France, Germany to hammer out next steps for delay-prone FCAS warplane

PARIS — France, Germany and Spain will refine the scope of their future sixth-generation fighter jet and its associated combat systems at a summit in December, before the joint project moves to the demonstrator phase, the head of the French armaments office said.

France has included funding for the second phase of the Future Combat Air System in its 2025 defense budget, Emmanuel Chiva, the head of the General Directorate for Armament, told lawmakers in the National Assembly’s defense on Wednesday, though he hinted at possible delays for the program.

“I can’t guarantee that this date will be met, as it will depend in particular on the electoral deadlines of certain state partners,” Chiva said. Program partner Germany is scheduled to hold federal elections in September next year.

FCAS has previously seen negotiations on Phase 1B of the program drag on for most of 2022 due to squabbling between Dassault Aviation and Airbus, two of the three main partners. Dassault Aviation makes the Rafale fighter in use with the French Air and Space Force, while Airbus builds the Eurofighter that equips the German Air Force.

The French armaments directorate said last year it expected Phase 2 to start early 2026. Dassault Aviation represents France in the FCAS program, while Airbus represents Germany, with Indra the Spanish partner.

French doctrine requires the future fighter to be able to carry nuclear weapons as part of the country’s deterrence program, as well as be able to operate from an aircraft carrier, and have export potential, Chiva said.

France earlier this month kicked of development of the future F5 standard for the Rafale fighter, which includes an air-combat drone that will serve as an uncrewed wingman, and capability to carry the future hypersonic nuclear missile SNA4G.

“Today, the FCAS is an object that has yet to be defined,” Chiva said. “In any case, there will be a successor to the Rafale F5, since our deterrence needs and those of the new airborne component, the SNA4G, will have to be taken into account.”

The French-German project to develop a future land combat system based around a main battle tank, called the Main Combat Ground System, is also facing some delays, according to Chiva.

Setting up the joint project company between KNDS Germany, KNDS France, Rheinmetall and Thales “is taking a bit of time,” Chiva said. That means the first development orders, which had been expected early 2025, will “no doubt” be later next year, according to the directorate head, who didn’t say what is causing the delay.

Meanwhile, France is willing to act as a backstop for shipbuilder Naval Group that would allow the company to target export markets with its defense and intervention frigate, Chiva said. The directorate is working on a “bare hull” strategy that would allow Naval Group to keep its workforce at its yards in Lorient occupied by building two frigates a year there, when France would be happy with one frigate a year.

“We’re ready to work with the manufacturer, for example, to bring forward the order of certain frigates for France, betting on export, and thinking that these frigates can be delivered to the various countries that are interested today,” Chiva said.

The French Navy is scheduled to take delivery of the first defense and intervention frigate, the Amiral Ronarc’h, in 2025, with hulls 2 to 5 following in 2027, 2028, 2031 and 2032, respectively.

France is currently in the process of negotiating the price tag for its future aircraft carrier with Naval Group, Chantiers de l’Atlantique and TechnicAtome, though Armed Forces Minister Sebastian Lecornu has already said the future carrier will be in the €10 billion euro range. The armament directorate expects to order the next-generation ship toward the end of 2025.

The current carrier Charles de Gaulle is scheduled for a major overhaul in 2027-2028, and France will use the maintenance stop to inspect the nuclear-propulsion boilers. The Navy will also study at that time whether it would be possible to prolong the life of the vessel beyond 2038, should that be necessary due to some setback with the future carrier project, according to Chiva.

Navy to name submarine after the city of Atlanta

ATLANTA — Atlanta is far from the ocean, but it will have a naval vessel named for it again.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced this week that the Navy will build a Virginia-class attack submarine that will be known as the Atlanta.

It wasn’t immediately clear when the construction will start on the submarine, when it will enter service, or how much it may cost.

In August, the Navy awarded a $1.3 billion contract to the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, to start buying materials for that and other submarines it will eventually build.

The Navy has recently been naming new submarines in its Virginia class for cities, including Baltimore, San Francisco and Miami.

It would be the fifth Navy vessel named for Georgia’s largest city. The first was a Confederate ironclad captured in 1863 and converted to Union service during the Civil War. The most recent was a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine that served from 1982 to 1999.

“It has been 25 years since the Navy has had a ship named after the proud legacy of the city of Atlanta,” Del Toro said in a speech at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Del Toro saluted the naval submarine service of former President Jimmy Carter, who just turned 100. Carter, the only president who was a nuclear submariner, already has the Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf-class submarine, named for him. It was commissioned in 2005 and remains in the fleet.

