3. Find partners or pick up the pieces
The third path is to join or preserve multinational efforts.
That could mean exploring a role in GCAP, though people familiar with discussions have warned that Italy or Japan may be wary of diluting the project by adding new members.
However, there are potential upsides, said Alessandro Marrone, head of the defense, security and space program at Italy’s Istituto Affari Internazionali.
He told Italy’s Startmag publication that Germany joining GCAP would “reconstitute the historical nucleus” of the cooperation that produced the Tornado and Eurofighter, while Berlin’s economic, industrial and military weight could give the program “a much more marked European dimension” and make it “the main point of reference for other European countries.”
Germany has also held talks about possible cooperation with Sweden, which makes its own fourth-generation Saab Gripen fighter and is mulling a more advanced jet.
Swedish Ambassador to Berlin Veronika Wand-Danielsson told The Pioneer that Sweden has companies with “extensive capabilities of their own in air defense, sensor technology and combat aircraft systems.”