2023-07-17 16:30:00
TRIBUNE/ANALYSIS – “Are the Europeans reproducing the mistakes of the United States to ‘rationalise’ the defense industry? ”. This very good question on the state of the defense industry in Europe is the title of an article originally published on the site Meta-Defense and later republished by Strategic. Let’s start by giving an overview of the referenced paper before embarking on a more in-depth analysis.
The United States, from 1993, decided to rationalize its costs in the field of defence. To do this, they merged 50 competing groups into five and, of course, reduced the number of similar equipment from several suppliers (combat aircraft, tanks, submarines, surface ships, etc.).
It created industrial monsters with such power, in a world built on lobbying, that the efficiency of the system collapsed and, for example, the Stinger missile went from $25,000 a unit to $400,000.
Obviously, the performance has not increased in proportion. Europe, as a good vassal, hastened to follow the movement and had to try, politically, to build programs in cooperation; Eurofighter yesterday for aviation and HULL (Future Air Combat System, editor’s note) today, to consider only one sector which will serve as a reference. We should therefore expect, in the long term, that the same causes produce the same effects.
And let’s add here the Ukrainian experience feedback: even if we take refuge behind the obsolescence of the equipment supplied, it is difficult to hide a pathological weakness of Western armaments against the Russians currently, but also including the Soviets, however largely exceeded.
Let’s try to analyze the basic reasons for all this. We will then try to find a way out of a very deep rut. First of all, and this is written in the article by Meta-Defense black on white, the US device was initially intended to extirpate money and allow actors to make colossal profits.
The primary objective is therefore neither performance, nor quality, nor robustness, nor utility, etc. By doing this, the system strips the defense of its immunity to what I call “the law of averages”, which holds that in a civilian market based on money, competitors all end up making the same products, for the same costs with identical performance, both technical and economic (1).
This can be observed in the automotive sector for example, woe to anyone who has forgotten the location of their supermarket parking space, all vehicles are so similar. This phenomenon was amplified, from 1990, by the introduction of the doctrine which consisted in imposing so-called dual technologies, therefore coming from civilian production, on the grounds of lowering costs. Here again, this causes an acceleration of the convergence of the actors towards the mean (see previous note). A fact which was largely verified on the European battlefield since, visibly, and this was not perceived by anyone, the Russians destroyed the Leopard tanks and the Bradleys with the same ease.
The same is and will be for long-range ammunition, wherever it comes from, and all other supplies that will benefit the Ukrainians… Nevertheless, the American strategy was not initially aimed so much at a murderous war with a great power, than to enslave the European continent. Indeed, by amortizing the development costs on a colossal production and by selling its junk at the marginal price, Uncle Sam could not find a serious rival on the opposite side of the Atlantic, no matter how good the competitor.
If we add bribes to certain corrupt countries of our continent, the creeping vassalization via NATO which, in fact and in the European treaties, that of Lisbon in particular, becomes the pillar of our defence, we could not base hopes on anything. History teaches us that our partners, all of them, get their supplies primarily from America, including when there are products in development here and even in collaboration, as we have seen with Germany, which buys the F35 then that she would like to lead the SCAF. The lobbying of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and others in Washington, finds its consequences in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and so on…
But I would now like to emphasize a crucial point that I made in my book on defense in 2008 (2). Indeed, and Meta-Defense approaches this subject in my opinion in an erroneous way: there is the question of the initial diversity of Europe in terms of armaments and, therefore, of the replication of studies and final goods. Let’s quote the article:
“For example, today, 4 European manufacturers (TKMS, Kockums, Navantia and Naval Group) design conventionally powered submarines or AIP, while 6 major naval design offices (the 4 previously mentioned as well as Damen and Fincantieri) design frigates, destroyers and large surface combatants.
The replicated R&D expenditures are obvious, and could in fact be saved in favor of more equipment for the armies, and less expenditure for governments often exposed to large public deficits.
What are we complaining about here? Duplication of R&D? That it costs too much? But what is the ultimate goal of R&D? It seems that 99% of people if not more have never asked themselves this question. Now, if you really think about it, the sole purpose of R&D is to acquire knowledge. Where then is the problem? It is very simple! What our economic system values is the sole sale of goods or services, but increasing the level of knowledge of the population or of a part of it, we do not know how to value it.
We have a terrifying example of this with the school. While France, along with the Soviet Union, had one of the best education systems in the world, successive governments scuttled it so much that a statistic produced by the administration of the JDC (Defence and Citizenship Day) officially shows that the illiteracy rate is 21%. A shame !
