Douglas A. Macgregor's Blog, page 5

As Lebanese military prepares to disarm Hezbollah, France supports Saudi conference

BEIRUT — French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to back a “conference that our Saudi friends will hold” in support of the Lebanese Armed Forces, as the LAF prepares for the contentious mission to disarm Hezbollah.

“Lebanon will breathe easier when Hezbollah is weaker and the rest of Lebanon will breathe even better when all of the arms held by Hezbollah are back in the force, in the hands of the Lebanese Armed Forces, there’s no other choice,” Macron said in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last week.

Macron did not divulge additional details about the planned conference to be hosted by Saudi Arabia, and representatives for the Saudi embassy in Beirut did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.

But a French source said the meeting is expected take place before the end of 2025 and will gather several countries, including Gulf and Arab states, European states, commonwealth countries and the US.

“France has no taboos when it comes to arming [the] LAF, even if the needed capabilities are radars for air defense systems,” the source told Breaking Defense in an interview on Friday.

The source added that the conference will help equip the LAF to be able to perform its duties, as the mandate for the international peacekeeping force UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon, will expire in a year after nearly a half-century of presence in southern Lebanon. The conference could also provide aid to Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, in hopes of lessening the operational burden on the LAF, the source said.

That the French expect the meeting to take place in Saudi Arabia, the source said, is a “gamechanger,” signaling progress since the Beirut and Riyadh have had strained relations in recent years. In 2016, Saudi Arabia canceled a military aid package to the LAF worth $3 billion after Lebanon refrained from condemning an attack on the Saudi diplomatic mission in Iran. The aid would have included military vehicles, helicopters and maritime vessels, which the LAF has never received.

It wouldn’t be the first international conference gathered for the LAF’s benefit with France’s support. In October 2024, France held a conference and raised $200 million to support LAF. The source told Breaking Defense that LAF received this assistance in the form of troop transportation equipment, heavy machines, and engineering, demining and training equipment.

Also earlier this month, the US Department of Defense announced it would provide the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) a security package worth $14.2 million to help in its new mission to disarm Hezbollah.

The package consists of explosives and support equipment to dismantle Hezbollah weapons caches and military infrastructure.

The task of disarming Hezbollah is likely to be a fraught one, as the group has said it won’t give up its arms willingly. Late last week Reuters published an interview with Jawad Nasrallah, the son of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in which Jawad reiterated Hezbollah’s position.

“Never in your fantasies or dreams,” he said.

To ‘harmonize’ better: Air Force developing new defensive cyber campaign plan

AFA 2025 — The Air Force’s primary cyber unit is developing a new strategy to better synchronize the work of different groups of cyber defenders, with a particular focus on critical infrastructure and networks, according to the unit’s commander.

“Prior to this, we’ve always kind of looked at them [cybersecurity teams] in separate missions, but they’re really doing the same thing in a different way. We want to harmonize that better,” Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley, commander of 16th Air Force, said during a panel presentation at the annual Air and Space Forces Association conference at National Harbor, Md.

Currently, cyber defense missions are undertaken by at least two different sets of teams. There are the local defenders, known as cybersecurity service providers or CSSPs, which perform persistent defense of systems. Then there are cyber protection teams, defensive teams focused on hunting adversaries within the network. They have been described as cyber SWAT teams that have specialized kits to eradicate adversary intrusions on networks.

RELATED: After cuts to DoD’s cyber workforce, experts see short-term readiness risk, but also opportunity

The move for greater harmonization between the two groups, a spokesperson for the 16th said, came out of work the 16th has already done on what they called “mission thread defense.” That refers to an overarching strategy and process flow of information and focuses on protecting critical operational sequences that can span multiple systems and components — to include hardware, software, open vulnerabilities programmable logic controllers, data dependencies, sub systems and architecture.

“In the increasingly complex and competitive global security environment, mission thread defense protects our systems from any cyber threats, disruptions, and failures at any time. It ensures that essential capabilities, [such as] things that keep America safe, remain functional even under attack, protecting both our homeland and operational success by focusing on endurance and integrity of mission-critical operations,” the spokesperson said. “Mission thread defense safeguards critical operations from the beginning to the end of a mission. It enhances system resiliency, mitigates threats, and safeguards steady operations even under cyberattack or system failure.”

