The Sentinel

The Sentinel is live!

Sam Wilkin — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 07:34:09 GMT

When I began writing The Sentinel last year, Substack was the right tool to get started but the ambition was always to build something of our own. My co-founder Jorden van Cann and I, along with Andy Aasen and Bernard Cortesi, have been working hard behind the scenes on the next stage of our development, which I’m delighted now to present.

The Sentinel is a B2B news and information service dedicated to Europe’s rearmament. Today we have migrated our recent coverage onto our own platform, thesentinel.eu, and we will continue to increase and diversify our output in the coming months.

Visit our new site

We provide actionable insights from across Europe on our proprietary platform. Subscribers receive customised alerts and can search our database according to topic, capability and jurisdiction. Whether you’re applying for EU funding, scoping out a merger target or assessing the competitive landscape across the continent, our tools guide you quickly to the information you need.

We’ll continue to provide some coverage for free – a mix of reporting from our correspondents across Europe, and opinion and analysis from me and a range of guest writers. Every Friday, I’ll send a newsletter summarising what we’ve published. I’ll no longer post anything here.

This week we have a story from UK correspondent Jonathan Singh on the selection process for the RAF’s new training jet; and an opinion piece from Oleksandr Danyliuk of Destinus, one of Europe’s hottest defence scale-ups, on how disjointed procurement is hindering cross-border growth.

To everyone reading this, thank you for being part of The Sentinel from the very beginning. Stay in touch, spread the word, and I’m looking forward to following this story for years to come.

Sam

The Sentinel Weekly: We’ll always have JEF

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 07:18:49 GMT

It’s difficult to imagine a less militaristic organisation than the EU. Conceived as a peace project after the Second World War, the 27-member club is the cultural opposite of an army.

Soldiers subordinate their own comfort and safety to their commander’s needs, and follow unpopular orders without hesitation; Brussels runs on consensus hashed out through endless compromises. The EU’s motto is “United in Diversity”; armies may have diverse recruits but they mould them into uniform soldiers. The only thing military about the EU is its love of acronyms.

In Brussels, getting lost in translation is a staple of dinner party jokes. On the battlefield, it can be fatal. During the Korean War, a British brigadier told his American commander that things were “a bit sticky” for his formation. Through a stiff upper lip, that means things were very bad indeed. But the American thought it meant only mild difficulty, and sent his reinforcements elsewhere.

As calls grow for Europe to develop joint command structures independent of the US, that should give leaders pause. An ‘EU army’ may eventually take shape but the constitutional arrangements would probably take decades to put into place. With Vladimir Putin stalemated in Ukraine and unable to wind down Russia’s war economy, conflict could come to EU shores long before then.

Multilateral arrangements between European countries offer a more realistic model. They have the added benefit of allowing highly capable non-EU countries like the UK and Norway – perhaps even Canada – to participate as full members; and also for EU countries to opt out without vetoing the whole enterprise.

Moreover, such structures allow forces to be assembled with limited objectives, rather than needing to come up with a full European military doctrine. It’s easier to get half a dozen countries to cooperate on Arctic warfare or long-range air defence than to get 27 to align on their entire strategy (and then try to shoehorn the UK in after the fact).

Enter JEF

The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) offers a model. Established in 2014, it groups ten northern European countries under a single command: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK which leads the group. All its members are NATO countries but that’s not a requirement: Finland and Sweden joined the JEF in 2017, before they joined NATO.

With a force of about 10,000 well equipped soldiers, JEF is designed to deploy on NATO missions but also independently. Though limited in scope, it is Europe’s only functional cross-border headquarters without Americans in the command chain, and the only joint command that could deploy immediately if NATO were to collapse.

In recent years the JEF has deployed forces to the Baltic Sea to protect undersea cables, and conducted joint air patrol exercises alongside US and Canadian forces. Last year it conducted Tarassis, a major series of combined-arms exercises involving all its member countries over a six-week period.

The JEF has also become more focused on the immediate threats to its members. Initially conceived with a mandate to strike as far afield as the Middle East – reflecting UK and NATO postures at the time – it now identifies its core “area of interest” as the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic Sea region.

Besides deterring a general war, joint commands are also important to counter growing Russian hybrid attacks, many of which occur in neutral territory such as the international waters of the Baltic Sea and North Sea. As the cost of countering such threats grows, joint commands offer a burden-sharing mechanism that is fair as well as efficient. Other capabilities such as airspace policing and cybersecurity response would similarly benefit from joint command structures in the event that NATO fails.

A major prong of Russian hybrid aggression is propaganda that seeks to turn European societies against themselves and each other. Here too, the JEF says it has a role – though perhaps out of necessity it doesn’t name its activities. “It is of vital importance to win the battle of the narrative and the JEF has an ability to manoeuvre in this area where others cannot,” its website states.

Deterrence beyond Narva

Russian aggression will remain a near-certainty for at least as long as Putin sits in the Kremlin, but there’s no consensus on what form it might take. The ‘Narva scenario’, whereby Russian troops seize a small piece of Baltic territory and dare NATO to counterattack, is now widely known in defence circles but many in the Baltics resent the implication that they couldn’t prevent it from happening.

Edward Lucas, who has covered the Baltics since the fall of the Soviet Union, described the Narva scenario as “scaremongering” this week at the launch of the Baltic International Security Centre, a new think tank. The three Baltic states have learned the lesson of Crimea in 2014 and have developed tactics to counter the ‘little green men’; and the concept of a ‘Russian-speaking community’ ready to assist the invaders is a mere Kremlin propaganda line, he said.

An escalation in hybrid attacks is a much more realistic scenario, he said, and the Baltic states have come up with the best response. Rather than deny or downplay them, as many other European countries do, Baltic countries win the support of their population by naming hostile Russian activity and taking it seriously.

Lucas identified the JEF, which includes the three Baltic countries, as a crucial pillar of their shared security in a post-American Europe, allowing them to be quickly reinforced by allies but also to share their experience from the front lines of the hybrid war. “Europe should do more of this,” he said.

JEF forces on a joint exercise. Image: Joint Expeditionary Force.

In the news

Hundreds of Spanish business executives and lawyers took part in a government consultation aiming to overhaul export rules for military and dual-use equipment.
Czechia will probably miss its target of spending 2% of GDP on defence this year, the prime minister told the Financial Times, blaming a budget shortfall on the previous government.
Poland has allocated more than €28 billion of its SAFE funds to contracts for local firms, with a large chunk going towards military vehicles and 155mm ammunition.
France has banned Israel from officially participating in a major defence trade show later this month and placed tight restrictions on its companies.
Rheinmetall has won contracts worth €5.7 billion under Romania’s portion of the EU’s SAFE program, and says will invest hundreds of millions of euros in local production.

The Sentinel Weekly: Canada walks the talk

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 29 May 2026 07:00:06 GMT

At the start of this year, Mark Carney set out in admirably clear terms how the global order has changed, and how middle powers – a group that includes European countries – can survive and prosper in this new paradigm.

A few months later, the Canadian prime minister is backing up his statement that “middle powers must act together” with a series of defence sector deals with Europe. In so doing, he has ensured that some form of Atlanticism will persist regardless of how the US acts.

European leaders are delighted to keep Canada in the club. ‘European NATO’ is the trendy phrase of the moment but when asked to spell it out, EU officials make clear that Canada is included. Evidently the more accurate term, ‘NATO without America’, was considered insufficiently diplomatic.

Canada joined the EU’s Security Action For Europe (SAFE) funding mechanism last year, securing access to joint purchasing projects and integrating its defence sector more closely with those in Europe. Regardless of geography, Canada is now more closely aligned in defence matters – from procurement to its support for Ukraine – with the EU than with its southern neighbour.

That policy came to fruition this week with Canada’s announced purchase of Saab’s GlobalEye Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) system. Besides reducing its dependence on the US, which makes the only other such system on the global market, Canada secured thousands of local manufacturing jobs and demand for the Canadian Bombardier aircraft on which the system is based.

Diplomatic offensive

The headline deals at this week’s CANSEC trade fair have been accompanied by busy diplomacy, with Ottawa playing host to senior delegations from Poland, Germany and the EU.

Poland’s defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz was in Canada this week and signed a letter of intent with his Canadian counterpart David McGuinty to deepen bilateral cooperation, the first of its kind between the two nations. The deal involves a Canadian purchase of Polish drones, as well as joint exercises between their respective armed forces.

German defence minister Boris Pistorius was also in Ottawa this week, pitching a sale of submarines made by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems in a deal that would include German assistance on a range of civilian engineering projects.

In unusually direct language for a German politician, Pistorius appeared to describe the US as a threat, as he made a pitch for closer cooperation with Canada. “Sitting in front of the White House or any other building in the world like the rabbit in front of the snake would not make us stronger. It makes us weaker,” news agency DPA quoted him as saying.

The senior Europeans who descended on Ottawa this week showed that Atlanticism isn’t dead, it’s just got a new centre of gravity. And Carney’s vision of a brotherly band of middle powers is one step closer to reality.

The German and Canadian defence ministers in Ottawa this week. Image: The Canadian Press.

In the news

Sweden will transfer 16 used Saab Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine, beginning next year, pending an anticipated order for up to 150 units in the coming years.
NATO will assign the German-Netherlands Corps to the defence of Estonia and Latvia, Reuters reported, joining the Multinational Corps Northeast, based in Poland, in defending NATO’s eastern flank.
Indra’s board of directors has appointed Renault executive Josep Maria Recasens as CEO. He will replace José Vicente de los Mozos in mid-June.
Only 9 countries are still participating in a Czech-led coalition to send artillery ammunition to Ukraine, down from 18 at its peak last year, the Financial Times reported citing an interview with President Petr Pavel
Lithuania will purchase 936 armoured vehicles from Finland’s Patria in a €1.5 billion deal as it builds out its First Division, set to become operational by 2030 with a strength of 20,000 soldiers.

The Sentinel Weekly: Nordic tough love

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 22 May 2026 07:46:07 GMT

National champions, look away now. Sweden this week rejected a bid from Saab for its biggest defence contract in decades, instead ordering four frigates from France’s Naval Group.

There are many countries in Europe where that wouldn’t happen. The stated reasons vary – local jobs, sovereign capability, military-industrial cooperation – but the effect is the same: If a national champion bids for a contract in its home market, it’s likely to win it.

The cycle is hard to break. Economic theory suggests that if one country opens its market but its neighbours don’t, it risks putting its own companies out of business: If they’re competing fairly at home but are disadvantaged abroad, they’ll win fewer contracts and lose overall market share.

The Nordic model shows that in defence, a sector with many niches, this doesn’t necessarily hold true. By exposing their companies to competitive pressure, governments can foster creativity and thereby succeed on the global stage.

Representatives of several Nordic defence companies have told The Sentinel in recent weeks that they don’t receive any favours from their national governments – and in any case, their home markets are too small to sustain them alone. They must therefore compete fairly at home and also win contracts abroad, and these challenges share a solution: Find a niche and be the best at it.

Competitive pressure

Imagine a European country needs a new tank and its neighbour already builds an excellent model. In a protected market, a local company can still win the contract – perhaps under cover of thousands of design specifications – even if the result is more expensive and worse. But of course this vehicle won’t find any buyers on the export market; ultimately, the unearned win holds the company back.

