Why the agreement on military jets between Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom is important
Giorgia Meloni’s Italy continues to send signals of Atlanticist loyalty to Joe Biden. After the green light for new weapons for Ukraine and the declarations on several occasions in line with Washington on Taiwan and China, here’s a new move. And again on the military side. Italy is in fact close to announcing an agreement with Japan and the United Kingdom to finance a multibillion-dollar program for the generation of new state-of-the-art military aircraft capable of competing with the next generation of US warplanes and beyond.
Agreement on the project, which will be called the Global Combat Air Program, is expected next week, Bloomberg first revealed. The United Kingdom and Italy have been developing the Tempest warplane for some years to compete with the so-called Future Combat Air System of France and Germany. London and Rome are working to bring Japan into the group and Sweden is another potential partner. But cooperation in the military and with London could clearly have repercussions in relations with China and Russia, as both the UK and Japan are on a collision course with both.
Joining a major defense development project with a partner other than the United States represents a break with tradition for Japan, which is beefing up its military budget and updating its national security strategy after being spooked by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. The addition of Japan to the British-Italian alliance working on the Tempest fighter would bring an international dimension to what has been an all-European project, potentially boosting worldwide sales and boosting financing after Germany opts to partner with France for the rival aircraft.
Two billion pounds of investment
The main contractors are Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for Japan, BAE Systems Plc for the UK and Leonardo SpA for Italy. Sweden’s Saab AB, which currently produces the Gripen fighter, is considered another potential recruit. According to previous reports, the UK has pledged to invest more than £2 billion over the next three years, while Italy has pledged to invest £2 billion over several years.
It is unclear how the Tempest plan and Japan’s FX program might complement each other, although BAE said in July that several options were being explored and that initial cooperation with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which is spearheading FX development, was very positive. Both fighters will require many years of development, and the Tempest is expected to enter service around 2035, while FCAS is expected to enter service around five years later.
But Italy gives another signal of multilateral alignment with the main allies of the United States.
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