Base Defense And Public Utilities

Historically, the military has focused its defense on Internet Protocol-based networks, but in the age of countless Internet-of-Things devices and digitally maintained critical infrastructure, the threat landscape has widen dramatically.

Volt Typhoon, for instance, was purported Chinese malware discovered inside US critical infrastructure using a technique in the cybersecurity world dubbed “living off the land,” which means it’s using legitimate tools organic to the systems for malicious purposes. What has particularly alarmed officials regarding Volt Typhoon is the paradigm shift of Chinese threats moving from espionage and intellectual property theft to holding critical infrastructure at risk, likely to thwart a US mobilization response to Chinese activity in the Pacific.

Part of the issue is many of these critical infrastructure systems are owned and operated by public utilities, not the US government, even on military bases.

“Looking at the base defense itself, we can do all that we can to defend those bases, but realize that those bases rely on public utilities,” Hensley said. “If those public utilities are attacked, we’ll have a week, maybe two weeks, of generator power to keep the missions going, but then that’s it. We’re out. How do we protect the public utilities that are feeding the bases so that we can continue to fight?”

He explained the Air Force is working through several cooperative research and development agreements with public utility companies at a variety of strategic locations and bases to help improve defenses and partnership with the private sector.

Some include intelligence sharing to inform utilities of adversary activity in their networks, others involve sharing best practices to eradicate adversaries, and some more sensitive agreements allow the Air Force to put sensors on utility systems for persistent monitoring.

Hensley noted the National Guard has authorities to do this type of work. In fact, several Guard exercises work to game out just how these relationships work in time of crisis in order to have partnerships and memorandums of agreement already established if a major event occurs.

What’s in a pin? Trump dons golden F-22 during Erdogan meeting

WASHINGTON — As US President Donald Trump sat in the newly gold-adorned Oval Office with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a smaller piece of precious metal caught the eye of some observers: a pin, worn on the lapel of Trump’s jacket, that resembled a fighter jet.

Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a golden F-22 Raptor, a miniature of the Lockheed Martin-made fifth-generation stealth fighter.

What was less clear, and remains so, is why the president chose to wear that particular pin for that particular meeting on Thursday. (A White House spokesperson gamely confirmed to Breaking Defense that it was an F-22, but declined to comment further on Trump’s wardrobe.)

The detail is particularly intriguing considering Turkey has long sought re-entry into another American fifth-generation fighter jet program: the F-35, which is also made by Lockheed Martin and is the counterpart to the air-to-air specialist F-22.

“We’re going to discuss the F-35. We’ll be discussing all of the things that you know about …,” Trump said, sitting next to Erdogan. “And I think you’ll be successful with buying the things that he’d like to buy. … We’ll have to see. We haven’t even started yet but I know he wants the F-35, and he’s wanted, and we’re talking about that very seriously.”

RELATED: Trump wants a twin-engine F-35. Experts say it’s ‘not feasible.’

Erdogan, likewise, said the two would have an “opportunity” to talk about “some of the issues regarding the F-35” as well as F-16s.

Turkey was ejected from the international F-35 program in 2019, during Trump’s first term, after it agreed to purchase Russian air defense systems. And though Ankara is currently developing its own indigenous fifth-generation fighter called the KAAN, Erdogan has long sought to work his way back under the F-35 umbrella. (The F-22 was never offered to international partners and is only flown by the US Air Force.)

Despite Trump’s optimistic words, however, no public announcement was made following Erdogan’s visit regarding the F-35 or any other deal.

As for the pin, Trump continued to wear it throughout meetings on Thursday, and it was affixed to his jacket again this morning when he appeared at the Ryder Cup.

U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd on the first tee during the Friday afternoon four-ball matches of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Black Course at Bethpage State Park Golf Course on September 26, 2025 in Farmingdale, New York. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

Air Force AI writes battle plans faster than humans can — but some of them are wrong

AFA 2025 — In a recent Air Force experiment, AI algorithms generated attack plans about 400 times faster than human staff, a two-star general told reporters here at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference. The catch? Not all the AI-generated plans would actually work.

