Tempest will take 'global Britain into the stratosphere,' according to the defence secretary
days, the ExCeL convention centre in east London was transformed into a Disneyland for arms dealers. On September 10th-13th Defence & Security Equipment International , one of the world’s largest weapons bazaars, filled its cavernous halls with enough tanks, missiles and drones to invade a small country. Towering above all of these was a full-sized model of a sleek warplane with sprawling wings and a nose like a bulbous arrowhead.
The aircraft in question, Tempest, is to be the jewel in the crown of Britain’s £23bn defence industry. In two decades Britain’s Eurofighter Typhoons will be retiring and the fifth-generation-35 Lightning will be creaking at the joints. If Britain wants to keep flying world-class warplanes, and to retain the expertise to build and export them, it must start work now.
The catch is that other warplanes are available. Several European countries are co-operating to build their own sixth-generation “air system” . France, which shunned participation in the European Typhoon project and the American-led-35, favours its own national champion, Dassault. Moreover, France and Germany both want the European Union to develop a more integrated and mature defence industry, capable of holding its own against American behemoths.
At the Paris Air Show in June, the French, German and Spanish defence ministers announced a partnership between Dassault and Airbus, funded with €4bn to 2025, building on an earlier Tempest-like initiative known as Future Combat Air System. It was a “big day for the European defence union”, noted Ursula von der Leyen, then German defence minister and now president-elect of the European Commission.
Yet for all this flurry of activity, there is scepticism that the result will be two flying planes. “Competition among Europeans when it weakens us against the Americans [and] the Chinese is ridiculous,” complained Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, in June. The economic logic might suggest that the British-led project and continental one ought to merge. But the political logic says otherwise.
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