United States, to unlock options. We must remain cautious about the outcome of this sale”, warns Léo Péria-Peigné, specialist in arms issues within the Center for Security Studies of the French Institute of International Relations.
New competition
In a French sector supported by 10 large groups and 4,000 SMEs or ETIs, the success of Dassault and its Rafale, as well as certain equipment manufacturers in the maritime sector, however, hides strong disparities, exacerbated by the progression of new competitors. “A certain number of international players have emerged in the land sector. The entry fee may be lower than in aeronautics, naval or space. Turkey, Israel and South Korea [NDLR : qui ambitionne de devenir le quatrième vendeur d’armes au monde] are very serious competitors, who massively support their industries to enable them to export”, notes Jean-Marc Duquesne, the general delegate of the Group of French land and air defense and security industries.
Enough to complicate the affairs of certain French groups. This is the case of the military vehicle manufacturer Arquus, formerly Renault Trucks Defense, whose export sales were disrupted in 2022. In a national context that some observers consider less buoyant than expected, the budget of 413 billion euros over seven years of the new military programming law (LPM), which establishes State spending on its armed forces from 2024 to 2030, nevertheless seems colossal. “The LPM benefits from a budget increasing by 40%, it is true, but sampled in a myriad of areas. If it allows, for example, investment in quantum and hypersonics, it is at the price “a spread of certain purchases such as the Scorpion program which aims to renew the armored vehicles of the Army. This is not likely to strengthen our industry”, regrets Léo Péria-Peigné. Who questions, in these circumstances, about France’s capacity to face a high intensity conflict.
European defense in slow motion
“New era”, “historic turning point”… Since 2022, political leaders, French and German in the lead, have no shortage of superlatives to describe the rupture represented by the outbreak of war at the gates of the European Union. In accordance with their wishes, will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have decisive effects in terms of European defense and sovereignty? Doubt seems permissible. “European actors reacted quickly and unitedly to the crisis in Ukraine. The line has been holding for eighteen months. Decisions have been taken, for example on budgetary matters. But there is much more inertia on the part of the side of the defense industrial base and institutional structures than what one might think when listening to government speeches”, notes Samuel BH Faure, lecturer in political science at Sciences Po Saint-Germain.
Especially since the coldness of Franco-German relations weighs on a host of joint projects. This is the case of the air combat system of the future, the Scaf, of the tank of the future – here also known by an acronym, the MGCS – or even of the Eurodrone, on which France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Contrary to “reassuring” speeches, these joint initiatives are slipping. Competition from American equipment acquired by several European states, first and foremost Germany, risks not helping anything.
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