The challenge in the exercise, called DASH-2, was to come up with detailed “Courses Of Action” (COAs) for how to strike a given set of targets with a given set of aircraft and weapons, explained Maj. Gen. Robert Claude, a member of the joint Air Force/Space Force team for the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). Human staff using traditional methods generated three COAs in about 16 minutes, Claude said, while AI tools generated 10 COAs in “roughly eight seconds.”

Some quick math averages those rates out: The AI generated 1.25 COAs every second, the humans generated one COA every 5.3 minutes. That’s a 400-fold difference in speed.

That’s radically faster than in the inaugural experiment in the series, this summer’s DASH-1, where the Air Force claimed AI sped up planning “seven-fold” — without making any more mistakes than humans. But not all AIs are created equal, and the best-laid plans of mice, men and machines oft go awry.

In DASH-2, Claude said, “while it was much more timely and there were more COAs generated [by AI than humans], they weren’t necessarily completely viable COAs.”

While he didn’t go into details, he said the errors were not blatant but subtle: more along the lines of failing to factor in the right kind of sensor for specific weather conditions, rather than trying to send tanks on air missions or put glue on pizza. (Of course subtle errors are harder to catch and require more expertise for a human to correct.)

The lesson, Claude said: “What is going to be important going forward is, while we’re getting faster results and we’re getting more results [from AI], there’s still going to have to be a human in the loop for the foreseeable future to make sure that they’re all viable [and] to make the decision.”

That said, Claude was confident future iterations of AI planning aides can get that error rate back down. The name DASH stands for “Decision Advantage Sprint for Human-Machine Teaming,” and as both “dash” and “sprint” imply, the emphasis was on speed, with the participating software development teams having just two weeks to build custom planning tools.

“It’s all, obviously, in how they build the algorithm. You’ve got to make sure that all the right factors are included,” Claude said. “In a two-week sprint, you know, there’s just not time to build all that in with all the checks and balances.”

That’s an acceptable tradeoff for a quick experiment to explore the art of the possible, not for a deployed military system. “If we pursue this route, if we do this for real,” he said, “it’s going to be longer than a two-week coding period.”

The third and final DASH of the year is already underway at the ominously named Shadow Operations Center — Nellis in Las Vegas. “I was actually out for the beginning of DASH-3 last week,” Claude said.

The general was powerfully struck by how much incoming information the Air Force planners in the exercise, known as battle managers, had to cope with.

“They sat me in front of a scope and it was an eye-opening experience for me to see … from a battle manager standpoint, what it is they go through,” he said. “If we successfully get to the point where we’ve got a good human-machine team arrangement, how valuable that could be.”

From gridlock to greener pastures: How a full-year CR could empower warfighters

Every autumn, Pentagon and Congressional leaders sound the alarm over continuing resolutions (CRs). A CR, they insist, is catastrophic, blocking new starts, freezing budgets, and endangering readiness.

But last year, when Congress actually delivered a full-year CR, the sky did not fall. In fact, something remarkable happened: the Department of Defense gained more budgetary freedom than it has seen in decades.

Why? Because the full-year CR cuts appropriators out of their favorite pastime, line-item micromanagement. Instead of Congress dictating thousands of budget line items in exquisite detail, the department received several large lump-sums, akin to the structure of this year’s authorizer-written reconciliation bill. That gave the Pentagon far more flexibility to shift money within accounts to meet real-world demands and some of the findings in the PPBE Commission. The only thing missing was the Pentagon’s readiness to exploit it.

Let’s be clear: Last year’s year-long CR compromise was no disaster. Troops got paid, operations continued, and modernization didn’t collapse.

But appropriators weren’t ready to let go. They dutifully handed DoD the detailed line-item instructions they would have passed if a normal bill had cleared. And here’s the disappointment: DoD, it appears, mostly honored them. Instead of seizing the chance to realign money with strategy, the Pentagon treated the appropriators’ “wish list” as binding law.

In other words, Congressional appropriators clung to micromanagement through new means and DoD voluntarily obliged itself. The flexibility of a full-year CR was wasted.

There’s no excuse for a repeat. Everyone knows another full-year CR is a live possibility. This time, DoD must plan ahead. Instead of defaulting to appropriators’ shadow line items, the department should build a disciplined strategy for reallocating funds in line with the needs of the warfighter, akin to what it now has to do with the reconciliation bill.