In an open market, the local company would most likely lose the bid (or might not even try). But it could partner with the tank maker to provide components, or to make a variant better suited to its climate or doctrine. Or it could go off and build something else altogether. And by definition, if these specific capabilities don’t already exist, it stands a better chance of exporting them.

This model has underpinned the success of Saab and other Nordic defence firms for decades. Consider the Gripen fighter jet developed in the 1980s. While other very good fighters were available on the global market, they did not meet a key specification for the Swedish armed forces: the ability to use a short runway.

This was a crucial operating parameter, not a specification for its own sake. Sweden’s ‘total defence’ doctrine includes being able to convert rural roads into makeshift runways so its air force can disperse in the event of an attack. If a plane can’t land short enough, it’s not fit for purpose – so Saab got the nod to develop the Gripen.

Developing a fighter jet from scratch is an expensive business. But because the Gripen was built with meaningfully distinct specifications beyond ‘made in Sweden’, it found a competitive niche in the global market. Six other countries from Brazil to Thailand now operate the Gripen, and between them they have bought more units than Sweden.

Faster development

Now, as Europe rushes to rearm, more governments may adopt the Nordic model not only because it’s efficient, but also because it’s fast. If a foreign-made platform is ready for production, that may give it a winning edge over a local alternative with a multi-year development cycle ahead of it.

This factor appears to have weighed heavily on Sweden’s decision to award its frigate contract to Naval Group. The Frégate de Défense et d’Intervention (FDI) is already in production, and Naval Group indicated that Sweden could receive the first of its four ships in 2030 – quick work for a modern warship.

Announcing the contract award, Defence Minister Pål Jonson said the quick delivery timeline factored in the decision. He also noted that the FDI, already in service with the French and Greek navies, is a “proven system” – greatly reducing the risk of development delays and cost overruns.

As for Saab, there’ll be no corks popping in Linköping this week. But if history is a guide, its engineers will soon be back at work building something distinctively useful.

A Saab Gripen lands on a road. Image: YouTube.

In the news

Air raid alerts were issued in Latvia and Lithuania over the past week as jammed Ukrainian drones strayed into their airspace, prompting political disputes.
Destinus and Rheinmetall have begun developing a precision strike drone with a range of 2,000km, a new European capability, and will begin testing next year.
German drone scale-up Stark is aiming to raise a “blockbuster” new financing round after winning a big government contract, Sifted reported.
Mercedes-Benz is considering a move into defence production, the Wall Street Journal reported, following similar conversations at Volkswagen.

The Sentinel Weekly: Winging it

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 08 May 2026 06:13:02 GMT

‘Gold-plating’ refers to the defence industry’s habit of making equipment unnecessarily complex and expensive, creating delays and cost overruns for marginal increases in performance.

There isn’t a word for the opposite, so an image will have to do. A new video released by the Ukrainian armed forces shows an airman leaning out of the back of a Soviet-era propeller-engined training aircraft with an assault rifle, and successfully engaging a series of Russian strike drones.

It’s a dramatic illustration of the gap between peacetime military procurement and the reality of total war. While planners come up with ever more complex and costly platforms to counter their rivals’ most advanced kit, much of the real fighting happens with the systems that are available, cheap to operate and easy to maintain.

In total war, there’s no such thing as obsolete. The Yak-52 would lose a dogfight with a Spitfire, and yet Ukraine has found a combat role for it. It wouldn’t last a minute against a Russian Su-27 or a MiG-29, but the enemy’s best kit can’t be everywhere at once, especially in the fifth year of a war.

Much of Western doctrine suffers from a ‘first battle bias’ that optimises for winning early engagements. Against a much inferior opponent, it can be devastating; witness the crushing of Iraqi forces in the first Gulf War. But if an enemy can survive the initial onslaught, questions of sustainability come to the fore.

In developing the Shahed drone, Iran found a successful counter to NATO doctrine. Air defences optimised for intercepting the world’s most advanced ballistic missiles can, over time, be defeated by swarms of cheap, low-tech effectors.

Ukraine and other Western powers are now developing new weapons and tactics to counter the Shahed. Russia, in turn, is modifying its strike drones – with jet engines, greater manoeuvrability, and even air-to-air missiles – to regain the edge. And so the superfast wartime innovation cycle continues.

The right tool for the job

The problems with ‘gold-plated’ equipment go beyond expense and scarcity. Sometimes it can be so highly optimised for a specific role that it’s ill-suited for others, and in this sense too the example of the Yak-52 is instructive.

Modern fighter jets engineered to fight each other can be surprisingly poor at engaging less sophisticated targets. The requirements for high maximum speed, range and manoeuvrability come with a trade-off: They’re physically incapable of flying slowly.

The F-16 can fly at more than 2,000kph but not at less than 200kph: at some point between 200-300kph (depending on variant and loadout) the wings will stall, making controlled and level flight below that speed impossible.

That makes it ill-suited to engaging a Shahed, which typically cruises below 200kph. At that speed an F-16 can’t maintain a stable firing position, giving its pilot two bad options: expend a very expensive guided missile, or try to make a difficult shot with the cannon – which is designed as a backup weapon and carries limited ammunition. (Credit here to Wes O’Donnell, whose Substack post alerted me to this dynamic and covers the technicalities in more detail.)

This dynamic can be seen in recent footage from northern Iraq, where an American F-15 overshoots a drone before trying and failing to zig-zag back behind it. The Eagle, which graced countless teenage boys’ bedroom walls, is made to look flat-footed.

The trusty Yak-52, by contrast, stalls only at around 100kph, meaning the pilot can maintain a stable position alongside a cruising Shahed and give the gunner time to take his shot.

So the Yak gunship isn’t just a cheap replacement for advanced fighter jets: For this specific role, it may actually perform better. Think of the difference between a racing motorcycle and a Vespa. The motorcycle is objectively ‘better’ in every way, until you need to make a U-turn on a narrow road.

Plugging the gap

The Yak-52 adaptation works but it’s hardly the ideal counter-drone platform. A forward-facing cannon would be preferable to a man dangling an assault rifle out of the canopy; its maximum speed is too low to catch jet-powered drones; and it’s completely defenceless if enemy aircraft show up.

Its usefulness in hunting Shaheds is surprising, but even more so is the lack of modern platforms that can do it better. O’Donnell identifies a couple of models designed for counter-insurgency work, like Brazil’s Embraer Super Toucano, but almost none of these are to be found in NATO orders of battle.

Helicopters provide another option – France has used its Tiger to intercept drones in the Gulf with cannon fire – but it’s again imperfect. With a maximum speed of just 300kph, the Tiger and similar models will struggle to close with a distant Shahed, meaning they can only really work in conjunction with strong early warning systems which can’t always be guaranteed.

The Yak gunship carries two lessons for European armed forces and defence companies. First, quantity beats gold-plating; a cheap plane in the sky is better than an expensive one on the ground. Second, a long war will bring unpredictable capability requirements. Innovation and industrial flexibility are no less important than overall production capacity.

View from the Yak’s gunner as he takes down a drone. Image: Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In the news

The UK aims to participate in the EU’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine, Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement, adding that this “would be a major step forward in the EU-UK defence industrial relationship”.
KNDS has opened a production facility in Norway with local manufacturer RITEK to produce and test the Leopard 2 A8 tanks destined for the Norwegian army.
Theon, a Greek manufacturer of optical devices mainly for infantry, aims to bring its devices to the drone market by buying Merio, a French maker of “compact, high‑performance gyrostabilised gimbal and turret systems”.
Spain’s Defence Minister Margarita Robles has called to strengthen the “European Union pillar” within NATO, affirming Spain’s commitment to the alliance while appearing to criticise the US war against Iran.
Spain is in preliminary talks to buy the Kaan fifth-generation fighter jet from Turkey as an alternative to the American F-35, Infodefensa reported citing Turkish Aerospace (TAI) CEO Mehmet Demiroğlu.

The Sentinel Weekly: Go bespoke, go broke

Sam Wilkin — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:17:32 GMT

Momentum is building across Europe to integrate the continent’s fragmented defence industries. EU funding is in place, national budgets are growing and defence giants are making splashy acquisitions.

But behind the scenes, the people trying to implement this grand ambition are running into a thicket of procurement hurdles and national preferences.

A panel discussion last Friday, co-hosted by The Sentinel and consultancy Teneo, highlighted the gap between aspiration and reality. Despite EU incentives for industrial integration and encouraging words from national governments, the speakers described how European defence spending is still getting stuck in silos, chilling competitiveness and putting a ceiling on industrial growth.

The case for consolidating Europe’s defence industries is clear. Joint procurement would give a bigger demand signal to the market, allowing companies to invest more efficiently in research and development – potentially helping them to win export orders outside Europe, too. Allied armies would be more interoperable. And sharper competition would ensure European buyers got the best possible equipment for the right price.

But among Europe’s bigger countries at least, most big contracts are still given to domestic companies. The defence sector has carve-outs from competition law, meaning there’s less need for fair and transparent procurement processes; and design requirements are often so complex, and so peculiar to each country, that outsiders can’t penetrate them.

As a result, a huge chunk of European defence spending goes on parallel R&D processes, and relatively little on production. Worse, since no country’s defence industry has continental scale, several high-end capabilities simply don’t exist and have to be outsourced to the US. By refusing to depend on each other, Europeans have created a bigger dependency on an outside power.

Artisanal production

Part of the issue is that each European country has its own military doctrine, which in turn requires different equipment specifications. While defence companies often create specific variants for export customers, Europe’s bigger countries can be so demanding that a bespoke product is required – without placing big enough orders to justify the initial R&D outlay.

Take the UK’s Ajax armoured vehicle, whose survival was confirmed this week by the Ministry of Defence. As journalist and former tank commander Mark Urban writes on his Substack, the Army imposed 1,318 specifications on the procurement, a burden so onerous that “the producer of a rival vehicle this week said they were glad they didn’t get the contract”.

All of this for an initial order of fewer than 600 vehicles – less than half a unit per design specification. It’s little wonder that Britain has so far sunk £6 billion (€7 billion) into the platform before it has even passed field testing. Short of a big export order coming in (unlikely given Ajax’s history of failed field tests), that’s more than £10 million per unit in development costs alone.

By contrast, the US has produced nearly 7,000 units of its closest Ajax equivalent, the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, since 1981. That’s an economy of scale more than ten times better than the UK’s, and the only way the UK can match it is by combining forces with its neighbours.

If Britain were a global power and Ajax a unique capability, the outlay might be justifiable. In fact, other European countries make very good infantry fighting vehicles with similar specifications – Germany’s Puma or Sweden’s CV-90, for example – that could fulfil the role if the Army were a little more flexible.

Part of the problem is that Britain has a small Army that used to be a big one, and that now lives beyond its means. During the Second World War it ordered more than 100,000 units of the Universal Carrier, a tracked and armoured troop transporter. At that scale, bespoke procurement makes sense.

A weakness for the personal shopping experience is not unique to Britain. As the Financial Times reported earlier this month, the German Navy placed more than 7,000 specifications on the design of its F126 frigate, then ordered just four of them (plus two more later). The project is now €2 billion in the hole and the lead contractor, Damen, is leaving acrimoniously. As with Ajax, perfectly viable alternatives exist on the European market.