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has served in President Joe Biden’s administration, will be the ship’s sponsor.

“And wherever she sails, she will represent not only the legacy of the proud ships who bore the name USS Atlanta before her, but also the thousands of Atlantans who have honorably and faithfully served the United States in uniform, as civil servants, and as activists to better our great nation,” Del Toro said.

China leading ‘rapid expansion’ of nuclear arsenal, Pentagon says

China is accelerating its buildup of nuclear weapons, forcing the U.S. to more than double earlier estimates of its pace, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm wrote in a report this week.

The Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that Beijing had around 200 warheads in 2020 and would reach at least twice that by the end of the decade. Now, the DIA said, China has already reached 500 such weapons and will have more than 1,000 by 2030 — most of which will be able to reach the U.S.

“China is undergoing the most rapid expansion and ambitious modernization of its nuclear forces in history,” the report argued, though noting Beijing’s arsenal is still far below America’s or Russia’s.

These numbers appeared in the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military strength published last year, and are due for a refresh later this fall.

“Compared to the PLA’s nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago,” that document said, referring to the Chinese military, “current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity.”

Despite the detailed projections, the U.S. still does not know why China has pursued such a large arsenal at such a fast pace. Talks with senior Chinese military leaders only restarted earlier this year, after a hiatus that began in 2022. American defense officials have said their counterparts in the People’s Liberation Army haven’t been willing to discuss the buildup.

“We see a very rapid expansion and modernization of the PLA nuclear forces, and they have not been transparent about the underlying intent or the goals,” a senior U.S. defense official told a group of traveling reporters, including Defense News, in June.

The official spoke after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his Chinese counterpart — the third in as many years. Austin raised the nuclear issue in that meeting, the official said.

The DIA’s new report argues that China’s pace comes from two broad goals: competition with America’s military and an effort to back up old strategic plans with real capabilities — like a coach that runs more advanced plays with better players.

Among these concepts is the threat of limited nuclear use in a crisis that involves “conventional” or non-nuclear weapons, the DIA said. Another is the development of smaller, or “low yield,” nuclear warheads that could have real battlefield use, rather than value as a deterrent alone.

The report said this second development suggests “Chinese nuclear thinkers could be reconsidering their long-standing view that nuclear war is uncontrollable.”

For years, the Pentagon has said China’s military overall is growing rapidly as its leaders pursue a “world class” force, a euphemism for one on par with America’s. This goal includes a set of timelines, pegged to specific anniversaries for the Chinese Communist Party.

Most concerning for the Pentagon of late has been 2027 — the centennial of the People’s Liberation Army — by which point China’s leader has told the military that it should have the strength to invade Taiwan, a self-governing island Beijing considers its rightful territory.

American officials who have shared this assessment caution that it isn’t a deadline to actually invade.

At the same time China pours resources into its Rocket Force, or nuclear wing, the service has been rocked by corruption issues. Several senior officers were sacked last year amid a wider purge of military and defense officials.

Northrop expects next B-21 contract by year’s end

The Air Force is likely to award Northrop Grumman a second low-rate initial production contract to build the B-21 Raider by the end of the year, company officials said Thursday.

In an earnings call with investors, Northrop chief executive Kathy Warden said ground and flight testing of the Air Force’s next stealth bomber is on track, and work on the first production B-21s is proceeding as planned.

The Pentagon cleared the B-21 for its first phase of production in fall 2023. Northrop expects follow-on annual LRIP awards, Warden said, “and this is the time of year when that happens.”

The B-21 — which Northrop Grumman has touted as the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft due to its improved stealth, use of open systems architecture and advanced data sharing capabilities — is expected to enter service later this decade, and will replace the aging B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers sometime in the 2030s.

The Air Force plans to field a fleet of at least 100 B-21s.

And as the service rethinks its overall approach to fighting a future air war, it could become clear whether more B-21s are in the cards, Warden said.

The Air Force this summer balked at potentially severe price tags for its proposed Next Generation Air Dominance platform, and began reconsidering what mix of air dominance assets it needs to fight and win a war against an advanced adversary.

As that force structure review wraps up in the next few months, Northrop Grumman may get a better picture on how many B-21s the Air Force will likely buy, Warden said.

Northrop expects volume on the B-21′s low-rate initial production to increase in the fourth quarter, which will help drive the company’s sales.