The real advantage of a full-year CR is not the anomaly process; it’s liberation from congressional earmarks and parochial dictates. Appropriators carve the defense budget into thousands of specified slices every year. These mandates tie the Pentagon’s hands and consume resources that should be directed against real threats.

Under a full-year CR, those impediments fall away. DoD receives funding at some new pre-determined level, but with greater latitude to move money within accounts. That means the services can finally prioritize based on the development timeline of industry rather than the artificial clock tied to the political process.

A full-year CR this year is not a crisis, it’s an opportunity — if Pentagon leaders prepare. Consider a three-part opportunity:

No restrictions on new starts or accelerating procurement quantities enabling leaders to exploit success as it happens. The restrictions on new starts had in the past been limited only to partial year-CRs, but the Congress last year in the Full Year CR enabled the Pentagon to move forward seamlessly.Funding capability areas rather than programs.  The 2026 appropriation was built by the Pentagon back in 2024 and a lot has changed in the meantime.The big winner is emerging tech. Funds could flow into AI-enabled decision tools and electronic warfare prototypes, not low-payoff science projects that happened to make it into the budget tables two years ago.

The normal appropriation process leads to line-item micromanagement and prevents DoD from exploiting accelerated acquisition often leading to the “valley of death” for new defense entrants.

Gridlock is usually a dirty word in Washington. But for defense budgeting, gridlock may mean salvation. When Congress deadlocks and passes a full-year CR, it accidentally delivers something better than over-engineered appropriations bills: a large, flexible pot of money that the Department can align with the needs of the warfighter today.

Last year, the Pentagon squandered that opportunity by being surprised and by mostly deferring to appropriators’ unofficial instructions. This year, it must do the opposite: expect a full-year CR, plan for it, and be ready to act strategically.

Sometimes Washington’s dysfunction delivers more than its best-laid plans. Gridlock may be just what the Pentagon needs.

Ret. Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. He previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.

Wilsbach expected to become next Air Force chief of staff: Sources

WASHINGTON — Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach is expected to be named as the Trump administration’s official choice for Air Force chief of staff, three sources told Breaking Defense.

If confirmed, Wilsbach will replace Gen. David Allvin, who unexpectedly announced last month that he would retire in November, halfway through his four-year term. 

The Air Force declined to comment on the status of the nomination. The White House did not respond to an after-hours request for comment by press time. 

President Donald Trump has been known to change his mind, so a switch is always possible until the decision is formally sent to the Senate and announced by the Defense Department. But two of the sources who spoke with Breaking Defense say they expect Congress to be notified in the coming days that Wilsbach is the choice.

Wilsbach’s path to the top uniformed Air Force post has been unusual compared to the typically rote and bureaucratic nomination process. 

On Aug. 11, the Air Force four-star stepped down from his position as head of Air Combat Command, ahead of his intended retirement. But seven days later, Allvin’s early exit was announced, and shortly thereafter multiple sources told Breaking Defense that Wilsbach had emerged as the frontrunner for the chief of staff job, in part due to his prior assignment as commander of Pacific Air Forces. 

However, Wilsbach’s potential nomination appeared to be stalled after social media accounts mounted a campaign calling out his previous statements supporting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. That campaign instead promoted Air Force Global Strike Command head Gen. Thomas Bussiere, then nominated for the vice chief of staff, as a potential contender for the chief of staff job. (Bussiere’s nomination for vice chief has since been pulled, Aviation Week reported earlier this month.) 

The unprecedented campaigning for the service’s top military role became the talk of the Air Force community, and was a hot topic among attendees at the Air and Space Forces Association conference this week. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink in a briefing with reporters on Monday downplayed concerns that the service would be left leaderless in its top uniformed position.

While noting that the Trump administration ultimately has to select a nominee, “the bottom line is we will not not have a chief. Gen. Allvin and I will make sure that we have a chief,” he said.

Wilsbach is a fighter pilot by craft, having flown aircraft like the F-22 Raptor, F-15 and F-16. If selected, he would guide the service during a critical window, as fears mount that China could invade Taiwan and invoke a US response. In his own right, Wilsbach has commanded forces amid what he called “completely unprofessional and totally unsafe” intercepts by Chinese pilots.