When European countries do agree to joint procurement, it normally comes with a side order of joint production, resulting in unwieldy consortia that are often marred with culture clashes, disagreements over design specs and fights for control. The FCAS joint fighter jet is providing an example of that in real time.

In a rational Europe with a functioning single market, countries would collaborate on procurement specifications and then buy, at scale, whichever product was best. Perhaps Britain would buy German armoured vehicles and Germany would buy British frigates. At that point, Europe’s defence market would start to look a lot like America’s, and could transform defence spending into fighting power at a similar rate. But both culturally and politically, there is a long way to go.

EU incentives

The EU is trying to nudge its member states to behave more like this through a range of funding mechanisms that encourage joint R&D and production. This may achieve some success with newer technologies, where national procurement patterns are not yet baked in.

But EU officials are clear-eyed about what they can and can’t do. As Sanna Laaksonen, a member of Vice President Henna Virkkunen’s cabinet, said at The Sentinel’s event last week, the European Commission can provide incentives but it can’t tell member states how to conduct military procurement.

National sovereignty in defence is ironclad in the EU treaties. Article 346 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) provides a sweeping exemption from EU competition rules for military procurement: “any Member State may take such measures as it considers necessary for the protection of the essential interests of its security which are connected with the production of or trade in arms, munitions and war material”.

Whether through EU treaty change or some form of multilateral agreement, the decision to create a European market for defence will have to be made by national governments. They’ll need to overcome institutional resistance at home and at the same time persuade each other to act in lockstep, since lowering trade barriers unilaterally is rarely a profitable move.

As countries rush to increase their defence spending, early indications are that they’re following established patterns. In the last two weeks alone, Rheinmetall has announced a €1 billion German order for infantry equipment and another €300 million contract for drones. Almost all of Germany’s recent spending splurge has gone to domestic companies.

Europe’s military weakness does not come from lack of funds. NATO’s European members jointly spent more than China in 2025, and more than half of what the US spent. Fragmentation is what has stopped them turning that budget into fighting power – and that will be true no matter what percentage of GDP they spend.

Britain’s World War 2-era Universal Carrier.

In the news

China has placed export controls on seven European defence companies over alleged arms sales to Taiwan, preventing them from buying dual-use goods, Chinese newspaper Global Times reported.
The European Commission will draft guidelines on how the EU should act if its mutual defence clause is activated, the president of Cyprus has said.
Rheinmetall has received an order worth €1.04 billion from the Bundeswehr to provide additional units of its Infantry Soldier of the Future – Enhanced System (IdZ-ES).
Drone manufacturers in Spain, mostly SMEs, have come together to form a new industry association called Ecuas in response to disappointing growth that they blame on regulatory barriers, El País reported.
The UK is assembling a coalition of Northern European navies to form a joint maritime force that will use common platforms and systems, as well as shared digital and logistics systems, according to UK Defence Journal.

The Sentinel Weekly: Money for nothing

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 07:03:03 GMT

The wars in Ukraine and Iran are impacting US arms deliveries elsewhere and alerting European buyers to an uncomfortable fact: In the event of a contractual dispute, they have no recourse.

Defence industries around the world have a peculiar legal framework because of national security provisions, an effect exacerbated when dealing with a superpower. In past decades, the risks to European buyers have been largely theoretical and judged to be a worthwhile trade-off to access cutting-edge weaponry. That may be starting to change.

Last week, Reuters reported that US officials had told European customers that contracted weapons deliveries under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program would be delayed, including to frontline states in the Nordics and Baltics, as shipments were directed to US forces fighting in the Gulf.

Estonia’s Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said this week that US ammunition shipments for the HIMARS multi-launch rocket system were “on hold” with apparently no indication of when they might resume. “We will try to gather as much information as possible,” he said.

Compounding the problem, the US places tight restrictions on how its equipment can be used. “In the case of HIMARS, it is theoretically possible to use ammunition from other manufacturers, but that would again require permission from Lockheed Martin and the US government,” Pevkur said according to news site ERR.

No recourse

Now that shipments are coming under pressure, European buyers are starting to realise they have very little recourse against US suppliers that fail to meet their obligations, and are at risk of losing their money or having other orders halted if they try to exercise their rights.

It’s a sharp reminder of the imbalance of power in the trans-Atlantic relationship.

Last autumn, Swiss officials learned that deliveries of Patriot air defence systems would be delayed by several years due to competing demand in Ukraine, and paused payments. In response, the US simply redirected Swiss payments for F-35 jets into the Patriot budget, broadcaster SRF reported last month – something it can easily do under the FMS program.

This structure, peculiar to the defence sector, in effect puts the combined market power of the US arms industry behind each individual contract, leaving buyers outmatched in any contractual dispute.

“Well over CHF100 million” (€109 million) was redirected from the F-35 to the Patriot budget, SRF reported. It interviewed a senior procurement official, Urs Loher, who “told SRF how much money has already been shifted. But under pressure from US authorities, he can no longer disclose the exact figure.”

The reallocation of funds “is very unsatisfactory”, SRF quoted Loher as saying. It also reported that the US had raised the total price of the Patriot contract by 50% since signing it, to about 3 billion francs.

A bird in the hand

The current supply squeeze and the longer-term Atlantic divergence are starting to have an effect on European decision-making.

“It’s frustrating when we impose a payment freeze and the money is simply redirected,” SRF quoted Werner Salzmann, a senator from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, as saying. “We need to think carefully about whether we want to keep signing such agreements.”

In Estonia, a former top general said that a delay of more than three years for the HIMARS ammunition should prompt a rethink. “If it goes beyond that, then alternatives should be examined,” ERR quoted Martin Herem as saying. “Fortunately, Estonia has signed a contract with Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace, which could provide either relief to this problem or even a replacement.”

And Denmark this week signed a contract for the SAMP/T NG air defence system, a rival to the Patriot made by Thales and MBDA. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had earlier this year announced a preference for good equipment that arrives quickly over excellent systems that might not: “If we can’t get the best equipment, buy the next best”. The order, announced last September, marks the first sale of the Franco-Italian system outside its home countries.

Permission to engage

Restrictions on how equipment can be used are also becoming more problematic for European buyers. Even without President Donald Trump’s threats to take Greenland by force, events have shown the problem of European states not having full sovereign control of their arsenal.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US blocked the Netherlands and Denmark from donating their F-16s for several crucial months. Two years later, it continued to restrict the use of certain British and French missiles because they contain some American components. Buying American weapons does not mean owning them.

The risk is clear. If Vladimir Putin attacks NATO territory, the US may fail to intervene, which would be harmful enough. But the US is also within its rights to stop its weapons being used to fight back – assuming they’ve been delivered at all.

European leaders need to think about that scenario, and how much they’re willing to pay to avoid it.

Estonian troops on exercise with a HIMARS system. Image: EDF.

In the news

Mediators have failed to break the deadlock between Dassault and Airbus over the future of FCAS. Germany’s Boris Pistorius wants a decision “this week” as Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron meet.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has cast doubt on whether NATO’s Article 5 would be respected, and urged the EU to work towards a common defence policy, in an interview with the FT.
Airbus and Thales are working with Poland’s Radmor to build a dedicated satellite for the Polish armed forces.
Korea’s Hanwha is setting up a new entity in Germany to produce ammunition, air defence, artillery and strike weapons.
Rheinmetall has received a German order for drones worth an initial €300 million, under a framework potentially worth billions.

The Sentinel Weekly: Beyond the new thing

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:11:43 GMT

A €500 million procurement decision by a European country bordering Russia gives a good sense of how the industry might evolve in the coming years.

But this is not a story about Estonia’s decision to redirect half a billion euros from infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to drones. What’s arguably more interesting is Finland’s decision to spend the same amount of money to double its stock of self-propelled artillery.

The parallel decisions, both by countries preparing seriously for a high-intensity war, show that the shift to drones is real but is not the whole picture. Estonia will upgrade its existing IFVs rather than replacing them. And the Finns are doubling down on a technology that evolved alongside the battle tank and defined Cold War land doctrine.

Drones are the new, shiny thing; in the past five years they have gone from being a niche system to a core pillar of combined arms warfare. It’s rational that money is pouring in as armies rush to build up their capabilities from zero. Once that’s done, however, attention will shift back to legacy systems that are still relevant, and that will need to be produced in much greater numbers to sustain a full-scale war effort.

Drones in demand

Late last week, Estonia’s defence minister said the country was cancelling a €500 million procurement program for new armoured vehicles and instead directing the budget to air defence and drones. “We are keeping up with what we are learning from Ukraine,” Hanno Pevkur said according to news site ERR. “The focus is on countering drones, air defence and unmanned systems.”

Across the continent, drone procurement is in the headlines. Last month the Dutch forces said drone and counter-drone units would be integrated into every formation. British commandos this week demonstrated how cargo drones could improve the mobility of heavy weapons teams in difficult terrain. Everyone wants long-range strike drones, and cheap interceptors to counter them.

Note how drones in most cases are augmenting existing capabilities, not replacing them. Similarly, Estonia is not removing armoured vehicles from its order of battle; it’s merely delaying upgrades to spend its budget on a more pressing need. Nobody is going all-in on drones.

Talk of the end of legacy systems is most likely overstated. From fiat currency to email, tech bros have a track record of wrongly declaring the end of things. More often, they continue to exist alongside their supposed replacements.

The obituary of the battle tank has been written before, after the introduction of attack helicopters and anti-tank guided missiles. And yet new defensive systems and tactics evolved to keep it relevant. As it turns out, a big gun on a protected mobile platform is a useful tool in many scenarios.

SPARTY time

Similarly, Finland appears to have calculated that self-propelled artillery (SPARTY for fans of military acronyms) will continue to be useful in the coming decades. A day after the Estonian drone news, the Finnish defence ministry announced the purchase of an additional 112 K9 howitzers from Korea for almost €550 million, more than doubling its stock.

Self-propelled guns were first used at scale in the Second World War, providing heavy fire support to mechanised formations. During the Cold War, advances in counter-battery fire, whereby an enemy could detect the source of incoming shells and shoot back with their own artillery, led in turn to ‘shoot and scoot’ tactics to reposition guns after each salvo. This reduced the usefulness of towed guns, which are slow to redeploy.

Modern self-propelled howitzers like the K9 can fire NATO standard 155mm shells up to 40km, well beyond visual targeting and at the limit of FPV drones’ operational range. Combined with mobility and decent armour, this makes them hard to kill so long as the airspace is at least contested.

This appears to have factored into Finland’s decision. The defence ministry noted the K9’s “good off-road and road mobility” and said the new purchase would “partially replace aging towed artillery equipment”.

A few weeks ago, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger drew unfavourable media coverage for his disparaging comments about the limitations of Ukrainian drones. “This is not the technology of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, or Rheinmetall,” he said, provoking particular criticism for an ill-considered reference to “Ukrainian housewives” assembling drones at the kitchen table.

But while his tone was objectionable, Papperger’s message had a ring of truth to it. Once the novelty of drones fades, modern armies will still be buying tanks, planes and guns. And, if war comes, lots and lots of ammunition.

