Source: The Conversation – France
A few hours before the inauguration of the Berlin ILA airshow, the German Chancellor unsurprisingly announced the end of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
Launched by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in 2017, the program initially intended to prepare a Next Generation Fighter (NGF) aircraft, remote effectors, loyal unmanned wingmen (drones, as in unmanned combat air vehicles) and a secure digital architecture installing AI-based data fusion at the level of the (air) battlefield (the so-called “combat cloud”).
Estimated at 100 billion euros, FCAS phase 2 was frozen in December 2025, delaying the elaboration of specifications and demonstrators.
This decision was no surprise: Chancellor Merz publicly pronounced the program dead for Germany in February 2026, and in April Eric Trappier, Dassault Aviation CEO, announced that he was ending all negotiations with Airbus Defense and Space (Airbus DS) on the NGF, a key component in the FCAS program.
In May, the Airbus CEO cited geopolitical disruptions as the reason the program was no longer relevant. This announcement concludes several years of impossible compromises, industrial inconsistencies, and strategic divergences on program specifications. Economists have long explained that difficulties in international cooperation in Defence stem from misalignment of specifications and operational requirements, overlap of industrial capabilities, and the need to ground program leadership in explicit industrial capabilities.
To list only a few, the A400M tactical transport aircraft suffered long delays because Airbus DS was struggling with technical problems (for instance, around the flight mission system). For the NH90 helicopter program, maintainability and upgradability suffered so much that Sweden gave up and opted for an American solution.
Berlin and Paris’ discrepant approaches about operational specifications are easy to illustrate in the FCAS program. Germany was initially seeking a 30-tonne aircraft, with an operational range of 1,500 km or more, internal bays, and a low signature suited to conventional bombing.
While Spain for example, aligned with the German vision of the aircraft, France, on the other hand, always sought a polyvalent “light” aircraft capable of additional roles in nuclear deterrence and carrier landing.
Berlin’s purchase of 35 F-35A JSF aircraft for the operation of the US B61 nuclear bombs, initially intended to secure Germany’s contributions to NATO shared nuclear mission, has shaped German orientations in the FCAS program.
Germany expected the FCAS specifications to complement its use of the F-35A, whereas France needs a replacement for the polyvalent Rafale F4. The F-35 purchase also shows that delivery needs diverge on replacing existing aircraft fleets in Germany and France, incidentally putting less pressure on the German side to pursue a common solution.
The FCAS industrial Meccano and the importance of the integration function Tensions between Dassault Aviation and Airbus DS again illustrate the importance of evaluating the distribution of skillsets and capabilities among actors in the European Defence industrial base who are also potential competitors.
In Defence, international cooperation is usually defined at the political level, without considering industrial and operational realities, because the strategic intent of an alliance takes precedence over other considerations. The FCAS program initially illustrated the political commitment to greater autonomy in European defence and the joint leadership of Paris and Berlin in this endeavour.
In the FCAS program, widening the industrial parameter to Spain (in 2019) increased the number of decision centres, expanded the supply chain, and increased both coordination costs and decision-making difficulties around operational specifications and industrial capabilities.
This issue has been a recurring topic in discussions of “industrial returns” in international cooperation in Defence for many decades.
The FCAS program did not avoid these traditional difficulties during its first years, before introducing the “best athlete” selection principle for tier-2 suppliers in 2019 (which led Safran Aircraft Engines to lead the engine sub-system, with MTU Aero Engines as the main partner).
In the repartition of activities for the FCAS program, Airbus DS was initially in charge of the “combat cloud” and several aspects pertaining to drones. Dassault Aviation was officially leading the program and oversaw the NGF at the same time.
However, this decision made Airbus, Dassault, and Indra equal partners and did not grant an additional voting right to the lead system integrator (LSI) piloting the program (even though they were justified for the definition of the architecture), thereby creating recurring friction.
Many firms were pushed into the program supply chain to align with political decisions about international cooperation, regardless of minimising coordination costs and optimising the supply chain. Ambiguities about leadership in managing the industrial program and integrating contributions explain the FCAS failure.
