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PARIS --- While Europe is still a long way from acquiring the autonomous military capabilities it has been chasing for a decade, it is finally moving to close the most glaring gaps in the range of weapons and equipment it develops and produces.
In fact, as demonstrated by the launch of two major programs this week, European industry is positioning itself to eat into several aerospace and defense monopolies long dominated by the United States.
If they are not torn apart by conflicting national interests, those two programs  the Galileo space-based navigation system and the A400M airlifter  will ultimately give Europe the only viable alternative to the U.S.-developed Global Positioning System (GPS) as well as a dominant position in the military air transport market long dominated by the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.
Washington strongly but unsuccessfully lobbied to kill both programs, arguing that there was no compelling reason for either one. It also claimed that Galileo would disrupt GPS service and that, since US aircraft were available, the A400M would divert limited European defense funds that would be better used elsewhere. Only Italy, a traditional US ally in aerospace, agreed and pulled out of the A400M.
The economic case for the A400M is particularly compelling. Since the mid-1950s, Lockheed has sold more than 2,200 C-130 Hercules transports, of which about 1,600 are still in service worldwide. To serve this captive market, the company developed the C-130J which it has sold to Australia, Britain, Denmark and Italy. But, despite its improvements, the C-130J remains a 40-year old design unlikely to seduce customers looking for an aircraft they can keep in service for another 20 or 30 years.
Thus, much in the same way Boeing will have no product to credibly compete with the Airbus A380, Lockheed will ultimately concede the lucrative C-130 replacement market to the A400M simply because it cannot fund a new aircraft on its own, while the US government has more urgent needs than to replace its own Hercules.
These are not isolated instances. European industry is also moving into other defense segments which were previously the exclusive preserve of US industry: battlefield helicopters with the NH90 and EH101; long-range air-launched missiles with the Meteor; long-range cruise missiles with the Storm Shadow, and medium-range air-defense with the Eurosam family of missiles, to name but the most significant.
While Europe is putting its energy and limited funds in long-term development programs, hoping to renew its 1970s success with Airbus airliners and Ariane rockets, the United States is pouring far larger amounts of money into programs holding far less long-term promise.
These programs are either aimed at propping up financially-troubled manufacturers (like the recent Boeing 767 tanker lease), belatedly improving older weapons already in the inventory (Patriot missiles, B-52 bombers or F-18E Super Hornet) or stubbornly developing new technologies that are unlikely to deliver promised military capabilities (the F-22 Raptor, V-22 Osprey).
To put things into perspective, the $16 billion the US Air Force will pay to lease 100 KC-767 tankers for six years is not much less than the 20 billion euros ($ 23 billion) Europe will pay to develop and build 180 A400Ms.
Even ballistic missile defense, the Bush Administration’s pet project, promises to generate little in terms of capabilities and even less in terms of long-term return on investment, despite the billions of dollars that it will absorb in development funding.
It is clear that, as its new programs enter production, Europe will have an unprecedented window of opportunity to export new weapons and aircraft without, for the first time in 50 or 60 years, any direct competition from the United States.
There is only one condition for this to happen: European governments must resist the temptation to block cooperative programs to make a political point or to gain a short-term advantage for their industry, and avoid imitating Italy’s stubborn stance on Galileo that held up the program for six months.
That is the price  and an easily affordable one  that Europe must pay if it is to reap the benefits from Washington’s mistakes in defining its defense industrial priorities.
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