Friedrich Merz, the next German Chancellor, It is a good barometer of the relationship between the two banks of the Atlantic. In fact, a few months ago, in fact, he bet on the dual American role of globe-consumer as well as the security provider of the last instance. On the economic side, Merz has repeatedly launched appeals for a strengthening of the relationships between the two banks of the Atlantic. The German economy today is in fact forced to drastically rethink its model. This is for the loss of Russian gas at calm prices, because China’s status was unsustainable as a gigantic export market, and because it has remained anchored to mechanics and chemistry and more generally heavy industry, but has lost the digital train. To solve these decompensation, the German economy needs the US market to open more, but Trump’s policies prove to be a frozen shower on these expectations.
On the defense side, a rethinking is now underway on the methods of rearmament of Germany, Which until yesterday assigned a lot of space and resources to the Americans’s F-35 at the expense of the European military industry. Buying hunting aircraft was in many respects a stratagem to “exchange” concessions of various types with the USA. Now, however, Trump calls into question the American commitment of security supplier on the Eurasian continental mass, and Berlin recalibrates his rearm policies and influences those of all of Europe. To change are not only public finance sales and the rules on indebtedness – that is, how much you spend and how the expense is financed – on which there is even a position of the Bundesbank, but the “shopping list” – that is, where it is spent.
Merz, even before the electoral victory, He admitted that the transatlantic relationship is compromised, and that Europe must become independent as possible from Washington. Gideon Rachman, the first signature of foreign policy of the British newspaper Financial Times, does not hesitate to define the US as an EU and the United Kingdom “opponent”. The hypothesis that Starlink could detach its services to Ukraine to reduce it to more mild advice was a sharp alarm signal for all Americans’ partners, whose digital and safety infrastructures depend on large extent on tech giants or stars and stripes defense. From this observation derives a triple corollary.
First: German and EU rearmament He meets different needs, from creation to forced stages of war capacity to the stimulation of a super-cyclist of the military industry to compensate for the decline of other sectors (read: automotive and steel). Excondo: alternative solutions to the American ones will be examined with growing attention, and privileged whenever possible. For Italy, which is part of the GCAP program for the creation of a sixth generation super-challenge together with Japan and the United Kingdom, it is not necessarily bad news. Incidentally: it is not to be envied by London, who must count the traditional symbiotic relationship with the United States and the community of defense and intelligence of the Five Eyes, and the need to tighten relations with Brussels and Berlin. Not to be underestimated then the role of Türkiye will be. On the one hand, Ankara reports growing nervousness for the Trumpian strategic equation, in which the country is not contemplated and indeed lived with impatience, and on the other hand it is proposed to strengthen European defense credentials, still weak.
Third and last corollary: The Israeli experience of personalization of the F-35 will make school. In 2009, Tel Aviv advanced a request for personalization of these multi -rocal fighters, which was initially rejected by the United States. Israel wanted to integrate flexible electronic war systems, produced locally, to face specific regional threats without depending on foreign suppliers. In addition, he wanted to use ammunition produced on their borders. Despite the initial difficulties, Israel managed to affirm his line. The production of the F-35 “Adir” today includes components made by Israeli industries, such as the helmet developed by a joint venture between Elbit Systems and Rockwell Collins, and the wings produced by Israel Aerospace Industries. On the level of political semantics, this personalization will be presented as an opportunity to strengthen technological cooperation and cultivate the European industry. The reality is much raw: no one on this side of the Atlantic is more serene to the idea that the “remote control” is in the American hand. It applies to the defense as well as for many other sectors, starting from digital.
