GLOBSEC Working Group – Europe’s War Economy

Great online event by GLOBSEC on how Europe could reach a war economy. OPEWI’s Director, Michael Benhamou, insisted on two points:

1/ The stability that comes from pluriannual long term funding, as practiced in the US, the UK or in France. Essential to ensure the success of heavy hardware programmes, whether at national level or at European level. Too often, the politisation of defence programmes in Europe’s East (especially) provokes the failure of complex designs and eventually off-the-shelf purchases in America or Asia down the road.

2/ The flexibility that comes from having independent budget defence lines for software products. In the US, the Pentagon has innovated in that regard: software SMEs can now apply for “software-only” tenders and be followed from the R&D stage to implementation on the battlefield. This levels the game with bigger “hardware-first” companies. See this Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) paper on the matter: https://defense360.csis.org/analysis-of-the-fy-2021-defense-budget/

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