Defence Exports

Arms sales, export deals and the global defence trade.


Germany Funds 50,000 AI-Guided Drones Built to Hunt Through Russian Jamming

Germany Funds 50,000 AI-Guided Drones Built to Hunt Through Russian Jamming

Germany is financing 50,000 Ukrainian attack drones equipped with US-designed guidance software built to track moving targets after their connection to a human operator is disrupted, in one of the largest disclosed Western drone orders for Kyiv. The approximately €90 million programme combines Shrike first-person-view drones made by Ukrainian manufacturer SkyFall with Auterion Strike kits from US-headquartered defence technology company Auterion, according to Reuters. Deliveries have begun and


MGG Geopolitics

MGG Geopolitics

Canada’s TKMS Submarine Bet Comes With Strategic Costs

Canada’s TKMS Submarine Bet Comes With Strategic Costs

Canada has chosen a highly capable German submarine and a partnership that fits comfortably within its established NATO role. It has also passed up a rarer opportunity to connect its Arctic defence requirements with its ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on 6 July that TKMS had been selected as the preferred supplier for as many as 12 new submarines, beating South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean in the largest defence procurement Canada has attempted. The German shipbuild


MGG Geopolitics

MGG Geopolitics

Belgium's €3.1 Billion Skyranger Deal Puts Rheinmetall at the Centre of Europe's Air Defence

Belgium's €3.1 Billion Skyranger Deal Puts Rheinmetall at the Centre of Europe's Air Defence

Belgium confirmed a €3.1 billion air-defence package at the NATO summit in Ankara on 8 July, built around 20 Rheinmetall Skyranger short-range systems. The deal also takes in 10 NASAMS launchers and 14 Ground Master 200 radars, bought through existing Dutch framework contracts to speed delivery. Defence minister Theo Francken set out the plan as the country's first serious rebuild of a mobile air-defence layer it has largely gone without since the early 2010s. The systems are meant to cover cri


MGG Geopolitics

MGG Geopolitics

Four NATO States Order Up to Five MQ-4C Triton Surveillance Drones

Four NATO States Order Up to Five MQ-4C Triton Surveillance Drones

Denmark, Finland, Germany and Norway agreed to acquire up to five Northrop Grumman Corp. MQ-4C Triton surveillance aircraft for NATO, signing a letter of intent on Tuesday at the alliance's annual summit in Ankara. The high-altitude drones would join NATO's alliance-owned intelligence force and watch the seas from the Mediterranean to the Arctic, giving commanders a persistent maritime picture as Russian naval and submarine activity rises across the North Atlantic. Northrop would build the airc


MGG Geopolitics

MGG Geopolitics

Denmark’s P-8 Buy Shows Boeing Is Winning Europe’s Submarine-Hunting North

Denmark’s P-8 Buy Shows Boeing Is Winning Europe’s Submarine-Hunting North

Denmark is buying Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, joining a northern group of NATO allies that are standardising around the same American submarine-hunting jet as Russia’s undersea threat returns to the centre of European defence planning. Copenhagen said on Tuesday it would acquire two P-8As from Boeing to strengthen surveillance around Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Danish waters. The decision follows a US State Department approval in December for a possible sale of up to thr


MGG Geopolitics

MGG Geopolitics

Germany Expands Its Arrow 3 Shield as Europe's Air Defence Autonomy Slips

Germany Expands Its Arrow 3 Shield as Europe's Air Defence Autonomy Slips

Germany has confirmed plans for a second site for its Arrow 3 missile shield (July 1), the interceptor that will guard its cities against ballistic attack from beyond the atmosphere. The system is Israeli-led and needed American approval to be sold. It is not European, and that is the dilemma of Europe's rearmament. The continent's most ambitious territorial missile defence, fielded by its wealthiest power, is not built in Europe. Germany dreams, as the rest of the continent does, of arming it


MGG Geopolitics

MGG Geopolitics

Israel's SPYDER Keeps Winning Europe's Air-Defence Race
Photo courtesy of RAFAEL

Israel's SPYDER Keeps Winning Europe's Air-Defence Race

Romania's agreement to buy Israel's SPYDER air-defence system in a framework worth more than €2 billion, signed in late June, is the largest export contract in the history of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the second-largest deal ever recorded by Israel's defence industry. It confirms that Israeli air defence has secured a durable place in the European market, and it points to the quality that increasingly sets SPYDER apart from its competitors. The system can be sold without American permi


MGG Geopolitics

MGG Geopolitics