A K9 self-propelled gun in Norway. Image: Norwegian Defence Ministry.

In the news

Rheinmetall has agreed to form a joint venture with Destinus to scale production of strike missiles, the two companies announced. The new company will be 51% owned by Rheinmetall and based in Germany.
Small arms maker Colt CZ has joined fellow Czech company CSG in listing on Euronext Amsterdam, alongside its existing listing on the Prague Stock Exchange, it said in a statement.
The European Commission is planning new guidelines on merger control that would relax restrictions and encourage the creation of “European champions” to rival giant US and Chinese firms, the Financial Times reported citing a draft it had seen.
French helicopter gunships have shot down Iranian Shahed drones in the Gulf using their 30mm nose cannon, Defense News reported, in a display of relatively low-cost interception capability.
Germany has pledged to spend an additional €4 billion on assistance for Ukraine, buying a mix of US and German equipment with a focus on air defence and long-range strike capabilities, the Kyiv Post reported.
Belgium and Spain will each donate €1 billion in military equipment to Ukraine, Defence Minister Mikhail Fedorov said after talks with his counterparts Theo Franken and Margarita Robles, DS News reported.

The Sentinel Weekly: Whisper ‘conscription’

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:11:03 GMT

News this week of apparent German restrictions on male citizens’ travel does not mark an imminent return to conscription, but it does show that leaders are starting to think about whether and how military service should be introduced to populations used to peace.

As with most topics related to European defence, each country is doing things its own way.

German media reported over the weekend that men aged between 18 and 45 would need permission from a military careers centre to leave the country for more than three months. The provision, which previously went unnoticed, is in the small print of a new military service law that took effect at the beginning of this year.

Reading beyond the headline, it appears that the law is intended to keep track of men who might be called up in case of emergency, rather than to restrict their movements in the present moment. In practice, the military must grant the permission if “no specific military service is expected during the period in question,” news agency DPA quoted an official as saying.

The public appears to have understood the nuance. A German friend in Brussels reports that the story is not a big topic of conversation among his friends back home, who are subject to the provision.

Still, it’s notable that lawmakers chose to frame the requirement as seeking permission to travel, rather than simply notifying the authorities of one’s movements. That suggests they may be starting to introduce the idea that citizenship brings obligations as well as entitlements – an alien concept to the majority of living Europeans.

The new German rules do not impose military service on anyone, but require male citizens turning 18 to attend a recruitment centre and answer a questionnaire covering their education, health, and willingness to serve. Women may choose to attend and volunteer. The hope is to raise the number of active-duty soldiers to 260,000, from 180,000 now.

The path to more intensive recruitment is clear. By 2035, the German armed forces will have records of every male citizen aged 18 to 27. Some will have completed basic training, and all will at least have seen a military facility and exchanged a few words with a recruiting sergeant. And the authorities will have some idea of who is healthy and likely to respond positively to a voluntary call-up.

Finnish fortitude

Other European countries impose a range of requirements, from compulsory military service to no requirement at all, through a whole spectrum of intermediate measures including targeted recruitment, voluntary service and civic alternatives.

Finland has the most comprehensive system, with a longstanding requirement for all men to complete an initial period of service and then remain in the reserves until age 60, with periods of active service throughout; women can volunteer to do the same.

This means that Finland, with a population of less than 6 million, has only around 24,000 full-time military personnel but can quickly increase this to around 280,000 trained reservists in wartime. In a desperate situation, it can call on up to 900,000 people with at least some history of military service.

Finland’s approach reflects its geography and history, and can’t necessarily be replicated elsewhere. It fought an existential defence against the Soviet Union in 1939-40, eventually ceding territory but inflicting enough damage to ensure its survival as an independent state. Its border with Russia is more than 1,300km long, the longest of any European country bar Ukraine.

Ramping up, slowly

Neighbouring Sweden puts more of a focus on civil defence and resilience, which it frames as an active duty of all citizens. Nevertheless, it has a compulsory questionnaire for citizens turning 18 – similar to the German approach, but treating women the same as men – which it uses to identify the most suitable candidates to invite for service.

Several other European countries including Greece, Austria and Denmark have compulsory service. No two countries are quite the same: some apply equally to men and women while others have stricter requirements for men; some have an alternative option for civic service, while others require all healthy citizens to undergo military training.

Across Europe, requirements are gradually getting more stringent. Denmark extended the draft to women for the first time in 2025, and also lengthened the standard service period from four to 11 months. Earlier this year, Croatia reintroduced compulsory service for men for the first time since 2008.

Nonetheless, training is not the same as going to war. Last November, France’s top general sparked a backlash by saying that the country must be ready to “lose its children” in the event of war with Russia, lamenting that society lacked “the spirit to accept suffering in order to protect who we are”.

Across Europe, polls have shown historically low proportions of young people willing to fight to defend their country. As the continent prepares to deter Russia without America, the first battle is for the spirit of its citizens.

German recruits in fitness training. Image: Bundeswehr/Tom Twardy.

In the news

Fire Point is working with other European companies to develop an interceptor that can destroy ballistic missiles for a unit cost of less than $1 million (€860,000), Reuters reported after interviewing its co-founder Denys Shtilierman.
Russian submarines spend a month in British waters carrying out covert surveillance of undersea cables and pipelines, UK Defence Secretary John Healey said.
NATO’s Allied Air Command is calling on defence companies to develop new technologies to detect airborne threats, UK Defence Journal reported, following drone incursions into Poland last year.
France plans to spend an additional €36 billion on defence between now and 2030, bringing its total budget to around 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade, Reuters reported. It will build up stocks of strike missiles, air-defence interceptors and artillery shells.
Czechoslovak Group (CSG) has won contracts worth $2.5 billion (€2.1 billion) to deliver air defence systems to countries in Southeast Asia, through its export subsidiary Excalibur International, it said in a statement.
Romania’s Mangalia Shipyard, the country’s only facility capable of building military vessels, has gone bankrupt, newspaper Ziarul Financiar reported.
Wild Hornets, a Ukrainian maker of FPV drones and interceptors, has claimed to have destroyed two Shahed strike drones from a range of more than 500km using new remote control technology, DS News reported.

The Sentinel Weekly: Age of the Shahed

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 07:33:52 GMT

The cost ratio of intercepting a Shahed drone, as we learned in the opening days of the Iran war, can be more than 1,000 to 1. This week we learned the potential cost of not intercepting one, and it’s more. A lot more.

Last Friday, Iran destroyed an American E-3 Sentry aircraft on the tarmac at the Prince Sultan Air Base, deep inside Saudi Arabia. Besides its own role in air defence, this airborne warning and control system (AWACS) plane had a price tag of about $300 million in the 1990s, and could cost double that to replace today.

Iran said a Shahed was used, and the US has not contradicted that claim. The Iranian strike drone, also used extensively by Russia in Ukraine, can be manufactured for as little as $20,000 – more than 10,000 times less than the target it destroyed.

Economic targets are just as vulnerable. On Monday, a Shahed struck and set ablaze a Kuwaiti oil tanker laden with crude oil as it lay at anchor off the coast of Dubai. As Phillips O’Brien has pointed out, the total cost is in the same bracket as an AWACS: about $150 million for the ship, and $200 million for its cargo. And there are perhaps 200 tankers trapped in the Gulf.

While the Shahed has caused trouble for Ukraine, the Gulf theatre shows the full extent of its transformative power. It has brought a large number of soft, expensive targets into range which cannot all be adequately defended with current systems. And unlike missiles it can be built in a garage, meaning its production cannot be halted by air power alone.

Rush for countermeasures

The race is on to find a reliable and cost-efficient countermeasure, both to meet demand in the Gulf and to limit the effectiveness of strike drones in any future conflict. And while the initial developments are taking place in the military domain, the vulnerability of critical infrastructure will eventually require a broader societal response.

In the purely military sphere, companies are developing a range of systems to detect, track and engage strike drones at scale, without scrambling fighter jets or expending multimillion-euro interceptors each time.

Young European companies are developing low-cost interceptor missiles and drones designed primarily to hit Shahed-like targets for a few thousand euros per fire. Germany’s Quantum Systems has partnered with Ukraine’s WIY Drones to scale production of the latter’s Strila interceptor – and won a contract to supply 15,000 of them to Ukraine.

The biggest companies are also taking part. Airbus this week tested an autonomous aircraft, Bird of Prey, designed to search and destroy strike drones. Armed with low-cost Mark 1 missiles built by Estonian start-up Frankenburg Technologies, the Bird of Prey can potentially destroy up to eight Shaheds in a single sortie before landing safely for reuse.

Early detection is a key component of successful interception, and here Europe’s fragmentation is a weakness. Europe’s various armed forces currently lack the ability to coordinate effectively with each other, especially in a scenario without American leadership through NATO, reducing the chance of strike drones being tracked and intercepted as they overfly several territories.

The bomber will always get through

Coordination will also have to improve between the military and civilian domains, recognising that the armed forces will not be able to intercept every drone in a conflict at scale. In 2022, Ukraine introduced an app called Eppo which allowed civilians to flag drone and missile sightings to the Air Force, rounding out an often incomplete radar picture.

Civilians may have a role to play in defeating drones, as well as detecting them. Strike drones carry a smaller payload than ballistic missiles, and their effectiveness can be significantly reduced by measures as simple as reinforcing structures. Since early in the war, Ukrainian critical infrastructure has been hardened in this way.

More recently, Ukraine has authorised civilian infrastructure operators to buy and operate air defence systems. In coordination with the Air Force, employees of a power plant or train station can shoot down inbound strike drones – and have begun successfully to do so in recent weeks, Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said this week.

The idea is beginning to catch on elsewhere in Europe. The Czech government is considering giving infrastructure operators the authority to use air defence systems – to counter both strike drones and smaller, locally operated models that can disrupt airports or conduct surveillance of strategic locations.

Too late for the Gulf

Bringing new countermeasures online will take time. Back in the Gulf, the US and its allies seem to have no answer to the Shahed. That leaves three scenarios: a continuation of the status quo, a negotiated peace to Iran’s advantage, or an escalation into a ground war.

All three of these scenarios will leave the Strait of Hormuz closed, oil prices high, American credibility degraded and NATO under pressure. Vladimir Putin will be flush with cash and eager to press his advantage – meaning Europe has no time to lose.

The total loss of an AWACS plane caused by a Shahed drone. Image: OSINTtechnical/X.

In the news

Cross-border defence procurement deals are more likely to succeed if companies commit to manufacturing in the target market, Belgium’s defence minister Theo Francken said.
The EU’s External Action Service is planning to issue guidance on how Article 42.7 of the EU treaty – the bloc’s equivalent to NATO’s Article 5 – can be activated, Euractiv reported.
Ukraine’s air defences shot down 89.9% of Russian drones and missiles in March, the defence ministry said, up from 85.6% in February.
The European Defence Agency (EDA) has hired Anders Sjöborg as its deputy chief executive, whose roles will include increasing support for joint procurement.
Poland’s state arms manufacturer PGZ is to build anti-drone interceptors developed by Estonian startup Frankenburg Technologies in order to scale up production.
Slovakia produced hundreds of thousands of artillery shells last year, and has increased its exports by 2,200% in the past four years, Bloomberg reported.