But the B-21′s financial road has been rocky so far for Northrop. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Northrop reported a nearly $1.6 billion charge on the B-21, which the company attributed to rising production costs and macroeconomic disruptions.

Northrop officials have also cautioned investors that the bomber will lose money at first, though the company expects that to turn around.

Warden told investors that Northrop is able to absorb those early headwinds on the B-21.

“While the B-21 is a key program in our company, it is not the majority of [aeronautics] sales,” Warden said.

The B-21 team is taking steps to bring down cost and improve productivity, Warden added, including refining training methods to quickly bring new factory employees up to speed. That new training has also benefited other, more mature Northrop programs, she said.

The B-21′s LRIP phase is expected to include five lots, and will run roughly through the end of the decade.

Boeing machinists reject labor contract, extending strike

SEATTLE — Boeing factory workers voted against the company’s latest contract offer and remain on the picket lines six weeks into a strike that has stopped production of the aerospace giant’s bestselling jetliners.

Local union leaders in Seattle said 64% of members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers who cast ballots Wednesday voted against accepting the contract offer.

“After 10 years of sacrifices, we still have ground to make up, and we’re hopeful to do so by resuming negotiations promptly,” Jon Holden, the head of the IAM District 751 union, said in a statement Wednesday evening. “This is workplace democracy — and also clear evidence that there are consequences when a company mistreats its workers year after year.”

Strike, fixed-price contracts leave Boeing defense bleeding cash

A spokesperson for Boeing said officials didn’t have a comment on the vote.

The labor standoff comes during an already challenging year for Boeing, which became the focus of multiple federal investigations after a door panel blew off a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

The strike has deprived the company of much-needed cash that it gets from delivering new planes to airlines. On Wednesday, the company reported a third-quarter loss of more than $6 billion.

Union machinists assemble the 737 Max, Boeing’s best-selling airliner, along with the 777 or “triple-seven” jet and the 767 cargo plane at factories in Renton and Everett, Washington.

The latest rejected offer included pay raises of 35% over four years. The version that union members rejected when they voted to strike last month featured a 25% increase over four years.

The union, which initially demanded 40% pay boosts over three years, said the annual raises in the revised offer would total 39.8%, when compounded.

Boeing has said that average annual pay for machinists is currently $75,608.

Boeing workers told Associated Press reporters that a sticking point was the company’s refusal to restore a traditional pension plan that was frozen a decade ago.

“The pension should have been the top priority. We all said that was our top priority, along with wage,” Larry Best, a customer-quality coordinator with 38 years at Boeing, said on a picket line outside a Boeing factory in Everett, Washington. “Now is the prime opportunity in a prime time to get our pension back, and we all need to stay out and dig our heels in.”

Theresa Pound, a 16-year Boeing veteran, also voted against the deal. She said the health plan has gotten more expensive and her expected pension benefits would not be enough, even when combined with a 401(k) retirement account.

“I have put more time in this place than I was ever required to. I have literally blood, sweat and tears from working at this company,” the 37-year-old said. “I’m looking at working until I’m 70 because I have this possibility that I might not get to retire based on what’s happening in the market.”

The strike started Sept. 13 and has served as an early test for Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who became chief executive in August.

In his first remarks to investors, Ortberg said earlier Wednesday that Boeing needs “a fundamental culture change,” and he laid out his plan to revive the aerospace giant after years of heavy losses and damage to its reputation.

Ortberg repeated in a message to employees and on the earnings call that he wants to “reset” management’s relationship with labor “so we don’t become so disconnected in the future.” He said company leaders need to spend more time on factory floors to know what is going on and “prevent the festering of issues and work better together to identify, fix, and understand root cause.”

Ortberg, a Boeing outsider who previously ran Rockwell Collins, a maker of avionics and flight controls for airline and military planes, said Boeing is at a crossroads.

“The trust in our company has eroded. We’re saddled with too much debt. We’ve had serious lapses in our performance across the company, which have disappointed many of our customers,” he said.

But Ortberg also highlighted the company’s strengths, including a backlog of airplane orders valued at a half-trillion dollars.

“It will take time to return Boeing to its former legacy, but with the right focus and culture, we can be an iconic company and aerospace leader once again,” he said.

In recent weeks, Ortberg announced large-scale layoffs — about 17,000 people — and a plan to raise enough cash to avoid a bankruptcy filing.

