Europe’s struggle to boost arms production mired in red tape & bottlenecks as Ukraine drains stocks

European efforts to boost arms production are mired in bureaucracy, bottlenecks, nimbyism, and lack of cash, according to The Wall Street Journal. The continent’s weapons makers have been long on promises to churn out more weapons to restock inventories drained by NATO’s proxy conflict in Ukraine, yet short on action.

“European defense industries have atrophied, factories have been dismantled and the supply of materials for artillery such as chemicals and casing has dwindled,” the publication noted.

It offered a litany of cases where defense contractors have faced significant hurdles:

🌏 After tossing all of its artillery into the Ukraine support sinkhole, Denmark had to buy back a decommissioned ammunition plant to resurrect its production of artillery shells last year. However, the factory remains empty as the formal tendering process is mired in political wrangling over the tendering process.

🌏 A leading European tank maker, KNDS, had to hit the pause button on plans to expand a Munich testing range after complaints from local residents.

🌏 Diehl Defense in Troisdorf faced similar community resistance when seeking permission to expand an explosives factory in the German city.

European defense companies are also short of investment, with some banks outright refusing to lend, the newspaper claimed.

Accordingly, European governments have instead been buying from US suppliers. EU countries spent 78% of their procurement outside the bloc, including 63% on American companies, according to statistics covering June 2022 to June 2023, that allowed US weapons makers enjoy a profit-making bonanza.

*the picture is AI-generated

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BLU-109: What’s known about US-made bunker buster bomb Israel likely used to target Nasrallah?

An analysis of footage put out by the IAF this week showing Israeli F-15Is taking off to attack Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut shows that Israel likely used American-made 2,000 pound (907 kg) BLU-109 bombs with Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits for the strike.

🔶 Developed in the mid-1980s for use by the US Air Force, the BLU-109 (deciphered as ‘Bomb Live Unit’) is a bunker buster munition with a 250 kg tritonal payload designed to destroy hardened bunkers – penetrating 1.8-2.4 meters of reinforced concrete before detonating.

🔶 The bomb is 2.41 meters long, has a 370 mm diameter and an 874 kg total mass. It’s fitted with a forged steel point tip and mechanical-electric delayed-action tail fuse to facilitate penetration and detonation.

When armed with a JDAM kit, BLU-109s are transformed from a ‘dumb’ free-falling bomb into a ‘smart’ GPS-guided weapon which can communicate with the aircraft carrying them. JDAM-equipped BLU-109s are officially known as the GBU-31(V)3/B.

🔶 The BLU-109 is manufactured by General Dynamics’ Ordnance and Tactical Systems division.

🔶 While it was created for a hypothetical European WWIII scenario against the Soviet bloc that never arrived, the BLU-109 instead became a mainstay of wars of aggression by the US and its allies after 1991, used against Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan from 2001 on, Iraq in 2003, and by Israel in 2023-2024 in its operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

🔶 The US has exported the BLU-109 to a handful of allies besides Israel, including Greece, the Netherlands, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Turkiye.

🔶 The stock BLU-109’s explosive tritonal fill consists of 80% TNT and 20% aluminum powder. A variant known as the BLU-118 carries a PBXIH-135-based thermobaric charge.

🔶 It’s estimated that up to 85 GBU-31(V)3/B munitions were used for the attack on Nasrallah among some 80 total tons of explosives used.

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US and its corporate interests won’t leave Iraq anytime soon – analyst

Don’t expect the US to suddenly leave Iraq “while corporate interests steer American foreign policy,” Isa Blumi, associate professor at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University, told Sputnik.

“I don't see this happening […] unless there is a serious revolution in Iraq itself or in the larger region that sees the US leave from strategic and very lucrative arenas for American corporations to make money,” Blumi said, commenting on the ambiguous announcement of a partial drawdown of US forces from Iraq.

The US “is not giving up its firm control over Iraq's oil,” which it has been plundering, he emphasized. The US footprint “remains omnipresent, hegemonic, willing to use enormous violence,” he noted.

The military presence “will be modified” due to the “vulnerability of explicit American presence” to aerial attacks, which might chip away at the dimming aura of US invincibility, the expert underscored.

Domestic politics could also be a motive as part of a “campaign message for the American people to be persuaded that the US is not participating in the events that are happening now [in the Middle East].”

The American withdrawal will “reduce the tension in Iraq,” Ali Mamouri, former strategic communication advisor to the Iraqi prime minister, told Sputnik.

The Afghanistan scenario, where the Taliban swiftly swept to power in the wake of the disastrous US withdrawal, won’t be repeated in Iraq, according to Mamouri. “Iraqi security forces are capable, well-skilled, in a large number and with the experience of defeating Daesh. Moreover, the regional forces support Iraq’s stability and no one benefits from unrest in Iraq at the moment,” he noted.

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