Local jobs key to cross-border deals, Francken says

Sam Wilkin — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:27:39 GMT

Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken tours Theon’s facility in Zaventem. Image: Theon International.

Cross-border defence procurement deals are more likely to succeed if companies commit to manufacturing in the target market, Belgium’s defence minister has said.

Theo Francken was speaking at the inauguration of a new facility outside Brussels owned by Greek optics maker Theon, built to service a joint German-Belgian order that it won last year.

“When I get a €4 billion budget, the first thing people ask is ‘what’s in it for us?’,” Francken said. If a supplier commits to opening a local production line, “that’s what I need to hear: jobs, jobs, jobs.”

While EU policymakers push to integrate the bloc’s defence market, big contracts still tend to be awarded to national producers. A bumper German drone contract, worth an initial €540 million, was this year split between two German companies: Helsing and Stark. The UK is persisting with Ajax, an armoured vehicle project that has repeatedly failed field tests, at least in part to preserve manufacturing jobs.

Francken joked that he always enjoyed opening factories in Belgium, but this occasion was even sweeter for being in his home constituency of Zaventem. “I’m a politician,” he grinned.

Greeks bearing goggles

Today’s ceremony marked the formal opening of Theon’s Belgian subsidiary, following its winning bid in September to manufacture its clip-on thermal imaging device, IRIS-C, for the German and Belgian armed forces. The device attaches to a soldier’s helmet and can detect people and vehicles at night or through cover.

“The European defence industry is fragmented,” said Theon CEO Christian Hadjiminas. “Every nation, understandably, has the desire to support its own industry... there’s no optimisation.”

Nevertheless, he said, the deal shows that there’s room for relatively small European defence companies to win big cross-border contracts. Besides the commitment to manufacture in Belgium, he also credited cross-border procurement agency OCCAR with bringing the deal together.

OCCAR, formed in 2001, coordinates the procurement of defence equipment between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, sometimes with guest nations also participating. Its projects include the A400M transport aircraft and the Boxer armoured vehicle.

Theon hopes that its new Belgian facility can eventually develop into an export hub for future contracts across Europe, Hadjiminas said. “Here is the example of where Europe should be going.”

Thank you for reading The Sentinel. In the coming weeks we will migrate to our own platform and launch our regular news coverage, with lots of stories like this one alongside our weekly analysis. Subscribe now to be notified when we’re live.

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The Sentinel Weekly: Hungarian roulette

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:31:42 GMT

A scuppered loan to Ukraine, allegations of leaking sensitive information to Russia, a delayed SAFE package, and that’s just the past week.

The Hungarian government is clashing with the EU on every front, and Viktor Orbán’s success or failure in retaining power next month will have a major effect on the bloc’s ability to act cohesively on questions of geopolitics and rearmament.

The election on 12 April will pit Orbán’s Fidesz party against the Tisza party led by Péter Magyar, a former ally who broke away from Fidesz in 2024 alleging widespread corruption. Tisza is leading in the polls but observers worry that Orbán, who has centralised power during his 16 years as prime minister, could use his control of state institutions to remain in power.

In recent months, Magyar has criticised the government’s close relations with Moscow and vowed to break Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy. He is not as closely aligned with Ukraine as some European leaders, but would be much less likely to unilaterally block Ukraine-related policies if he becomes prime minister.

By contrast, recent developments suggest that Orbán could make things even more difficult for the EU’s policy on Russia and Ukraine. Many in Brussels appear to have adopted a strategy of ‘wait until after the election’, both in the hope that Magyar wins, and to avoid letting Orbán play the martyr to EU overreach ahead of the vote.

Semper Fidesz

At last week’s EU Council summit, Orbán blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine after previously agreeing to it in December. All 26 other members agreed to the measure, including other occasional Ukraine holdouts Slovakia and Czechia, meaning Orbán’s veto was the only spoiler.

EU leaders gave unusual expressions of anger. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the loan was blocked “because one leader is not honouring his word”, and pledged to find a workaround. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz described Orbán’s actions as “a gross act of disloyalty”.

In an interview with Contexte this week, Council President António Costa said Orbán’s behaviour was a “clear violation of the principle of sincere cooperation” and hinted at a potential need to change the Council’s rules: “it’s up to the lawyers to understand what the effect of these violations is”.

The EU’s mistrust of Orbán’s government deepened further this week when security officials alleged in the Washington Post that foreign minister Péter Szijjártó routinely calls his Russian counterpart during breaks in Council meetings to give him “live reports on what’s been discussed”.

The passing of information to Moscow was already widely suspected at a senior level. “We’ve had our suspicions about that for a long time,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on X after the report. “That’s one reason why I take the floor [at the EU Council] only when strictly necessary and say just as much as necessary.”

Tusk’s comments suggest that, beyond the ability to block certain measures outright, Hungary’s presence as a Russian ally in the EU Council has a broader effect of suppressing debate and the sharing of sensitive information.

That suppressive effect may spread further after a phone call between a Politico journalist in Brussels and a senior European Commission official was compromised earlier this month. On 25 March Politico acknowledged that the recording, published on YouTube on 16 March, was genuine. The conversation concerned the Druzhba pipeline, whose supply of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia has been halted due to damage in Ukrainian territory.

Both the Commission, which issues secure mobile devices to its employees, and Politico have said they found no evidence of a security breach. At the time of writing there is no information about how the leak occurred or who is behind it.

Playing it SAFE

The EU has taken limited steps to punish Hungarian obstructions. The Commission notably neglected this week to approve Hungary’s bid for SAFE defence funding. It approved the French and Czech plans, which had been delayed, leaving Hungary alone among the 19 applicants to still be waiting for the green light.

Further measures may be necessary to prevent Hungary blocking or otherwise disrupting EU policymaking if Orbán wins the election. Law changes are not out of the question and have been done before: In 2022 the EU changed its rulebook to withhold billions of euros from Hungary and Poland over rule of law violations.

“I think everyone has asked their legal services to check,” Contexte quoted Costa as saying in reference to Orbán’s veto of the Ukraine loan last week. “There is always a way to overcome the contradiction and to find the more coherent solution [in line] with the sense of the treaty.”

Viktor Orbán in Brussels in 2023. Image: Reuters.

In the news

British forces are ready to board and detain Russian shadow fleet tankers in UK waters, the defence minister has said.
Two people have been arrested on charges of spying for Russia after allegedly surveilling a person in Germany who supplied drones and their components to Ukraine, Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
Russia is shipping lethal support including drones to Iran, the Financial Times reported citing officials briefed on Western intelligence reports.
Poland is exploring various multilateral defence financing mechanisms alongside its €44 billion share of the EU’s SAFE loans, its finance minister has said according to Reuters.
Volkswagen is in talks with Rafael, which builds Israel’s Iron Dome system, to switch production at one of its car plants to air defence assets, the Financial Times reported citing two people familiar with the plan.
The Dutch armed forces will add drone and counter-drone capabilities to their combat formations from April and work more closely with industry, their top commander has said.

The Sentinel Weekly: Ukraine’s route to market

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 08:49:43 GMT

As Europe rushes to build an independent military capability, forging a deeper industrial partnership with Ukraine is high on the agenda. Ukraine’s wartime economy is in many ways ahead of the EU’s, with the cruel logic of necessity powering fast innovation cycles and production at scale.

But those same wartime dynamics also create obstacles to closer integration: The blurred line between military and civilian life in Ukraine can’t be replicated in countries that aren’t at war, while Ukrainian companies’ operational secrecy can make it hard for them to find partners in Europe.

Plugging Ukrainian innovation into EU supply chains could create commercial opportunities as well as strategic resilience. The Iran war has created huge global demand for cheap interceptors, a technology at which Ukraine excels. Moreover, much of this demand comes from the GCC countries that may, as Michael Stephens wrote for RUSI this week, seek to diversify their foreign relations given the harm that America’s war has brought down upon them.

Europe’s need to replace American capabilities has also become more urgent as a result of events in the Gulf. Vladimir Putin’s war chest is replenished thanks to the surge in oil and gas prices; and Donald Trump, who fails to grasp the difference between a treaty obligation and a war of choice, is more likely to shirk the defence of a European NATO ally after they unanimously declined to commit forces to the Gulf.

Drone leadership

Ukraine’s technological lead is greatest in drones of all kinds, from naval drones to air defence interceptors to strike drones of various ranges. It has scaled production so rapidly that it may soon be able to sell various models without undercutting its own needs, or simply licence further production in the EU market.

“Ukraine’s wartime drone innovation is remarkable,” said Raluca Csernatoni, a research fellow at Carnegie Europe, at an event this week organised by France’s Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM). She noted that Ukraine produced around 3.5 million drones last year – more than 10,000 a day – and that number could increase to 7 million this year.

It has also developed command and control (C2) systems that integrate this new technology and respond to novel threats being deployed in the high-intensity war. Other European countries’ C2 systems “are not adapted to this level of threat”, Elisa Royer, a defence policy advisor at the European External Action Service, told the same event.

The European Commission is eager to close the gap, the better to help Ukraine but also to shore up the EU’s own defences. Its Action Plan on Drone and Counter Drone Security, published last month, foresees a ‘Drone Alliance’ with Ukraine to develop a joint industrial ecosystem, and groups Ukraine alongside EU member states in its call to develop drone detection capabilities.

When it comes to drone production, “Ukraine is considered a quasi-member state … this is the political guidance,” Royer said. The aspiration is that “when someone buys Ukrainian, they buy European”.

Hurdles to integration

Nevertheless, it’s not always straightforward for Ukrainian companies to expand into EU countries, form partnerships there, or participate in EU projects.

Most drone manufacturers are first and foremost small businesses, with limited budgets and administrative capacity. That puts some EU and NATO projects, which require a presence in a member state, out of reach: Hiring someone to open an overseas office or hack through EU bureaucracy means one less engineer on the payroll.

Another issue is the low profile kept by many Ukrainian companies for reasons of operational security. A senior European officer who recently visited Ukraine told The Sentinel he had met companies producing large quantities for drones that effectively “don’t exist”, so low is their public profile.

Corporate governances rules in the EU would prevent any completely invisible company from operating there. But even in less extreme cases, Ukrainian companies that have a registered address and identifiable directors may still struggle to form partnerships elsewhere in Europe if their profile is too low to build familiarity and trust.

“The more visibility you have, the more people trust you,” said Julia Petryk, CEO and co-founder of Calibrated, a communications agency that works for Ukrainian defence companies. “Companies are thinking about controlled visibility,” trying to make themselves known to potential partners without presenting a target to Russia.

Some people in the EU may resist Ukrainian integration for a simpler reason: The market entry of more agile players could upset existing ways of doing business and harm entrenched interests, just as the fear of cheap grain production led many in the EU’s farming sector to resist Ukrainian accession.

Ukraine’s drone industry has brought its innovation cycle down to about four months, noted Liuka Lobaryeva, another co-founder at Calibrated. “This is something Europe is not ready for.”

A low-cost Ukrainian interceptor drone. Image: Militarnyi.