“What’s disturbing is … their typical response is, ‘This is your fault, because this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t here,’” Wilsbach told reporters in September 2023, regarding cases where American officials have been able to confront their Chinese counterparts on the intercepts.

“Do it safely, do it professionally and everybody will be okay,” Wilsbach said. “We won’t have a miscalculation. We won’t have a disaster.”

Michael Marrow contributed to this report.

State clears Germany for $1.2 billion worth of AMRAAMs

WASHINGTON — The US State Department greenlit a potential foreign military sale of up to 400 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air (AMRAAM) missiles to Germany, a deal valued at over $1.2 billion, according to a notice published by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. 

The approval paves the way for Berlin to acquire the weapons from defense giant RTX, whose subsidiary Raytheon manufactures the AMRAAM. The approval covers the AIM-120D-3 variant of the weapon and associated equipment, which the DSCA release on Thursday said will “provid[e]increased air-to-air capability for the German F-35 program” and other NATO needs.

The notice from DSCA is a congressional notification and is not final, as quantities and dollar totals often shift during negotiations. Today’s announcement also technically tees up an opportunity for lawmakers to block the deal within a 30-day period, though such a step would be unlikely considering Germany is a key NATO ally. 

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a NATO Ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe,” the DSCA posting says. 

RELATED: Denmark picks Europe’s SAMP/T for long-range air defense, shuns Patriot

The AMRAAM has been in particularly high demand amid modern threats that have highlighted air defense as a key focus of the US military and its allies. Although AMRAAM is an air-to-air missile, it can also be fired from the ground-based NASAMS air defense system that serves NATO customers and has been extensively used in Ukraine. 

RTX has been ramping up production of the missile to meet the need, which company officials have forecast will remain durable in the coming years. The announcement for Germany today is the latest for a European customer, following similar recent approvals of variants of the weapon for the Netherlands (232 missiles and equipment for an estimated $570 million) and Finland (405 missiles and equipment for an estimated $1.1 billion).

The US government, for its part, is working to boost production of the weapon due to the high domestic and international interest in the AMRAAM. A spending plan lawmakers sent the Pentagon for President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill allocates an additional $250 million for procurement of the weapon alongside $225 million to expand its production capacity. Officials aim to eventually double the missile’s annual production from 1,200 to 2,400 units.

“More AMRAAMs are coming off the production line today than ever before. We’re working closely with our supply chain to ensure our customers have the advanced munitions they need at scale,” Brian DeGennaro, vice president of Raytheon’s air dominance portfolio, said in a statement to Breaking Defense.

Is it time to bet on a government shutdown? [Video]

The US government is just a few days away from the end of the fiscal year, with online oddsmakers saying the chances of a government shutdown are high. But if you’re a gambler, where should you put your money?

In the above video, Breaking Defense’s Aaron Mehta walks you through the latest back and forth around the shutdown and makes his prediction for what happens on Oct. 1.

Featuring insights and analysis from our team of reporters, The Congressional Roundup is here to make sure you know what’s going on inside the halls of the Hill as news happens, all wrapped up in a tight package.

To make sure you don’t miss the latest episode — and that you’re getting all of our coverage from the Hill — subscribe to our congressional newsletter below.

hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: '2097098', formId: '1ae78672-6dbf-4528-ae72-18d629c6b1f4', target: '#hubspot-form-1ae78672-6dbf-4528-ae72-18d629c6b1f4', });

Is it time to bet on a government shutdown?

The US government is just a few days away from the end of the fiscal year, with online oddsmakers saying the chances of a government shutdown are high. But if you’re a gambler, where should you put your money?

In the above video, Breaking Defense’s Aaron Mehta walks you through the latest back and forth around the shutdown and makes his prediction for what happens on Oct. 1.

Featuring insights and analysis from our team of reporters, The Congressional Roundup is here to make sure you know what’s going on inside the halls of the Hill as news happens, all wrapped up in a tight package.

