“A Long-term Rearmament Drive in Europe”: The Perspective from Nicolas Chamussy, CEO KNDS France

03/18/2025 By Pierre Tran Paris - KNDS has been much in the news, with the chief executive of the French unit floating the idea of a public-private partnership to boost arms production, and media reports of a possible stock market flotation of the Franco-German builder of land weapons. The chief executive of KNDS France, Nicolas Chamussy, sketched out March 12 to… Read more »

The Next Steps in Working Distributed Aviation Operations: 2nd MAW Works the Challenge

03/16/2025 By Robbin Laird When I interviewed the Commanding General of 2nd Marine Air Wing last summer, he underscored the importance for the Marines to craft a way ahead with regard to distributed air operations. This is how we discussed the issue at that time: We then discussed distributed air operations (DO) and how it differed from simply being a Forward… Read more »

Perspectives on European Defense Industry: A March 2025 Update

03/11/2025 By Pierre Tran Saint Cloud, France - Thales and Dassault Aviation reported respectively March 4 and 5 buoyant 2024 financial results, as European political leaders sought to raise €800 billion ($869 billion) to rearm in response to what they saw as the U.S. turning away from Europe, with Washington leaning on Kyiv to yield ground to Moscow. The share price… Read more »

A Tiltrotor Enterprise: From Iraq to the Future

03/10/2025 We have published a new book in our airpower and naval modernization series. This book focuses on the Osprey and its evolution since 2007. As the United States faces a global overload of strategic challenges and the concomitant challenge of shaping an effective and capable force to deal with these challenges but having serious budget stringencies, leveraging the unique capabilities… Read more »

Building Blocks for the USMC Force Distribution Approach

03/09/2025 By Robbin Laird The Marines like the other services in the U.S. military have been focusing on how to distribute their forces for both their core missions and in support of joint and coalition operations. Force distribution has been necessitated by the growth of precision strike available to both peer competitors and non-state groups or small states which can act… Read more »

Italy and the F-35: Shaping 21st Century Coalition-Enabled Airpower

03/05/2025 Our latest book in our airpower and maritime force modernization series has just been published. The book highlights Italy's significant role in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The book details Italy's contributions to F-35 manufacturing and maintenance at the Cameri facility, highlighting its status as a key production and sustainment hub for European and allied partners. Furthermore, the book… Read more »