western europe

Assuming that this is not an ill-judged April Fools joke on the part of someone at the Daily Telegraph, this does not bode well at all for the survival of NATO: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/01/donald-trump-strongly-considering-pulling-us-out-of-nato/

I've been thinking quite a lot about European manufacturers lately and an intriguing what-if scenario came to mind about an alternative grouping of European manufacturers - sort of following on from this thread...

The US avoided becoming the main supplier of Israel until 1968, despite being the major indirect supporter/financier for many years before that. The US preferred Israel buy their weapons from Europe, stepping in when the Europeans couldn't (HAWKs 1964) and wouldn't (tanks when West Germany...

https://www.wired.com/story/europe-prepares-for-the-space-race-with-a-new-legal-and-financial-framework/

A purely techno-speculative thread, frankly. What I wanted is to speculate: what if NATO and Warsaw Pact schools of military technology were forced to merge together by, say, a common (and big!) threat, arising during the late Cold War? So the question: what could be achieved if late Cold War...

Many nations were trying to make the take-off and landing distances shorter in the jet age, while still not relinquishing performance and/or payload. Some were better 'baked', like the swing-wing (with shortcoming being that allowed G load was not as good as on the fixed wings, even if titanium...

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/large-parts-spain-portugal-hit-by-power-outage-2025-04-28/ Pretty massive outages. Regards,

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-officials-object-european-push-buy-weapons-locally-2025-0 How far can you take the notion of self-righteousness and dictate such demands? I think it's very evident that many countries have evolved beyond the reliance on many U.S. weapons systems. Add to this...

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/04/02/france-calls-for-new-eu-ammo-plan-speeding-up-satellite-constellation/

As it becomes clear that Europe and Canada will need to take on the running of NATO's main command on the continent, it will be necessary to find a significant figure who can deal effectively with the military and political challenges ahead as SACEUR. As the principal military power in Europe...

Part 1 of the Air Historical Branch's history of Typhoon https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/our-history/air-historical-branch/post-coldwar-studies/eurofightertyphoonpart1coldwarorigins1983-1990/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8v6len093o

I have two questions related to the Ground-directed bombing (GDB) systems: (1) Were the radar-based Ground-directed bombing (GDB) systems used during the Cold War in the European Theater? I mean something like the AN/MSQ-77 or similar? If yes, which aircraft were fitted with equipment to...

Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke, The company was formed by the 1964 merger of two German aerospace firms, Focke-Wulf and Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH (Weserflug). The formation of VFW was a natural outcome, as the two companies had been collaborating, along with Hamburger Flugzeugbau (HFB), in the...

IOW - earlier & greater cooperation with SAAB and the British companies, while the cooperation between the later and the French and other European NATO is much smaller? Draken was powered by the British engine, Viggen was supposed to be powered by the Medway, while the Gripen should've been just...

What if Saddam never invaded Kuwait and never being throw up??? What would be the state of Ba'ath Iraqi armed forces?

Just published. The first volume is dedicated to European operators. An interesting page dealing with the potential C-130 production by Sud-Aviation in France in the sixties. The author, Xavier Capy, is well known for his previous books on Noratlas and Transall. More details on www.c-130.eu.

The 'Massive Retaliation' era ~1957-1967 appears to have skewed Defence Projects and Procurement compared to what occurred previously and what occurred in the 'Flexible Response' era where conventional forces were given much greater priority compared to nuclear forces. This made me think that if...

The rest of the article can be found reproduced in the JPRS / West Europe Report (15th June, 1983) linked below, pdf pages 7 - 14: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA373042.pdf A bit more of the history, in particular the post-Cold war part of it, can be found in the archived Forecast...

There are two types of nuclear reactors: those manufactured by Europeans, which are an environmental hazard, and those manufactured by the Chinese, which contribute to regenerating the planet...