Boeing hasn’t had a profitable year since 2018, and Wednesday’s numbers represented the second-worst quarter in the manufacturer’s history. Boeing lost $6.17 billion in the period ended Sept. 30, with an adjusted loss of $10.44 per share. Analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research had expected a loss of $10.34 per share.

Revenue totaled $17.84 billion, matching Wall Street estimates.

The company burned nearly $2 billion in cash, in the quarter, weakening its balance sheet, which is loaded down with $58 billion in debt. Chief Financial Officer Brian West said the company will not generate positive cash flow until the second half of next year.

Boeing’s fortunes soured after two of its 737 Max jetliners crashed in October 2018 and March 2019, killing 346 people. Safety concerns were renewed this January, when a panel blew off a Max during an Alaska Airlines flight.

Ortberg needs to convince federal regulators that Boeing is fixing its safety culture and is ready to boost production of the 737 Max — a crucial step to bring in much-needed cash. That can’t happen, however, until the striking workers return to their jobs.

Early in the strike, Boeing made what it termed its “best and final” offer. The proposal included pay raises of 30% over four years, and angered union leaders because the company announced it to the striking workers through the media and set a short ratification deadline.

Boeing backed down and gave the union more time. However, many workers maintained the offer still wasn’t good enough. The company withdrew the proposed contract on Oct. 9 after negotiations broke down, and the two sides announced the latest proposal on Saturday.

Charles Fromong, a mechanic who has worked at Boeing for 38 years, said Wednesday night after the results were announced that the company needs to take care of its workers.

“I feel sorry for the young people,” he said. “I’ve spent my life here and I’m getting ready to go, but they deserve a pension and I deserve an increase.”

The last Boeing strike, in 2008, lasted eight weeks and cost the company about $100 million daily in deferred revenue. A 1995 strike lasted 10 weeks.

Koenig reported from Dallas. Lindsey Wasson in Everett, Washington, contributed to this report.

Space Development Agency builds vendor pool for future demo missions

The Space Development Agency has picked 19 companies to experiment with new satellite technologies through its Hybrid Acquisition for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit program.

Through the effort, dubbed HALO, the agency will run rapid on-orbit demonstrations aimed at reducing risk and speeding up technology development for future operational missions.

“We believe HALO will also increase the pool of performers capable of bidding on future SDA programs, including participation in layers of future tranches,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said in a statement Wednesday.

The selected companies include orbital vehicle providers like Firefly Aerospace and Impulse Space, satellite bus manufacturers like Apex and space technology specialists like CesiumAstro and AST SpaceMobile. Each firm received an initial $20 million contract and will be eligible to compete for future prototype orders.

Frank Turner, SDA’s technical director, said Wednesday that as the agency solicits proposals from the contractor pool, it will form teams comprised of companies that offer the best technology solutions to the capability set that SDA wants to demonstrate. That approach, he said, allows SDA to “fly before we buy.”

“It’s the idea of, we’re not 100% sure about this technology yet, but let’s go figure it out,” Turner said during the Space Force’s Space Industry Days conference in Los Angeles. “Let’s go fly it. Let’s fly it quickly.”

Early missions will seek to build and launch two spacecraft within 12 to 18 months, testing optical communications and tactical data links.

Ian Cinnamon, CEO of Apex, said HALO offers his firm a chance to showcase its off-the-shelf satellite buses. The company recently announced a partnership with Anduril to supply buses for its growing space portfolio.

“Being selected for a HALO award is an important opportunity to demonstrate Apex’s ability to use productized satellite buses to rapidly support national security missions in space,” Cinnamon said.

Firefly Aerospace will showcase its line of space vehicles as part of HALO. The company’s Elytra spacecraft, which provides space mobility and responsive launch support, is slated to fly for the first time later this year.

“We’re seeing an increasing demand for advanced in-space capabilities, including both prototype and feasibility demonstrations that support critical joint warfighter terrestrial missions with rapid and affordable commercial services,” CEO Jason Kim said in a statement.

Dutch military faces a tough mission: finding space to prepare for war

PARIS — With trench warfare back in Europe, the Royal Netherlands Army would like to dig ditches to train for defense of NATO’s eastern flank – but environmental regulations make taking a shovel to its exercise ranges all but impossible.

Other Dutch services face hurdles to improving military readiness. The Air Force is keen to fly its F-35 fighters more often, yet is bound by flight restrictions at air bases hemmed in between villages, farms and cities, in a country that takes 10 minutes to cross by super-cruising jet.

