The F-35 Lightning II European debut in July will be welcome, but it remains the Punch and Judy program of the defense aerospace sector, with boosters and detractors taking turns to bash each other’s argument as to the project’s value — or lack thereof. The debate, though sometime not worthy of the word, has risked…
By Douglas BarriePARIS AIR SHOW: It’s fair to say that the unabashed star of this show was the Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter. It didn’t fly much but when it did, jaws dropped. With no American military fighters, helicopters or cargo planes flying here this year, the Su-35 pretty much had the show to itself, since the European…
By Colin ClarkPARIS AIR SHOW: If you think times are tough in the United States defense world, consider that three of Europe’s biggest defense companies, where defense budgets have been on a downward trajectory for a decade, have issued a plea for help building a European medium altitude drone. In a press release sent out simulatenously in…
By Colin Clark
If the re-emergence of an assertive and occasionally belligerent Moscow was an unattractive possibility for Europeans of a cautious nature, an American president whose election campaign comments inadvertently or otherwise questioned his commitment to Article 5, the very heart of NATO, seemed unimaginable. Today, Europe is faced with both a Russia that is a strategic rival…
By Douglas Barrie