EU DEFENCE
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France-Germany rift over FCAS fighter jet raises new doubts over Europe’s flagship air combat project
A public dispute between France and Germany over the next generation of European fighter aircraft has renewed uncertainty around the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), one of the continent’s most expensive and politically significant defence programmes. The disagreement centres on…
Major General Wolf-Jürgen Stahl’s Trump Broadside Exposes Europe’s Strategic Anxiety
It is not often that a serving German general publicly dissects the character of an American president. That taboo has now been shattered. Major General Wolf-Jürgen Stahl, head of Berlin’s Federal Academy for Security Policy, has delivered a diagnosis of…
Poland’s Strategic Pivot: Mines on the Eastern Frontier and the End of an Era in Arms Control
In a major shift that could reverberate across Europe’s security landscape, Poland is poised to lay anti-personnel mines along its eastern border within 48 hours of formally exiting the Ottawa Convention, the international treaty that for nearly three decades has…
NATO rehearses Baltic amphibious landing near Kiel amid renewed focus on Kaliningrad and sea lanes
NATO troops have staged an amphibious landing exercise on Germany’s Baltic coast, close to the port city of Kiel, in a drill involving roughly 3,000 personnel and forming part of the wider Steadfast Dart 2026 programme. The beach-assault phase took…
BAE’s Surging Profits Reflect Europe’s New Reality
Britain’s largest defence contractor, BAE Systems, has announced a 12 per cent rise in full-year operating profit and a record order book worth £83.6 billion — numbers impressive in themselves, but far more revealing for what they say about the…
Wagner-Linked Recruiters Said to Target Europeans for Attacks Inside EU
Russia’s military intelligence agency is using parts of the Wagner network to recruit Europeans for sabotage operations inside the EU and wider NATO area, according to western intelligence officials cited by the Financial Times. The recruitment is described as outsourced:…
The 48-Hour Problem: NATO’s Response Under Pressure in a Baltic Drill
In the days leading up to the Munich Security Conference on 13–15 February 2026, European media carried a run of scenario-based reporting on how a future security shock might unfold on NATO’s eastern flank. Several of the most widely circulated…
Europeans sense danger — yet still hesitate to act
Europeans have begun to feel something unfamiliar: vulnerability. For three generations the continent lived inside a strategic paradox. It possessed advanced economies, stable democracies and generous welfare systems, yet relied on a power across an ocean for its ultimate security.…
US to hand two NATO command posts to European officers in Naples and Norfolk
The United States is set to hand over leadership of two major NATO operational headquarters to European officers, in a move that would alter a long-standing pattern of American command at senior levels of the Alliance. According to a military…
Russia accused of intercepting European satellite communications in orbit
European security officials believe Russian “inspector” spacecraft have been intercepting communications from a cluster of key European satellites in geostationary orbit, raising concerns about the exposure of sensitive data and the integrity of space-based infrastructure relied upon by governments, militaries…