The country’s new civil-military conundrum is emblematic of similar developments elsewhere in Europe, where space is limited in densely populated areas, and modern regulations are tuned to reconcile economic and environmental goals, not matters of war and peace.

As the armed forces of the Netherlands expand again after three decades of budget cuts, they’re looking to step up everything from live fire exercises to low-level helicopter training and ammo stockpiles. The government is puzzling how to fit additional defense activity in a country more densely populated than any of its NATO allies, and where military terrain left empty after the Cold War was converted to civilian use by planners hungry for space.

“There is a need for more terrain and more exercise facilities, and that’s a problem, because a lot has completely disappeared, is no longer usable,” said Dick Zandee, senior research fellow at Dutch think tank Clingendael Institute and former head of planning at the European Defence Agency. “All kinds of things that were possible during the Cold War are no longer possible.”

Dutch to buy tanks for more than $1 billion, add Kongsberg air defense

Dutch State Secretary for Defence Gijs Tuinman is wrapping up a tour of provincial capitals this week in a last diplomatic push of his ministry’s “Room for Defense” plan. The government will narrow down possible locations next month for everything from corridors to fly cargo drones to a new mock village to train urban combat and an additional range for explosives training.

The government plan to free up physical and regulatory space for defense solicited more than 2,200 written questions from citizens, firms and local politicians. Increased military jet sorties were the biggest area of concern, ahead of low-flying rotorcraft, explosives training, ammo storage and drone flights.

While surveys show the Dutch population supports strengthening the armed forces and NATO, citizens may not be ready for associated nuisances such as low-flying helicopters, according to Zandee. “Citizens all recognize that it’s all necessary, but as soon as it comes near their homes, then suddenly they don’t want it. That’s the inconsistency in the reasoning, of course.”

Still, public tolerance for certain inconveniences will have to go up if the Netherlands wants to remain prosperous and secure, argues Tuinman, a decorated former officer in the Dutch Commando Corps who served five tours in Afghanistan. That may mean accepting the occasional fighter jet overhead, or a tank driving through a farm field, the state secretary said in political talk show Buitenhof last month.

“We’ve been used to the government ensuring that every year you have a little less nuisance,” Tuinman said. “What the Americans call the sound of freedom, that’s ultimately important. That we again learn to appreciate that what we have requires an effort.”

‘Room for Defense’

The armed forces held two dozen information meetings between June and October, bringing out brass up to three-star generals to answer questions from the public. Concerned attendees included a campground owner fretting that noisy F-35s overhead will hurt business and homeowners who found their property drawn inside a red circle on a map indicating plans for ammo storage.

The ministry is also eyeing several areas owned by conservation group Natuurmonumenten, including a dune-wetland reserve that is home to rare orchids and a stopover for migratory birds. The Marines would like to train amphibious landings there, something the nature group calls “unthinkable.”

“Nature is already under so much pressure, should this be added?” said Jeroen de Koe, director for nature at Natuurmonumenten, which is the Netherlands’ largest private property owner. “Not as far as we’re concerned.”

The late urban planner Dirk Frieling described the Netherlands as “not a densely populated country but a sparsely populated city.” The country was home to an average 518 people per square kilometer in 2022, more than twice as many as Germany or Italy and almost five times as many as France, European Union statistics show.

The Netherlands also houses Europe’s largest seaport and its fourth-busiest airport and is the continent’s largest agricultural exporter, leaving society and nature scrambling for space.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, defense moved down the priority list in Western Europe, and spending was redirected to areas such as healthcare, education and infrastructure, Most armies geared around a conscription component were downsized and reorganized into smaller forces of professional soldiers, with some military real estate abandoned or repurposed.

In the Netherlands, ammo bunkers were turned into storage for ripening cheese, barracks were reassigned for uses such as medical centers, or demolished to build apartments. New rules around issues such as noise pollution and environmental protection threw up hurdles to military land use.

“Until the fall of the Wall we had barracks all over the place in the Netherlands, with their associated local training grounds,” Zandee said. “That’s all gone. Defense got rid of a lot of those barracks, and local training grounds were handed over to the municipalities.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shook Western countries awake, with governments realizing that decades neglecting military power had left them unprepared for war. In response, the Netherlands plans to boost its defense budget to around €24 billion ($26 billion) a year, nearly double what it spent on defense two years ago.

The Netherlands is using a share of the extra billions for new capabilities that require space, from rocket artillery to a tank battalion and an Army drone unit, and is experimenting with a year of voluntary military service for young people in order to attract more personnel.