In the news

The planned sale of EM&E to Indra has collapsed after Indra’s state investor SEPI raised objections due to overlaps in their ownership and leadership structures. Ángel Escribano, who co-owns EM&E, had refused SEPI’s demand that he step down as president of Indra, El País reported.
European countries have unanimously refused US President Donald Trump’s request to send warships to the Gulf. “Washington did not consult us,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said. “We would have advised against it.”
France and Germany will make a final attempt to mediate between Airbus and Dassault to secure the future of the FCAS joint fighter jet project, President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday at an EU summit. A German official said a deal must be reached by mid-April to avoid complicating budget decisions.
The UK, Finland and the Netherlands plan to create a mechanism for joint financing and procurement of military equipment. “By joining forces, we get more security with the same resources and we strengthen our alliances as well,” Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen said.
Danish soldiers made preparations to resist a US invasion of Greenland in January, flying out bags of blood and explosives to blow up runways, public broadcaster DR reported this week.
Poland is interested in joining the GCAP joint fighter jet program alongside the UK, Italy and Japan, a minister told state broadcaster TVP. The UK indicated that it was open to expanding the consortium, UK Defence Journal reported.

The Sentinel Weekly: Hack for victory

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 08:23:01 GMT

Generals are always preparing to fight the last war, as the saying goes. The US and its allies in the Gulf spent the first week of this month lobbing Patriot missiles – $4 million a pop – at $20,000 Iranian drones, after four years of observing the threat of massed, low-tech drone attacks on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Four years is several innovation cycles for a country at war. Ukraine has developed and deployed low-cost interceptors to counter Shahed drones, which the US may now buy. Its drone production has surged nearly 1,000-fold since 2022. The pattern repeats through history even for leading powers: Equipment and tactics changed dramatically from 1914 to 1918, and from 1939 to 1945.

Now innovators around the world, including Europe, are trying to bring some of that urgency to the defence sector before the shooting starts by borrowing a concept from the world of tech: the ‘hackathon’.

‘Hacking’, in this context, doesn’t mean breaking into computer systems. It means bringing people together to solve a technical challenge through brainstorming, collaboration and fast iteration of ideas. Over an intense day or two, participants will go from having a vague idea of a problem to pitching a solution.

Defence tech hackathons are springing up all over Europe, sometimes with the armed forces in attendance. There was one in Tallinn two weeks ago, another in Rzeszów last weekend, and one in Brussels starting tomorrow. Earlier this week, the Belgian navy sponsored a hackathon in the port of Zeebrugge for the second year – this time overlooking a captured Russian shadow fleet tanker.

“Hackathons are a very useful way of getting people to work together,” said Leo Exter from Hack Belgium Labs, the organiser of the Zeebrugge event. “Working towards a pragmatic result, limited in scope and under time pressure, has the capacity to get people into teamwork mode very quickly and very efficiently.”

It was not an occasion for startups to pitch their products, since the focus was on coming up with entirely new ideas. Most of the participants were employees of larger companies, contributing in a personal capacity; some were in uniform. The only prize on offer was a day at sea with the navy.

Outside the box

It’s rare to see uniforms and scruffy sneakers in the same room, but the naval brass was well aware of the problems with slow military procurement and how the tech sector could help.

“We cannot rely on systems from yesterday,” said Admiral Tanguy Botman, the head of the navy. “We need people who dare to think differently, outside our military box.”

Participants were thrown into teams and quickly started brainstorming broad problems such as how to make military procurement processes more accessible, or translating operational needs into technical requirements. The overall mission was to improve maritime security, both for a wartime scenario and for the hybrid warfare that is already taking place.

“Naval is the domain most vulnerable to grey zone attacks,” said Yves Van Seters from the Antwerp Maritime Academy, who was facilitating the event. Civilian ships, energy infrastructure such as wind farms, communication cables, and ports are all vulnerable to attack or disruption, he noted.

Ideas ranged from specific technical innovations, such as a shared sensor cloud between the navy and merchant shipping, to more abstract ideas around streamlining the military tendering process or creating a ‘speed-dating’ platform to match procurement needs with civilian innovations.

There are no bad ideas, Exter said. The process is intended to bring together people with a range of backgrounds, encourage them to think creatively, and find solutions that may even go beyond the scope of the original problem.

The military may not adopt new ideas as quickly as a hackathon can conceive them but the process does make a difference, said Cdr. Michel Eyckmans, an Innovation Officer representing the navy at the event. Last year’s winning idea, a pop-up navy recruitment centre in a mobile shipping container, is currently undergoing a feasibility study. “There’s a good chance it will be built,” Eyckmans said.

This week’s hackathon in Zeebrugge. Image: Belgian Navy.

In the news

A factory in Spain owned by Czechoslovak Group (CSG), has been suspended indefinitely from bidding for NATO contracts as part of a corruption investigation into the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) begun last year, El País reported.
The US on Thursday lifted sanctions on Russian oil in an attempt to keep a lid on global prices, which soared above $100 a barrel on Monday due to the market disruption caused by the US attack on Iran. Brent crude has since stayed around the $100 level.
Dozens of Ukrainian instructors will train German soldiers in disciplines including gunnery, engineering and drone warfare, Reuters reported citing an interview with German army chief Lt. Gen. Christian Freuding.
The European Parliament this week called for a more integrated single market for defence through increased and longer-term EU funding for defence projects, common procurement, simplified regulations, and incentives for cross-border projects within the EU.
Leonardo’s UK subsidiary has agreed to buy Becrypt, which builds secure operating systems, mobile device management, and data transfer applications. It expects regulatory approvals to be completed within Q2 2026.

The Sentinel Weekly: Forward deterrence

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 07:55:17 GMT

European efforts to forge a joint security architecture took a step forward this week with Emmanuel Macron’s announcement of an extended French nuclear posture and a series of partnerships to expand both nuclear and conventional deterrence.

Standing in front of a nuclear submarine at the Atlantic base of Ile Longue, the French president noted the breakdown of global rules and the recent increase in security risks including nuclear proliferation. In response, he announced an increase in the number of French warheads and said that details of its stockpile would no longer be public.

More importantly for European allies, he set out a new doctrine of “forward deterrence” that will allow French nuclear-armed fighter jets to deploy to other countries, and for those countries to take part in joint exercises involving French nuclear forces.

There are a host of caveats. Allies will contribute only to conventional elements of nuclear exercises and there will be no shared decision-making on the use of nuclear weapons: “the final decision lies in the hands of the President of the Republic alone”. The definition of “vital interests” that might trigger the use of nuclear force will remain entirely French, and confidential.

Those same caveats apply to the United States, which also hosts air-launched nuclear weapons on European soil and leads joint exercises. As Europe’s interests diverge from America’s and leaders doubt Washington’s commitment to the Atlantic alliance, France is positioning itself to step into the vacuum.

Post-American order

While Macron paid lip service on Monday to NATO’s “complementary” nuclear mission, he made clear that the US should no longer be seen as a reliable guarantor of European security. “Their recent national security and defence strategies illustrate a reordering of US priorities and are a strong incentive for Europe to address its own security more directly,” he said.

There are indications that other European countries, which have long rebuffed French pretensions to continental leadership, are coming around. Macron said on Monday that eight countries have entered into a “dialogue” with France on shared deterrence: the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark.

Getting the Germans on board was a particular diplomatic coup for France, particularly in light of ongoing disagreements over the FCAS joint fighter jet program. In a joint statement on Monday, Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced the creation of a “high-ranking nuclear steering group” and said that Germany would participate in French nuclear exercises beginning this year.

The statement paid extended tribute to NATO and to US capabilities forward-deployed in Europe, whose largest contingent is in Germany. Still, the agreement with France shows Germany at least beginning to hedge against the potential unravelling of the Atlantic alliance. The participation of Poland, the most Atlanticist of Europe’s big countries, is equally revealing.

Conventional coup

France’s offer to extend limited access to its nuclear exercises may also help it establish a leading role in conventional deterrence, much of which uses the same systems and exists on the same escalation ladder as nuclear strategy.

Macron’s joint statement with Merz said that “France and Germany will also increase their ability, as Europeans, to manage escalation beneath the nuclear threshold – in particular in the fields of Early Warning and Air Defence and Deep Precision Strike.” By putting its unique nuclear capability on the table, France can guarantee itself a leadership role in any joint exercises or operational command chains that include a nuclear option.

The inclusion of Sweden in France’s list of partners is also noteworthy because it has recently begun openly talking about restarting its own nuclear program, suspended in 1968, in partnership with other Nordic countries and perhaps Germany. By bringing Sweden inside the tent, France may have reduced the urgency of those conversations.

Still, France’s nuclear guarantee for Europe is far from absolute. French doctrine makes no allowance for tactical nuclear weapons, instead maintaining the threat of an annihilation strike and ambiguity about what might trigger its use. Macron reiterated that stance on Monday: “France… has abandoned any notion of tactical use of nuclear weapons and we will not go back on this.”

That logic makes sense as a last-ditch guarantee of French independence without a superpower budget. It’s not clear whether it will be sufficient to deter limited nuclear escalation by the likes of Vladimir Putin, who might reasonably calculate that France wouldn’t engage in mutually assured destruction in response to a battlefield nuclear strike.

A fully effective European nuclear deterrent would require tactical escalation options as well as a usage doctrine based on European interests rather than those of one country. France’s forward deterrent has neither – but is still a welcome step towards security independence and a more joined-up conventional deterrent.

Emmanuel Macron sets out France’s nuclear strategy. Image: Reuters.

In the news

The US and at least one GCC country are looking to buy interceptors from Ukraine to counter Iranian Shahed drones, the Financial Times reported, offering an opportunity to Ukrainian and other European start-ups making low-cost interceptors. Existing US missiles are advanced but extremely expensive, making them ill-suited to countering waves of low-cost drones.
Ukraine may suffer from globally depleted stocks of air defence interceptors, since it faces competing demand from the US and GCC states, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said.
The European Commission will this month propose the ‘28^th regime’ allowing companies to operate across the EU under a single set of rules, President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday – a development that could help young defence companies secure funding and scale up across borders.
The FCAS project will be “dead” if Airbus doesn’t change its stance, Dassault CEO Eric Trappier said this week, claiming that the German partner “doesn’t want to work with Dassault”. Airbus has previously accused the French firm of trying to change the agreed terms of the deal.
Three US F-15 fighter jets downed in Kuwait may have been mistakenly shot down by a single Kuwaiti fighter pilot rather than ground-based air defences as first assumed, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The US has lifted some sanctions on Russian oil to offset the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Opinion: What comes next

Sam Wilkin — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 06:42:50 GMT

As the war on Iran enters its fourth day, it’s becoming apparent that the US and Israel have failed to land an early knockout blow. Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders have been killed but the regime is intact, and there is no indication of a cohesive opposition force on the ground.

US, Israeli and GCC air defences have intercepted most of Iran’s retaliatory missile barrage so far. Nevertheless, their ammunition is limited and there are indications that Iran is burning through them with cheap drones and older missiles, holding its most advanced missiles in reserve. If their launchers survive, they can pose a threat for months to come.

Iran is the most formidable enemy America has fought since at least Vietnam. It has the social complexity of Iraq, the terrain of Afghanistan, and the population of both combined. Its politics are unique and what comes next is impossible to predict. All that’s clear is that there will be no clean regime change and that the consequences will be global and long-term.