And again, most likely, they are indulgent! Let’s bet that if it had had a market value, we would have handled it differently. So less R&D in Europe clearly means less wealth! Because, let’s not forget, if we take the example of a missile, for project management in program management, only about fifteen people are needed, no more! If you merge a few companies, for these abilities, you will achieve a bizarre equation which is written 1 +1+… +1=1! And in addition you will create an absolute conformism.
In the end, we will find ourselves with monopolies which, as in the United States, will make rain or shine. Try to found a competitor, in France, to MBDA, Ariane Group or Dassault, you will simply be prohibited from doing so.
Another point is also worth emphasizing. The strength of Europe, not that which would be unified and federal, but that in which people speak to each other sincerely and keep their culture, is its diversity.
Unfortunately, we can almost only deliberate on it in the past, so much has the steamroller of standardization in Brussels had its effect. But suppose there’s still a little left. So, for a given problem, different approaches will allow a broader spectrum in the products designed or manufactured.
And we come to a potential response to a remark mentioned above. If we had a single adversary in a conflict, like that of the Ukraine for example, the latter would have much more difficulty in managing real diversity against it than in countering American uniformity, the goal of which, once again, is neither efficiency nor quality, etc.
In the early days of modern cryptography dating back to the mid-1970s, a Briton warned against standardizing algorithms for this essential reason, which has implications for all elements of warfare. Besides, with equal strength and armaments, what can make the difference on the battlefield? It has been known since the days of the caveman that it is intelligence. Still it is necessary to want to develop it in the populations and in the economic system of the oligarchic countries where the current priority is more the cut in regulated than to make true citizens of an authentic democracy.
This raises a question that was central to my 2008 analysis (see previous note). Knowing that R&D is not profitable, how to sustain defense companies whose activity would be focused on it and not production, the latter being relegated to a pre-war situation identified by a body politic to this? Budgetary scarcity linked to the “peace dividends” so dear to politicians (what have they done with these savings and with what results thirty years later?) has led manufacturers to have programs only sporadically.
Thus, when I began my career at Matra, this company had to wait from 1979 to 1988 to have a contract for the development of a new missile. For Dassault, it’s the same with the Rafale and perhaps the SCAF tomorrow, but the company will be amputated by 67% of its prerogatives compared to the previous project. It is quite obvious then that not only are our engineers not trained to develop, but that the interval between two notifications is such that generations pass and do not have the possibility of passing on knowledge.
To partially compensate for this, of course, there is an inflation of tariffs, if only to keep, unfortunately fragmentarily, rare, even very rare skills. Furthermore, there is no prospect of a career in a discipline which is sporadic and without a future internally to the company, not to mention that it takes place in a center of costs and not of profits, developments, even once, resulting in deficits in general. We must therefore find a solution to this which is partially described in my book Defense Logic.
I take the liberty of insisting, for those who are interested, in advising them to read Histoire de l’aviation, by B. Marck (3). You will see in this very complete book the proliferation of ideas and the French genius at work before the French aeronautical industry, in the 1960s, suffered a severe purge because of government restructuring choices to, already, make pseudo economies. And everyone knows it, stinginess always ends up generating much more expenses than generosity! Boeing recently learned this the hard way with its monumental failure of the B737 Max.
It is therefore imperative to implement a national defense industrial policy, centered on R&D, diversified, efficient, innovative, which takes risks, because after all, development does not cost very much, in such a way that it allows our country to play a different part in the concert of nations; one could even speak of a form of non-alignment, at the same time intellectual, scientific, industrial and with a geopolitical outcome. Let our European neighbors stray into vassalage, since it is better to be alone than in bad company.
And I will end with the unbearable European subjection by citing Poutine :
“If tomorrow the United States told the Europeans that they should all hang themselves, they would follow orders.
They would just timidly ask if they can hang themselves with a home-produced rope.
But even then, the Europeans would be disappointed: the Americans could not deny their textile industry such a lucrative order as ropes to hang Europeans.”
Notes :
(1) J.-F. Geneste, Thus Worked Humankind, ed. Wonderdice, 2018.
(2) J.-F. Geneste, Defense Logic: 30 Ideas in 200 pages, ed. Benevento, 2008.
(3) B. Marck, Aviation history, ed. Athaud, 2012.
*Jean-François Geneste was Scientific Director of the EADS/Airbus Group from 2008 to 2018 and professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow for two years. He is currently the CEO of the start-up WARPA.
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