Merz, Macron to Discuss Fighter Jet Leadership
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron are set to meet in Berlin to address escalating tensions over the Future Combat Air System jet program. The dispute centers on a leadership tussle between the two main defense contractors, France's Dassault Aviation and Airbus. Let's talk to Bloomberg's Benedict Kammel, who leads our global aviation coverage. What then, Benny, is this dispute all about? Well, it's really between Airbus on the one side, which sort of broadly represent the German side. And on the other side, you have Dassault representing the French side. And the question really is who is going to lead this program? They did have an agreement saying we want it to be broadly equal as a third company in this Indra, of Spain. So the idea was let's have sort of equal share of this program, the future aircraft combat system. So but then Dassault came out and said we would like to have a leadership role in this. The reason being we make the Rafale fighter jet. We know a thing or two about building these. We should really be in control. We can't be some sort of a happy socialist union here. We need to have one party in control, and that's us. That obviously didn't sit well with Airbus. All of this broke into the open last month at the Paris Air Show. So you had Airbus on the one side saying, why are we relitigating this whole issue? We thought we'd had an agreement. This is really tiring. Then on the other side, you had Dassault coming out and saying, well, this is the way it should be. Take it our way, or we might even walk away from the whole program. So this is where we're at right now. So you're bringing the adults in, as it were, you bringing in the political leadership and saying, guys, you need to sort this out, you need to sort this out. It's Europe at stake. It's one of the key programs at stake. And hopefully today and in the next couple of weeks, they will find some kind of an agreement.
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For good measure, the Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell invoked the current holy words of the Hegseth Pentagon: The Aspen forum, he said, did not align with the department's efforts to 'increase the lethality of our war fighters, revitalize the warrior ethos and project peace through strength on the world stage.' The Aspen gathering is not exactly a secret nest of Communists. This year's roster of speakers included former CIA Director Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper—a Trump appointee—and a representative from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's office, among many others. John Phelan, the current secretary of the Navy, and Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, were set to attend as well. 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Hegseth appears to have suspended all such participation subject to additional review by the Pentagon's public-affairs office and general counsel, so perhaps some defense officials could one day end up attending conferences after their requests have been vetted. Good luck with that, and best wishes to the first Pentagon employee who pops up out of their cubicle to request a pass to attend such meetings. At some point soon, this prohibition will almost certainly be lifted, but why did Hegseth's Pentagon impose it in the first place? I am a former Defense Department employee who, over the course of my career, attended (and spoke at) dozens of conferences at various think tanks and other organizations, and I will make an educated guess based on experience: The main reasons are resentment, insecurity, and fear. The most ordinary reason, resentment, predates Hegseth. Government service is not exactly luxurious, and many trips are special perks that generate internal gripes about who gets to go, where they get to stay, and so on. (These trips are not exactly luxurious either, but in my government-service days, I learned that some people in the federal service chafe when other employees get free plane tickets to visit nice places.) It's possible that someone who has never been invited to one of these things convinced Hegseth—who seems reluctant to attend such events himself—that these meetings are just boondoggles and that no one should go. Bureaucratic pettiness, however, isn't enough of an explanation. One hazard for people like Hegseth and his lieutenants at a place like Aspen or the International Institute of Strategic Studies or the Halifax conference is that these are organizations full of exceptionally smart people, and even experienced and knowledgeable participants have to be sharp and prepared when they're onstage and in group discussions. The chance of being outclassed, embarrassed, or just in over one's head can be very high for unqualified people who have senior government jobs. Hegseth himself took a pass on the Munich Security Conference (usually a good venue for a new secretary of defense), and instead decided to show videos of himself working out with the troops. We can all admire Hegseth's midlife devotion to staying fit and modeling a vigorous exercise regimen for the troops (who must exercise anyway, because they are military people and are ordered to it), but America and its allies would probably benefit more from a secretary with an extra pound here and there who could actually stand at a podium in Munich or London and explain the administration's strategic vision and military plans. The overall prohibition on conferences provides Hegseth and his deputies (many of whom have no serious experience with defense issues) with an excuse for ducking out and avoiding making fools of themselves. 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