Here, then, are various scenarios for how the situation could evolve over the coming weeks and months. These ideas do not necessarily exclude each other, and some are more likely than others. They’re intended to stimulate debate and assist with forecasting and scenario planning:

Inside Iran

Messy revolution Iran’s grassroots protest movement is rekindled and overthrows the regime – but with no real hierarchy or credible opposition leaders, it struggles to create a stable successor.
Regime consolidated Iranians rally around the flag, allowing the regime to crush dissent and appoint a younger generation of leaders, more energetic and capable than those who have been eliminated.
Pragmatists prevail Moderates within the regime take power and negotiate an honourable peace through backchannels to the US. The regime remains largely intact and tensions remain.
Nuclear breakout Iran dashes for nuclear enrichment and succeeds in creating enough fissile material for a warhead. This takes at least several months. With regime survival at stake, the use of such a weapon can’t be discounted.
Ethnic fragmentation One or more ethnic minority groups, concentrated in Iran’s peripheral regions, take advantage of the regime’s weakness to form de facto independent ethno-states, along the lines of Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Local strongmen exercise power through clan-based patronage networks.

US posture

Abandonment The US declares ‘mission accomplished’ if the regime is overthrown, Khamenei’s successor is less radical, or the nuclear program is demonstrably set back. There is no guarantee Iran would respect a unilateral end to hostilities, however.
Bombing without end With Iran’s air defences mostly eliminated, the US continues a strategic bombing campaign indefinitely. Iran is impoverished and unable to respond militarily, but the regime remains in place and the population is radicalised.
Boots on the ground The regime’s survival prompts the US to escalate, perhaps after being targeted by a terror attack. US forces take major cities and put in place a puppet regime, but fail to prevent a major insurgency.
Domestic instability The war, begun without Congressional approval, is deemed illegal by significant parts of the US establishment, particularly if it escalates to a ground commitment. This leads to widespread protests, Trump being impeached, or – in extremis – senior officers refusing to obey unlawful orders.

Regional fallout

Oil dries up Iran maintains enough of a threat to shipping that the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted indefinitely. It may develop naval drones akin to Ukraine’s Sea Baby that can be covertly launched from anywhere along its coast. Oil prices are persistently high but GCC countries struggle to ship their exports.
Iraq collapses Shia militias linked to Iran become more active and may overthrow the government, particularly if the latter’s oil revenue is disrupted. Iraq collapses into civil war; or the militias take control and use Iraqi state assets to assist the Iranian regime.
GCC instability Collapsing oil revenues and the flight of wealthy expats and tourists put a severe strain on GCC economies. The social contract, based on extensive patronage, comes under pressure, possibly leading to elite infighting or social unrest.

Global implications

Power shifts East Popular opinion in the Global South turns sharply against the US, fuelled by Russian and Chinese propaganda about an unprovoked war of aggression. China’s power quietly grows.
Russia emboldened High oil prices fill Russia’s war chest, limiting the effectiveness of sanctions and allowing it to maintain its war against Ukraine. A prolonged war in Iran or instability in the US may embolden Vladimir Putin to attack other countries in Europe.
Chinese opportunism China takes advantage of America’s distraction and the depletion of its long-range strike missiles and air defence interceptors – both crucial to a Pacific campaign. It becomes more aggressive towards Taiwan or seizes disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Global terror attacks Groups linked to or sympathetic to the Iranian regime carry out terror attacks against American or Israeli – or simply Jewish – interests around the world. Indiscriminate attacks in other Western or GCC cities are also possible.

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The Sentinel Weekly: War with Iran

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:02:08 GMT

Sabres are rattling once again in the Middle East. The US has moved an enormous strike force to the Gulf and is demanding that Iran bend the knee. Iran is defiant. With no apparent progress at talks in Geneva this week, the risk of war is at its highest since the hostage crisis of 1980.

European leaders have wisely stayed out of it and Donald Trump, unlike previous American adventurers in the Middle East, seems unconcerned about building a coalition to bolster his diplomatic credibility. But while Europe won’t be directly implicated in any conflict, it could alter the course of the war in Ukraine and the broader strategic picture for Europe.

Trump, previously an isolationist, has become more willing to use force. Of the two recent threats he has made, against Venezuela and Greenland, he has executed one and abandoned (for now) the other. The Iran situation looks more like Venezuela, with its large military build-up and longstanding enmity, than like Greenland, which horrified many in the Republican establishment.

The emerging Trump doctrine also seems unconcerned with nation-building, which characterised previous American engagements and was arguably the reason for failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. The operation to remove Nicolás Maduro was clean and successful on its own terms, and Trump may wish to repeat the trick in Tehran.

The hardware being moved to the Middle East also supports this view. The US is ready to suppress Iran’s air defences conduct a prolonged bombing campaign along several axes of attack, possibly with special forces operations, but not to mount a land invasion.

Risk of escalation

The risk is that Iran might withstand the bombing and then unleash so much havoc in the region, and so much damage to Trump’s pride, that America is forced to escalate. Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and Shahed drones could target American bases, Israel, US allies in the Gulf, and globally systemic oil infrastructure.

Iran’s regime would not survive a total war, at least not in its present form. Its best outcome is a negotiated deal that it can claim as a victory at home, as reflected in its diplomatic stance until now. “We are ready for negotiation, but not for dictation,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said back in November.

Anything that looks like a surrender to America is more difficult, verging on constitutionally impossible for Iran. If Trump pushes too hard, the regime’s choice will be between death and dishonour. Many would choose to die on their feet.

Post-revolutionary Iran is a unique construction. It contains elements of an Islamist theocracy, represented by the clerical hierarchy; a military-industrial junta (the IRGC); and even a representative democracy (liberals are excluded but moderate reformists can sometimes exert influence as president). All of these structures overlap and often compete.

One of the few things that unites these power bases is a narrative of ‘resistance’ to American imperialism, an idea that predates the Islamic Revolution. That will make it very difficult for the elite to swallow anything that looks like capitulation, and anyone who suggests it is liable to be purged.

Another problem from the Iranian side is a deep lack of trust in the US. Trump in his first term ‘withdrew from’ (Iranians might say ‘violated’) the JCPOA nuclear deal, which Iranian moderates had fought hard for internally. The US has invaded two of Iran’s neighbours in this century. If the regime gives up the threat of a nuclear deterrent, as Trump now insists, what guarantee will it have against future aggression?

It is tempting to think, given recent protests in Iran, that an American campaign would quickly topple the hated regime and bring about something better. But in light of Iran’s complex society and fraught history with the US, a prolonged period of instability is more likely. That is what’s at stake if the two sides can’t find a mutually agreeable way to climb down in the coming days and weeks.

Europe alone

A prolonged American engagement in the Middle East would leave it with even less intent and capability to be active in Europe, particularly if rivals elsewhere see an opportunity to strike – factions rising up in Venezuela, or China making a move on Taiwan or some island in the South China Sea.

Europe would have to entirely take over support for Ukraine, which would require a rapid improvement in surveillance and intelligence as well as an uptick in deliveries of weapons, ammunition, and ballistic missiles.

Russia could be affected by a slowdown in weapons shipments from Iran, but the effect would be mild: Iran’s most notable contribution has been the Shahed drone, which Russia is now able to produce itself. The lost benefits to Russia are likely to be limited to occasional drone and missile shipments and small numbers of trafficked soldiers.

That in turn could make Vladimir Putin more likely to open up a second front, counting on a direct threat to bring Ukraine’s European backers to the negotiating table and trusting that the US, bogged down in Iran, would have no appetite to get involved.

The time for Europe to rearm is already tight. A new war in the Middle East could further speed up the clock.

Iran’s Fateh-110 ballistic missile.

In the news

Ukraine liberated hundreds of square kilometres in the days leading up to the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Emmanuel Macron is preparing to make an announcement on France’s nuclear doctrine next Monday.
Belgium will reinforce the port of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest, with anti-air and anti-drone defences by next year.
Rheinmetall is likely to win a contract worth hundreds of millions of euros to supply drones to Germany’s armed forces, joining local startups Helsing and Stark, the FT reported.
NATO’s tech accelerator is struggling to appoint a permanent managing director, Sifted reported.
Two European air defence startups, Estonia’s Frankenburg Technologies and Munich-based Tytan Technologies, have each raised €30 million.
Rheinmetall is focusing on a fast-firing 7.62mm minigun for light drone defence, favouring a kinetic weapon over other options such as lasers or jamming, Defense Express reported.

Op-ed: Europe’s defence blind spot

Alexandre — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:15:07 GMT

In many ways, Europe is finally catching up on defence. New “neo‑primes” are shipping drones at scale, cyber and EW stacks are hardening, and money is flowing into long‑range fires and space‑based sensing. From a distance, it is easy to conclude that the problem is being solved.

But an important element is missing. Even large, advanced forces can be defeated if their assets are not knitted together by an effective command-and-control (C2) layer – particularly in a hybrid conflict where civilian and military responsibilities overlap. Brilliant but isolated systems can be probed, learned and bypassed one by one.

Until now it has fallen to US commanders to unify Europe’s capable but fragmented forces within NATO. If the C2 layer, data standards and targeting architectures remain predominantly American, even record European budgets and a booming defence‑tech scene will be over-reliant on US decision chains at the moment of crisis.

On paper, Europe is rearming, digitising and hardening its infrastructure at speed. In practice, it still organises for peace‑time silos. Threats are managed as if military, cyber, energy and borders were separate theatres, instead of facets of one continuous battlespace.

Adversaries are already probing the gaps. When unidentified drones flew over Belgium’s Doel nuclear plant and nearby critical sites in 2025, airspace control and the operator could see parts of the picture, but energy regulators and local police lacked a shared, real‑time view and common playbook. When drone incursions shut or disrupted Scandinavian airports the same year, military, air traffic control and law enforcement struggled to share feeds fast enough to agree on intercepts before flights had to be suspended.

Similar coordination gaps show up in hybrid incidents against rail and energy infrastructure, where cyber teams see signatures but transport operators, police and militaries lack the legal and technical pathways to treat it as one campaign. The problem is no longer a lack of sensors or tools, but a lack political, legal and technical mechanisms to stitch them into a single response under stress.

New stacks, old silos

Europe’s emerging neo‑primes are, in many ways, exactly what policymakers asked for: companies that ship useful capability on wartime timelines instead of peacetime ones. They integrate sensors, autonomy, effectors and data services with a speed that traditional primes struggle to match, and they are already on the Ukrainian frontline, iterating against the hardest possible user feedback.

But if each ministry, service or country buys these capabilities into its own vertical command stack, Europe risks building an archipelago of power: islands of excellence, separated by institutional water.

The technical standards matter, but what really counts is whether intent, data and effects can move across ministries, services and borders at the speed of a Russian hybrid campaign. That requires not just interoperability at the interface level, but political agreements about who can see what, who can decide what, and how responsibility is shared when sensors, shooters and operators sit in different jurisdictions.

The answer is not “one more platform”, but rather a different organising principle. Europe needs to treat C2 as the primary strategic asset: a sovereign, software‑driven layer that horizontally connects forces, agencies and infrastructures, instead of stacking yet another vertical system on top of existing silos.