The Dutch are in talks with Germany to station their future tank battalion at the NATO training areas of Bergen-Hohne, as the practice and shooting ranges in the Netherlands lack the space to realistically train with a battalion of heavy armor.

The changed security situation has also squarely put the focus back on territorial defense and NATO’s mutual defense, rather than peacekeeping missions abroad, which requires more frequent and larger-scale training, according to Zandee. The Netherlands is just too small to practice some things, such combined-arms exercises, he said.

Boosting deterrence requires a more ambitious exercise program, a NATO official told Defense News. The alliance this year held Steadfast Defender, its biggest exercise in more than 30 years, which saw the Dutch 13th Light Brigade build a pontoon bridge over the IJssel river before driving through Germany to Poland to train as an entire brigade.

For the Dutch, an exercise on that scale “has obviously not happened since the Cold War,” Zandee said. “That just indicates how the situation has changed.”

NATO is planning further large exercises that will require more intensive use of training grounds, public infrastructure and sometimes private land, according to the alliance official. Many countries sold training ranges in the past two decades, and are now in the process of rebuilding or expanding them, the official said.

Lithuania, which has been hosting troops from NATO allies including from the Netherlands, in June approved creating two new training areas big enough for maneuvers with a company-sized unit. Even more space will be necessary in the future, and relocations may be necessary, presidential adviser Kęstutis Budrys told local radio broadcaster LRT in July, citing “a new reality.”

The Dutch military says it still needs additional room to train domestically, as doing even more abroad isn’t really an option, The Army already spends about 60% of its training hours outside Dutch borders, while the Air Force makes 40% of its flight hours in foreign skies, even more when counting pilot training.

“This is about a minimum requirement for Defence, and that has to be in the Netherlands,” said Martijn van der Wind, a spokesman for Tuinman. “We simply also need space in the Netherlands,”

The MoD is looking for capacity to add 2,300 fighter sorties in the Netherlands, including for large-scale NATO exercises, and a dirt strip to practice with tactical transport aircraft for at least 240 flights a year. The armed forces need around 2,500 hours to train with low-flying helicopters, compared with current permission for 1,378 hours, according to the ministry.

The “Room for Defense” plan envisages cargo-drone corridors and helicopter-landing zones in densely populated parts such as the province of South Holland. In the more sparsely populated north, the ministry is considering areas to practice amphibious landings and fly unmanned naval helicopters, new ammunition storage and an explosives-training range.

The provinces have been less than welcoming about the plans, citing their own difficulties finding space for new homes or renewable energy, and the potential for disturbance caused by low-flying helicopters, irreparable damage from digging trenches in natural areas, or the increased risk of forest fires from defense activities in combination with climate change.

Farmers’ organization LTO Noord has called on the defense department to invest in its existing real estate and better use already available space, as well as reinstate abandoned terrains. The farmers are particularly worried about the effect of new helicopter-landing zones on animal welfare.

Natuurmonumenten was caught off guard by the plans and the lack of discussion, said De Koe.

The military is also eyeing two forested areas owned by the conservation group for explosives training, on terrain the non-profit says is home to several protected bird species.

Deer and Gouda

“How on Earth does Defence envision this, to start using vulnerable areas for all kinds of military use?” De Koe said. With nature in the Netherlands already suffering from nitrogen pollution, poor water management and excess recreational use, it can’t handle more external pressures, he said,

De Koe said finding room for more defense activity is admittedly complex, but the Netherlands has more suitable areas than some of those now pencilled in. The government is the largest property owner in the Netherlands, and the Dutch national property office manages around 26,000 hectares of air bases, exercise areas and shooting ranges for the defense ministry.

“If I would have a lot of land and I would want to do something new, I would first look at my own land to see if that is possible, and only then see if the neighbor’s garden might also be available.”

Complicating the issue is that about two-thirds of defense ministry land consists of protected nature reserves, and military use isn’t necessarily bad news for plants and animals, De Koe at Natuurmonumenten acknowledged.

Birds and deer get used to loud explosions, which are less disruptive than human visitors, according to national property office ecologist Theo Linders, who says deer on military ranges are less shy than those in recreational nature areas. Craters caused by mortar shells mix up the soil and create a steppe landscape that benefits certain vegetation, Linders says.

Tuinman has been happy to adopt the conservation argument, saying nature in some areas of the Netherlands has been protected precisely because of its military status.