To make sure you don’t miss the latest episode — and that you’re getting all of our coverage from the Hill — subscribe to our congressional newsletter below.

hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: '2097098', formId: '1ae78672-6dbf-4528-ae72-18d629c6b1f4', target: '#hubspot-form-1ae78672-6dbf-4528-ae72-18d629c6b1f4', });

German military to invest $41B in space capabilities

WASHINGTON — German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius today announced that Berlin will invest €35 billion ($41 billion) over the next five years on space security, including improved cybersecurity.

“[W]e are building structures within the Bundeswehr to enable us to effectively defend and deter in space in the medium and long term,” he told the Federation of German Industries’ annual Space Congress in Berlin, according to an online translation of an MoD press release.

“We plan to acquire new satellite constellations — for early warning, reconnaissance, and communications. We will also utilize dual-use systems, meaning technologies that can be deployed for both civilian and military purposes,” Pistorius added.

That plan, according to the release, includes spending on:

hardening systems against disruptions and attacksimproved situational awareness through radars, telescopes and the future use of sentinel satellitesthe creation of redundancies through several networked satellite constellationssecured, also on-demand available, transport capacities into spacea dedicated military satellite operations center in the Bundeswehr Space Command

Pistorius specifically called out the need for improved cybersecurity for “all space systems” — and back in May Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, commander of German Space Command, said “self-protection measures [or] built-in self-protection” for satellites was on his “Christmas list.”

As for the motivating factor, Pistorius cited increasing threats to Western space assets from Russia and China as the impetus for the new spending plan.

“Satellite networks today are an Achilles’ heel of modern societies. Whoever attacks them paralyzes entire nations,” Pistorius said.

For example, he noted the February 2023 Russian cyberattack on Viasat’s communication satellite network in the run up to the invasion of Ukraine that also shut down German wind turbines, according to a report in Defense News.

Pistorius also alleged that Russian Luch/Olymp satellites have been shadowing two communications satellites operated by US firm Intelsat that are used by the Bundeswehr.

The Luch/Olymp birds, characterized by Moscow as “inspector satellites,” have been making close passes around a number of US and Western nation satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit since at least 2015.

The MoD is reaching out to German and European industry for assistance in making its space plans a reality, Pistorius stressed.

He explained that Berlin wants to “promote innovations from small and medium-sized enterprises in the future in a non-bureaucratic and early stage — and use larger companies as system integrators to integrate small businesses and startups,” according to the MoD press release.

Europe’s major launch company, Arianespace, announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the Bundeswehr to launch two SATCOMBw Stufe 3 satellites on heavy-lift Ariane 6 rockets. The new satellites are to replace the COMSATBw 1 and 2 military communications birds.

At the same time, Pitorius said, MoD is “also currently looking at market-available solutions. Specifically where this technological shortcut makes sense.”

While the company didn’t cite the specific agency involved due to security concerns, Planet Labs Germany GmbH, the American firm’s European headquarters, announced on July 1 that it had received a “multi-year €240 million agreement, funded by the German government, in support of European peace and security” for “high-resolution imagery and timely intelligence.”

Today in Berlin, the company announced plans “to begin production of next-generation, high-resolution Pelican satellites in Germany” under a deal “expected to exceed 8 figures” in capital investment.

Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space, told Breaking Defense that one big winner from the MoD’s plan will be OHB, headquartered in Bremen, which Henry described as Germany’s “biggest space prime.”

OHB operates five aging SAR-Lupe synthetic aperture radar satellites that provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the German military. In 2023, the company launched two replacements, called SARah, but were moribund until a recovery maneuver to deploy their jammed antennas this spring brought them into service, according to a May 27 report by market analysis firm Seradata.

Henry said he would also “be watching to see if this proposal has any impact on Germany’s emerging launch providers, notably Isar Aerospace and RFA.”

“Germany has discussed its own MEO [medium Earth orbit] constellation as well, which would be a notable investment in sovereign space systems,” Henry added.

He noted that the move may be the start of a trend away from France being the only big player in European space.

“What’s interesting to me is that for a long time, when looking at where Europe, if you kind of ask the the old Henry Kissinger question, ‘when I call Europe, who do I call?’ for the space industry that has always been France. But in recent years, we’ve started to see more of a pendulum swing towards Germany,” he said.

“And so to me, it’s the culmination of a … growing desire in Germany for greater space autonomy, and a willingness to pursue that, if necessary, on an independent basis,” Henry said.