In practice, that means a C2 core that ingests data from legacy platforms and new drones alike, represents legal and political constraints as code, and exposes tailored views to militaries, homeland security, energy operators and law enforcement within a single, shared architecture. Nexus C2, a platform built by my employer Intelic, works across units and organisations to create a common operational picture and unified tasking chain for systems and effectors. This horizontal integration is what turns many small capabilities into one coherent instrument of power.

Mechanisms of power

If Europe builds this kind of sovereign, horizontally integrated command backbone, it can turn the current wave of spending and innovation into real power. If not, its capabilities will remain fragmented and it will risk being defeated even by a smaller adversary.

Europe now has a critical mass of talent, startups and emerging neo‑primes delivering sensors, effectors, software and drones at high speed to the front line. But transforming this into war-fighting power will require more than shared standards and APIs. Data, intent, and effects must flow seamlessly across services, domains, and borders so that small innovations compound into credible deterrence.

The question is shifting from who builds the best drone to who organises the ecosystem most effectively; countries that take interoperability seriously must decide how they structure their industries, not just which systems they buy.

A combat‑grade, platform‑agnostic C2 layer is the mechanism that turns neo‑prime diversity into strategic coherence, where heterogeneous feeds are fused into a common operating picture and where different actors can coordinate decisions and effects without rebuilding their stack each time.

Alexandre Almeida is a business developer at Intelic.

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The Sentinel Weekly: Derisking from America

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:04:21 GMT

Something new happened in Munich last weekend. It wasn’t Marco Rubio’s conciliatory speech; blowing hot and cold is standard procedure for the Trump administration, and not only towards Europe. But this time the response was different.

Previously, European leaders would clutch at any softening from Washington to deny the strategic shift and delay the painful divorce. As Phillips O’Brien wrote last year, the good cop routine “lulled [European states] into thinking the US was still there to help, that they were not faced by an existential threat, and could wait before taking drastic action”.

This time, though, Europeans weren’t buying it. Ignore the reports of the standing ovation and the formules de politesse trotted out by conference organiser Wolfgang Ischinger and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Behind the diplomatic niceties, European resolve has not melted away.

Von der Leyen said the EU must make credible the mutual defence clause in its treaties, effectively creating a backstop to NATO’s Article 5. Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron hinted at the development of a shared European nuclear deterrent. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas took aim at the “fashionable euro-bashing” coming out of America. These are not the words of mollified satraps.

The spell has been broken. As Daniel Drezner wrote: “actions speak louder than words. Nothing that Rubio said erases the dovish U.S. posture towards Russia, Trump’s appetite to colonize Greenland, or various U.S. efforts to weaponize European dependence.”

In Brussels and beyond, conversations have turned to how Europe can “derisk” from the US – the same term used for the relationship with China. For China, this stance is an upgrade from the more severe “decoupling” that would impose blanket bans on certain trades; for the US, it’s a downgrade from the Atlantic alliance. In both cases, it means keeping lines of trade open without creating dangerous dependencies on a country whose interests may or may not align with Europe’s.

Jailbreaking jets

American businesses are trying to limit the damage. Last summer, European NATO members’ pledge to raise defence spending looked like a boon: Following the pattern of previous decades, the lion’s share would flow into the US military-industrial economy. Now they risk not being invited to the dance, and are looking for ways to reassure European buyers that they are reliable partners.

In the secretive world of defence manufacturing, a breakdown in trust can quickly spiral out of control. Senior Americans I have spoken to in the last week are exasperated at the narrative around ‘kill switches’ being built into US kit so that the American government could, say, stop Dutch F-35s from taking off. They insisted there was no such capability and that any restrictions were contractual rather than technical.

It’s true that there’s no evidence of kill switches, but nor can their existence be disproven. For many European leaders that’s an unacceptable strategic vulnerability now that the trust is broken. In a radio interview this week, Dutch defence minister Gijs Tuinman even spoke about developing a capability to “jailbreak” the country’s F-35s, forcibly removing any digital blocks placed on them by the US.

Beyond this extreme scenario, the contractual terms governing advanced US kit often require it to run US software and be maintained by American contractors, baking in a certain degree of dependency that, by extension, carries the threat of being cut off from support. They also often prohibit certain uses of the equipment without American permission.

If a European country were to use its American-made fighter jets to strike Russia, for example, this might breach the terms of the contract. Even if there’s no kill switch, the US could cut off technical maintenance and software support for the platform, which would progressively render it combat ineffective over a period of months or years – much less than its expected lifecycle.

Military mercantilism

Atlanticists also point out, again correctly, that trade flows both ways and that many American-made systems are products of extensive trans-Atlantic cooperation. The F-35, for example, contains many components from the UK and Belgium.

Privately, though, they admit that this stops well short of dependency. The US has, or can quickly create, a domestic capability to replicate the British and Belgian parts. This would be likely to cost more, so it’s not in America’s interest for the relationship to break down. But the consequences are unequal: For the US it’s a bigger bill, but for Europe it’s the total loss of a capability. European components in US-owned supply chains don’t, therefore, do much to erode America’s coercive power.

Ironically enough, the structure of these supply chains mirrors the mercantilist systems put in place by European empires in centuries past. Manchester’s textile industry created demand for cotton that Egypt or India could service – but also delayed their industrialisation. Since many places could produce cotton, but only a few could economically process it into higher-value goods, the dependencies it created flowed only in one direction. The same dynamic applies between completed military systems and their components.

A rising tide lifts many boats, and European countries were for a long time happy with their place in US military supply chains – particularly since they fed into the US security umbrella that underwrote the global order. Now US defence companies face the prospect of European partners pulling out from that trade.

Last summer, as the NATO spending pledges were made, the American defence industry could be forgiven for thinking that Donald Trump was about to double the size of their market in Europe. As time goes by, he looks ever more like the president who killed the golden goose.

The Lockheed Martin F-35, operated by a dozen European countries.

In the news

The EU’s six biggest economies have proposed to form a “temporary” inner circle to pursue greater European integration, with a particular focus on defence and promoting the euro currency internationally.
German drone startup Stark has been valued at more than €1 billion in a new funding round. Stark and rival Helsing have both recently won large contracts from the German government.
Russian mercenary company Wagner Group is being hired by the Kremlin to carry out sabotage attacks in Europe, according to Western intelligence sources cited by the FT.
Russian frontline communications have been severely degraded since Elon Musk cut their access to his Starlink satellites.
Italy’s Leonardo and Spain’s Indra this week agreed to cooperate on providing cyber defence to critical infrastructure.

The Sentinel Weekly: Hybrid deterrence

Sam Wilkin — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 07:39:37 GMT

As Europe prepares for the possibility of war or hybrid conflict with Russia, it’s not just the armed forces that are getting a glow-up. To survive a long war or an asymmetric campaign, critical infrastructure must be hardened against both physical and cyberattacks – a mission that is well within the scope of the additional ‘defence-related’ 1.5% of GDP in NATO countries’ spending targets, alongside the 3.5% on traditional military spending.

As in any other domain of conflict, a defensive capability alone is not enough. Since no defence is impregnable, deterrence requires an ability to counterattack. This logic has long been understood in the contexts of strategic bombing (“the bomber will always get through”) and of nuclear escalation management, and is now part of the discourse around cybersecurity as well.

The first task is detection, EU Defence and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told an audience of hundreds yesterday at the Munich Cyber Security Conference. “We would never accept a situation where a hostile aircraft or drone enters our airspace undetected for days”, but this is effectively what is happening in cyberspace.

Moreover, Kubilius said Europe should develop an active response to such incursions. “If we can detect, we need to find a way to react,” he said. “Security requires operational capability, not just rules.”

EU Defence and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius. Source: European Parliament.

Dag Baehr, Vice President of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, was more explicit. “You can’t solve all threats simply by being resilient; you need to be active in defence,” he told the same event. “Deterrence is about creating uncertainty.”

Attribution and retaliation

There is a growing sense that Europe is too passive in its response to Russian hybrid attacks, partly because of a fear that an attack on Russian territory – even if a proportionate response to a similar attack on Europe – might provoke an escalation. The result is that Russia has been able to conduct hybrid operations with impunity, from attacks on subsea cables to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure to (probably) closing down European airports by flying drones overhead.

Speakers at the MCSC outlined a way forward. First is a more robust system of “attribution”: naming the perpetrator of any given attack and, where possible, the state that is backing them. Louise Marie Hurel, a senior researcher at think tank RUSI, noted that non-Western countries including China, Ethiopia and Azerbaijan have already begun to do this. China, she said, has begun calling out alleged operations by Taiwan and the US directly, rather than allowing private companies to do so.

Beyond naming the perpetrator of a cyberattack, Europe must be prepared to set and enforce red lines that would prompt a response in kind, Baehr said. “There’s no point in having red lines only for your own actions… you’re just tying your own hands.”

Ukraine has already shown the effectiveness of unconventional attacks on Russian infrastructure. From last year’s Operation Spiderweb, in which drones destroyed dozens of Russian jets on the tarmac, to attacks on oil infrastructure and tankers, Ukraine has shown that operations away from the frontlines can have a powerful impact on Russia’s war-fighting ability. They have also notably not caused a nuclear escalation, the irrational fear that deters some Europeans from ‘provoking’ Russia, even when this just means trading a blow for a blow.

Hardened infrastructure

Beyond a retaliatory capability and the willingness to use it, Europe must also harden its infrastructure against all manner of attacks, both to limit the effectiveness of hybrid operations and to avoid a crippling strike in the event of a hot war.

The need to expand military transport infrastructure is already well known. But in a longer war, the loss of civilian infrastructure would be no less devastating. At the most basic level, a civilian who can look after their own family and not take up state capacity in the event of, say, a power outage is a strategic asset – something that Sweden’s ‘total defence’ preparations lean into.

Sweden is now adding a cybersecurity dimension to this concept, said Lisa Gustafsson, a director at the Ministry of Defence. Critical infrastructure must be able to withstand attacks of any kind. “Is total defence credible without cyber resilience? No.”

New technologies offer a variety of ways to strengthen infrastructure. At an event in Brussels on energy resilience earlier this week, organised by Hack Belgium Labs, one speaker suggested that small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) could be attached to critical infrastructure such as ports to insulate them from attacks on the electrical grid. Large batteries, which have only recently become commercially viable, would provide another layer of resilience.

And if Europe’s new class of hybrid warfare hawks get their way, any such attack would be met by a quick and decisive response in kind.

In the news

Ukraine has opened up arms exports for the first time since the Russian invasion, and on Thursday said that several firms had received licences to sell their goods abroad.
KNDS has rejected the idea of investment from Rheinmetall, the FT reported. The Franco-German company makes the Leopard 2 tank and the Boxer infantry fighting vehicle, among other land-based platforms, weapons systems and ammunition.
The FCAS joint fighter jet project is close to collapse, Politico reported, citing French and German officials. The Economist reached a similar conclusion. That “would not be the end of the world”, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said.
France and Germany have both expressed interest in a proposed new ballistic missile to be built by ArianeGroup, the French rocketry company has said.

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