The country that wants to become the strongest army in Europe by 2039

USA Introduces: Defense Artificial Intelligence Program

The US Secretary of War presented in the defense budget request for 2027 several unusual points, one of the most prominent of which is $4.2 billion for the “sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure” program. This is an issue in which not a single dollar was invested in both the 2025 and 2026 budgets. This means that approval is required for a program that only plans to establish, and we don’t even know who is the body that will be entrusted with the defense artificial intelligence branch in the Pentagon.

Washington’s main ambition is to create an artificial intelligence infrastructure fully owned and controlled by the government, independent of cloud providers and civil infrastructure. For this, the Defense Blog reports, it will be necessary to build data centers, purchase chips and establish a security network that will allow operation with highly classified systems on a large scale.

Already today, particularly large computing power is required to operate military artificial intelligence systems, with the need only expected to increase. The Trump administration fears that relying on civilian infrastructure could be problematic in terms of data security. This is a sort of reactionary step to China, which has already made defense artificial intelligence a matter of national priority and is investing heavily in it.

The system that was activated in Ukraine, and protection against Iranian drones

One of the main advantages of helping other countries with weapons systems is gaining operational experience. A prominent arena is Ukraine, to which the USA and European countries have transferred aid in large volumes. Although large amounts of money have been invested in the issue, operational benefits have also been obtained that it is highly doubtful if they could have been achieved in other ways.

This was well reflected in Operation Hari’s Roar, in which the US used technologies whose first substantial operational test was in Ukraine. The TWZ website states that against Iran’s Shahad 136 unmanned aerial vehicles, the US faced the American defense system with the help of “Marop” drones.

One of the main challenges inherent in unmanned aerial vehicles is the asymmetric combating of armament costs. Usually, Shahad interceptors that cost about 30 thousand dollars with interceptors or missiles that cost much more than it. However, each interceptor drone of the Merop model costs only about 15 thousand dollars, about half of the cost of the Ehad. In Washington, it is estimated that with the transition to serial production, Merop’s costs will even drop further to about 5,000-3,000 dollars.

Italy benefits from sales in markets where Israel is not present

Italy recently made headlines in Israel, following Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney’s decision not to renew the defense agreement between the countries. The prominent motive in the issue is political, although beneath the surface, similar to France, there are other influences that Rome will not be in a hurry to highlight. One of the most prominent of them is the Italian defense industries, which are fighting Israeli companies in the world market.

Unlike France, many of whose companies compete in many cases for contracts in countries similar to those that Israel sells to, data from the Italian cabinet shows that Italy’s growing markets are ones in which Israel is not really present, if at all. The most prominent of all is Kuwait, which jumped from 76th place in exports in 2024 to first place in 2025, thanks to three contracts for a total of about 2.6 billion euros (about 3.05 billion dollars).

After Germany and the USA, which are traditionally at the top, the other market that grew significantly is Ukraine, which came in fourth place with 349 million euros. Beyond the Italian aid to Kiev since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the parties are currently in talks to tighten technological cooperation in the field of drones, in which Kiev has a lot of experience.

Germany wants to become the strongest military in Europe by 2039

European countries realized a long time ago that they must not only significantly increase their defense budgets, but also return the military manpower to levels that have not been seen on the continent for decades. Today, the expectation in Berlin is to increase the number of soldiers in regular service from 185,420 to about 260 thousand by the middle of the next decade. At the same time, the reserve army is set to grow from about 60 thousand soldiers at the moment to about 200 thousand at the very least.

The German goal is to reach a state where their military will be the strongest in Europe by 2039. This includes a rapid increase in manpower by 2029, a targeted expansion by 2035 and throughout the years until 2039 technological improvement. The main threat to Germany, as reflected in its military strategy, comes from Russia, where Berlin is seen as the greatest threat to the entire continent. In the shadow of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Germany is happy to see that the rate of recruitment this year has increased by about 10% compared to the previous year, and the rate of recruitment requests has jumped by about 20%.

At the same time, German defense procurement is progressing. The local giant Rheinmetall signed an agreement with the German army for the supply of FV-014 roving munitions in the amount of billions of dollars. The first contract in the agreement, in the amount of about 300 million euros (about 351 million dollars) includes autonomous patrol and attack drones that will be received by the first half of next year. Although the scope of the measures was not specified in Berlin, they were defined as a “five-digit number”.

The new anti-Israel step of the Spanish security establishment

The Ministry of the Interior in Spain has opened a tender for the purchase of 7,500 19×9 mm pistols for the Civil Guard, which are supposed to replace the “Ramon” pistols manufactured by the “Ematan” company in Karmiel. This is according to a report on the website “Infodefense”. 2021.

At that time, Spain purchased about 6,000 pistols for the Civil Guard. Over the years there have indeed been complaints in Madrid about technical problems, but it was actually a request from the far-right Vox party that clarified that out of the 6,144 pistols supplied, only 87 were found to be faulty. That is, only 1.4%. Moreover, in the bidding process at that time, Ematan received a score of 34.864 out of a possible 40 points, the highest among the candidates.

The move against Emthan reflects a very broad anti-Israel policy on the part of Pedro Sánchez’s government. This included, for example, on the one hand a decision to suspend a huge deal for the purchase of Spike LR2 anti-tank missiles from Rafael for approximately 285 million euros for the Spanish army and the local navy, in connection with the war in Gaza, and on the other hand an appeal to the Eurospike company within a few months.

Rafael owns 20% of the European company, while the German companies Rheinmetall and Diehl own 40% each. This company produces MELLS, the European variant of the LR2 spike, with which the Spanish will also be able to use the LR spike missiles that they have been operating for 17 years. The excuse that Sanchez’s government uses to justify the apparent deal is that the components of MELLS are manufactured in Europe.

The Israeli drone that the US Army purchased for its small units

Elbit announced today (Fri) that FUSE will supply the THOR drone to the US Army as part of a collaboration in the US with the Mistral company, this is in continuation of the contract of the US Army Procurement Command, in which the American company was awarded THOR drones and dedicated launchers, in order to support the operational needs of small units in the army.

As part of the contract, the companies will supply FUSE’s Group 2 THOR drones – a multi-bladed, backpack-borne, rapidly deployable, fully autonomous VTOL drone designed to support a wide range of unit-level tactical missions.

Avandra, an American subsidiary of Elbit Systems, will work in close cooperation with FUSE to provide training, support and escort services in the field.

The THOR drone is designed to provide small tactical units with aerial capability that will support missions such as reconnaissance and observation, target acquisition and identification, relay communication, delivery of light equipment, as well as the integration of additional capabilities according to mission requirements.

The system is designed for rapid tactical operation, which reduces the burden on the operator through autonomous take-off and landing, independent performance of tasks and multi-platform operation, with the possibility of rapid change of roles in the field through a modular combination of payloads.