The government will decide on the most feasible locations next month based on support from society and lawmakers, defense needs and the environmental impact, Van der Wind said.

The Dutch understand the need to find room for defense, “that’s never the issue,” and their concerns are rather about how the plans will impact their living environment, Tuinman said in an Oct. 3 interview with broadcaster NPO1. Nevertheless, defending freedom and security means society must step up and the armed forces need to become stronger, he said.

“We need more equipment, we need to train more, we need to shoot more, and at the end of the day, we need to do that together,” Tuinman said.

Engine maker Renk opens shop in Italy ahead of armor spending frenzy

ROME — German propulsion firm Renk has announced it is setting up a subsidiary in La Spezia in Italy, a week after defense giants Rheinmetall and Leonardo said they would be build tanks and infantry fighting vehicles for the Italian army in the city.

The move will put Renk in “a strategically important region,” close to “Italian customers and partners,” said the firm, which already makes gearboxes for Rheinmetall in Germany.

Opening for business in La Spezia, which is the historical home to Leonardo’s tank building operation, suggests the firm is aiming for a slice of the Italian army’s massive €23 billion ($25 billion) order for vehicles.

“With our local presence, we are moving closer to Italy’s technological and industrial base – one of the pillars of European defense. Thus, Renk is ideally positioned to meet existing and future requirements of Italian customers and partners,” says Susanne Wiegand, CEO of Renk Group AG.

Last week, Leonardo and Rheinmetall announced the creation of a joint venture with an operational base at La Spezia which would build 1,050 new infantry fighting vehicles based on the Rheinmetall Lynx and 132 main battle tanks based on the German firm’s under-development Panther KF51.

Leonardo will take 50 percent of work share, Rheinmetall in Germany is taking 40 percent with the remaining ten percent taken by Rheinmetall’s Italian facilities.

Managers have said there is ample space to build production lines at Leonardo’s La Spezia facility, which once built Ariete tanks and was run by Oto Melara, a former unit of Leonardo which has now been integrated into it.

Renk, which saw revenue of €926 million in 2023, has a product line including gear units, transmissions, power-packs and hybrid propulsion systems.

It has hired Sergio Rizzi, a former executive at Germany’s Hensoldt, as CEO of its new Italian operation and retired Adm. Pier Federico Bisconti, a former Italian deputy national armaments director, as chairman.

Strike, fixed-price contracts leave Boeing defense bleeding cash

Boeing’s ongoing problems with a crippling machinist strike and costly fixed-price development contracts left the company — and especially its defense sector — hemorrhaging cash in the third quarter of 2024.

The troubled aviation firm reported nearly $6.2 billion in net losses in its quarterly earnings call with investors. That included a $2.4 billion loss for its Defense, Space and Security sector, whose former head, Ted Colbert, was fired Sept. 20.

Boeing defense reported $2 billion in charges on major programs, including the KC-46A Pegasus tanker, as the company reeled from the effects of the nearly six-week International Association of Machinists strike.

Members of the union are voting Wednesday on a proposed contract for about 33,000 machinists that would include a cumulative 35% raise, which could end the strike.

The KC-46′s roughly $661 million charge stems partly from the work stoppage that began Sept. 13, the company said, which hit work on the 767 airliner that form the foundation of the refueling aircraft.

The strike also led the company to decide to wrap up most of its 767 production, and beginning in 2027, only produce 767-2C aircraft to support the KC-46 program, Boeing said. This decision to cease production of most 767s also contributed to the program’s charges.

Boeing also racked up a roughly $908 million charge on the Air Force’s T-7 Red Hawk trainer, which was driven by expected higher costs on production contracts beginning in 2026. The Commercial Crew space capsule program had a $250 million charge, and the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray program had a $217 million charge, its first of the year.

When combined with $250 million in previous charges on the VC-25B Air Force One program, Boeing defense’s five major fixed price development programs have incurred $3.3 billion in losses so far this year.

Under a fixed-price contract, the government agrees to pay a company a certain amount of money to produce an aircraft or other system. If the company gets the job done cheaper than expected, it can pocket the remaining payments as profit.

But if the fixed-price program experiences delays or cost overruns, the company is on the hook for losses — which can sometimes run into the billions of dollars, as in the case of the KC-46.

Boeing’s fixed-price losses expanded in magnitude as the company closed the books on the third quarter, chief financial officer Brian West said, as higher estimated production costs on the T-7 in 2026 and beyond came into focus.

