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There's not much data to back the claim. And given this line you would have to expect a lot of spying going on from any other country in the world than Germany

by boudin 3y ago

There's not much data to back the claim. And given this line you would have to expect a lot of spying going on from any other country in the world than Germany and the USA: > Germany, the cables said, was trying to develop an optical observation-based satellite spy system with Washington's help despite objections from France, which is leading pan-European efforts in the field with its Helios satellites.

hef19898 3y ago
The US slowly pulling Germany away from pan-EU projects like this is genious, from the US perspective. Because without Germany, not a single project in this space (military aerospace, defense and so on) will develop a size that could make as much as dent in the US defense sector and the likes of Lockheed-Martin, Northrop and Raytheon. And thisballowsbthe US to corner the NATO market for military goods, and that market is the biggest in the world. Germany is an easy target for that, usually we suck at this kind of projects because our requirements management doesn't deserve the name. Just how things like A400M, NH90, Eurofighter, Galileo and Tiger came to be sometimes really puzzles me. There seems to have been a different climate in the 80 through early 90s went it came to that. Ever since, not so much.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > US defense sector and the likes of Lockheed-Martin, Northrop and Raytheon. And thisballowsbthe US to corner the NATO market German companies hesitance to work on Pan-EU (in reality only French) defense projects is because of a headache the Eurofigher has become, as both France and Germany have different export exemptions plus plenty of French companies are still manufacturing weapons systems to directly compete with French-German projects (eg. Dassault vs Eurofighter, Thales vs Airbus, etc). Also, the American defense manufacturers don't care to target the EU market as much anymore excluding the F-35 project because indigenous capabilities have caught up and North American procurement still dwarfs what individual European countries could buy and maintain.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Eurofighter, without French participation as they have the Rafale, is actually quite a success. Thales is not really a competitor but rather a supplier of Airbus with some overlap in defense electronics. The Airbus defense electronics have been spun-off to a large extent in the form of Hensoldt so. You underestimate how much leverage it gives the US of supplying the vast majority of NATO hardware. As ypu said, individual countries. If there are alternative programs to choose from, NH90 comes to mind, all the combined individual defense spending goes the US way. Which is quite nice, isn't it?

by boudin 3y ago

hef19898 3y ago

The US slowly pulling Germany away from pan-EU projects like this is genious, from the US perspective. Because without Germany, not a single project in this space (military aerospace, defense and so on) will develop a size that could make as much as dent in the US defense sector and the likes of Lockheed-Martin, Northrop and Raytheon. And thisballowsbthe US to corner the NATO market for military goods, and that market is the biggest in the world. Germany is an easy target for that, usually we suck at this kind of projects because our requirements management doesn't deserve the name. Just how things like A400M, NH90, Eurofighter, Galileo and Tiger came to be sometimes really puzzles me. There seems to have been a different climate in the 80 through early 90s went it came to that. Ever since, not so much.

alephnerd 3y ago
> US defense sector and the likes of Lockheed-Martin, Northrop and Raytheon. And thisballowsbthe US to corner the NATO market German companies hesitance to work on Pan-EU (in reality only French) defense projects is because of a headache the Eurofigher has become, as both France and Germany have different export exemptions plus plenty of French companies are still manufacturing weapons systems to directly compete with French-German projects (eg. Dassault vs Eurofighter, Thales vs Airbus, etc). Also, the American defense manufacturers don't care to target the EU market as much anymore excluding the F-35 project because indigenous capabilities have caught up and North American procurement still dwarfs what individual European countries could buy and maintain.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Eurofighter, without French participation as they have the Rafale, is actually quite a success. Thales is not really a competitor but rather a supplier of Airbus with some overlap in defense electronics. The Airbus defense electronics have been spun-off to a large extent in the form of Hensoldt so. You underestimate how much leverage it gives the US of supplying the vast majority of NATO hardware. As ypu said, individual countries. If there are alternative programs to choose from, NH90 comes to mind, all the combined individual defense spending goes the US way. Which is quite nice, isn't it?