France and Germany seem to have very different use cases for their fighter. If France wants something that can be launched from carriers, can carry nuclear weapons and otherwise serves to support claims to world-power status, the UK may be a more suitable partner. Meanwhile, Germany may do well to talk to Saab (especially now that Sweden is in NATO).
What kind of busywork were they doing for almost a decade when they couldn’t even agree on a foundational issue like can we use it on a carrier or not?
For his part, Merz has openly questioned whether developing a manned sixth-generation fighter jet still made sense for his country’s air force, and said Germany did not need a nuclear-capable jet that could land on an aircraft carrier.
He’s pretty right about that. France wants something able to project power, which is not the main interest of Germany. There are two differing objectives, which need two different platforms.
But the military requirements are only half the issue, the other half is building up and retaining institutional knowledge in building auch planes. Otherwise Germany could probably solve their problem easily by just buying whatever gcap ends up producing.
What I find quite fascinating is that on one hand 100 billion is a fuck ton of money, on the other hand it’s like 2 quarters of profit for Google or less than what Meta is planning to spend on data centers in 2026 (they also spend like 70billion on the Meta verse). I guess money wasn’t the direct issue right now, but France (a large nation) will have trouble with funding when they decide to do it by themselves
I agree on that even if they need two different platforms, they should cooperate regarding infrastructure - The french fighter is not worth much if it isn’t supplemented by unmanned support these days. A drone strike force able to support/protect a french nuclear capable fighter that is also able to do it’s own thing is probably the way to go.