“While acknowledging these are disappointing results, these are complicated development programs, and we remain focused on retiring risk each quarter and ultimately delivering these mission-critical capabilities to our customers,” West said.

Chief executive Kelly Ortberg said Boeing has no choice but to “work our way through some of those tough contracts,” and that “there’s no magic bullet to that.”

The company needs to keep a closer eye on such “problematic” contracts, he said, and work with customers such as the military to reduce the risk on those programs before their costs start to run over expectations.

“We’ve gone from today’s problem, to today’s problem, to today’s problem, and that’s because we’re not looking around the corner enough on these programs,” Ortberg said. “Some of that means that you’ve got to be better at working with your customer to define success on these programs. … We know how to run these programs. We just have lost a little bit of discipline.”

But cutting losses and exiting those troubled programs isn’t an option for Boeing, Ortberg said, since the company has made long-term commitments to customers such as the Air Force.

“We do have to get in a position where we’ve got a portfolio much more balanced with less-risky programs and more profitable programs,” Ortberg said. “But I don’t think a wholesale walk-away is in the cards.”

With current global turmoil and rising defense spending, demand for Boeing’s defense products remains strong, West said, and the company expects it will be able to improve financial performance in the medium to long term.

Until then, however, more financial pain remains on the horizon. Boeing expects its overall performance next year to be much better than in 2024 — but still expects to be in the red for all of 2025. The company has so far lost $8 billion in 2024.

Ortberg is still traveling to Boeing facilities and having in-person conversations with rank-and-file employees, and said he believes the company has “fantastic people” on its staff.

“We just got to get everybody in the right position, running the right plays,” Ortberg said, adding that he and top Boeing leaders have “talked explicitly about what we’re going to do to change the culture, but it’s going to take time. This isn’t something that there’s just a light switch that flips. It’s a never-ending process.”

Ortberg declined to comment on who might be the next head of Boeing defense, but said he would look outside the company if Boeing can’t find the right internal candidate.

US confirms 3,000 North Korean troops are training in Russia

U.S. officials confirmed that North Korea has sent a bevy of soldiers to Russia, the first step toward what the Pentagon has said would mark a “dangerous” escalation in the war with Ukraine.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin shared the assessment Wednesday morning while traveling in Rome, becoming the first member of the Biden administration to do so.

The White House later offered more details, saying that around 3,000 North Korean troops sailed to the Russian port of Vladivostok earlier in October and are now training across three military sites in the east.

“What exactly they’re doing will have to be seen,” Austin told a group of traveling press.

South Korean defense and intelligence officials have reported for weeks that Pyongyang intended to send troops to Russia, the latest step in a burgeoning partnership that began after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration avoided commenting on the assessment until Wednesday as the government separately confirmed the intelligence.

As Austin’s comment showed, the most immediate theme from American officials was uncertainty. Neither the Pentagon nor the White House said it knew why the soldiers were in Russia, what North Korea was getting in return or whether they would fight in Ukraine.

If that last concern proves true, White House spokesperson John Kirby said, they would be “fair game” for the Ukrainian military.

Russia has suffered huge casualties in recent months while making steady gains in Ukraine’s east, losing more than 1,000 troops a day and surpassing 600,000 total casualties since 2022, American officials have said.

“This is certainly a highly concerning probability: After completing training, these soldiers could travel to western Russia and then engage in combat against the Ukrainian military,” Kirby said, noting that the U.S. has briefed the Ukrainian government on its intelligence.

Austin traveled unannounced to Kyiv earlier this week in his fourth and likely last trip to Ukraine as secretary. While there, he spoke with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and unveiled another $400 million package of military aid, the second such tranche within a week.

North Korea and Russia have had a distant relationship dating back to the end of the Cold War, but have moved closer in the last two years. The two countries’ leaders have met together, including in a rare trip by Kim Jong Un outside his country to visit Vladimir Putin.

U.S. officials cast the news as a sign of “desperation” from Russia, particularly if North Korean troops joined the fight. The description has become familiar for the Biden administration, which didn’t anticipate how the war in Ukraine would realign American adversaries such as Iran, which alongside North Korea has also sent weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine.

North Korea has shipped over 16,500 containers of munitions and related material to Russia since last fall, U.S. and European officials have said.

“This is an indication that [Putin] may be even in more trouble than most people realize. But, again, he went tin cupping early on to get additional weapons and materials from the DPRK and then from Iran. And now he’s making a move to get more people,” Austin said, using the initialism for North Korea’s government.