Leadership is a key success factor when the lead system integrator is clearly identified and selected for their undisputed skillset. For the very opposite reasons, this issue is also a recurring weak point in European cooperation.
Dassault Aviation has earned a solid reputation through the success of the Mirage series and the Rafale, underscoring its role as a leading system integrator since the early 1950s. In many areas, system integration competence is available within the Airbus group.
However, this competence is not present across all domains covered by this major aerospace industry actor.
From the outskirts of the FCAS program, and more specifically regarding activities around the NGF and the associated unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs), Dassault Aviation explained that the FCAS cooperation was a fool’s bargain because it amounted to a direct transfer of integration competence.
Dassault refused to grant integral access to data about the aircraft architecture and expected to protect its intellectual property rights.
Room for improvement The dispute between Dassault Aviation and Airbus DS perfectly illustrates a traditional issue in industrial organisation and knowledge management: is cooperation a tool to grow together, or a tool to learn at the expense of the “partner”?
Dassault has explained that the FCAS program was genuinely training AIRBUS DS on all topics that were not yet mastered within the German Defence industrial base, at Dassault’s expense. Military aeronautics, and most notably military jets, are one of the very few weak points in the German industrial landscape.
Germany used to be part of the Eurofighter consortium, alongside the UK, Spain, and Italy, with limited responsibility in architecture design and integration. In contrast, Dassault is a major industrial player that genuinely “invented” several tools, methods, and organisational solutions to operate the integration function.
System integration requires an original skillset The integration challenge is as much organisational as it is cognitive and technical. Dassault owns unique expertise in digital flight control and aerodynamics, which are key to operational performance and architecture design.
To perform its duties, a lead system integrator must also know “a bit” about each contributor’s respective knowledge base to manage aircraft design and architecture. The system integrator needs to be able to understand all topics challenging the definition of subsystems and architectures.
It must zoom out from specificities and make global decisions. Economists emphasise the importance of steady program management and long-term continuity inside the supply chain ecosystem. This continuity fosters trusted, effective interactions relevant to aircraft design, production, and innovation management.
It would be irrelevant to claim that Dassault Aviation (together with Dassault Systems) already owns all solutions, as the FCAS program represents a case of disruptive innovation across many areas.
However, it is clear that Dassault holds a unique position in Europe as the lead system integrator for complex military jets within its own (European) ecosystem because it possesses the cognitive, organisational, and technical capabilities to manage both the R&D and manufacturing phases.
It makes sense that Dassault Aviation does not want to gift such a rare skill to potential competitors. In defending their position as lead system integrator, they also protect a Europe-wide supply chain and a long history of European partnerships.
Dassault’s resistance to Airbus DS is also a way to protect its own ecosystem in the value chain. What’s next? All traditional drivers explaining the limits of cooperation and the additional costs of cooperation were present in the FCAS program.
The FCAS program did not learn from previous program failures.
For all the reasons listed regarding the definitions of operational specifications, the overlap of industrial capabilities, and the justification of leadership in reference to existing skills, the failure of the program was already written in stone from the earliest stages.
It seems that Paris and Berlin are now trying to preserve the FCAS label for a set of systems, including the “combat cloud”. Research spending would be reallocated to digital areas and to drone integration.
Budget already spent on the program is not wasted, as it has been used to build new capabilities useful for the future. The German decision now prepares for more fragmented trajectories in the NGF and FCAS programs.
The question of leadership in the European Defence industrial base remains a key public policy issue. This decision means that the European industrial base will probably exhibit duplicate capabilities in the future, and allocate budgets for generating new competition instead of restructuring existing capabilities.
The FCAS program failure shows that policymakers still have difficulties making decisions about lead system integrators, either because they fail to understand their originality, or because they expect to establish competition in this function. In the USA, policymakers have identified Boeing and Lockheed Martin as lead system integrators in the aerospace industry, and orient their respective specialisations with dedicated industrial programs to freeze irrelevant competition.
The leadership debate between France and Germany in the FCAS program means that a significant share of the available budget will be wasted on generating new industrial competition in Europe instead of building operational capabilities.
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David W.
Versailles ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/12/what-the-failed-next-generation-fighter-jet-deal-means-for-european-defence/