The German Federal Foreign Council has called on European countries to develop and deploy a program aimed at ensuring the close protection of combat units. According to his analysis, European countries have lost the assurance of having air superiority above the battlefield now, and the fighting forces must therefore have protection capable of engaging aerial threats within a radius of 8 km .
The elements produced by the German council point to what looks, nothing more, nothing less than a replacement for the Franco-German ROLAND systems, which were responsible for protecting the mechanized units of the two countries during the Cold War. They are also approaching the American IM-SHORAD program, aiming to urgently produce 144 close defense systems carried by Stryker armored vehicles. The Federal Council calls on Germany to take the lead in this program, which it considers urgent, to unite European energies through PESCO, the financing program for European Defense industrial initiatives.
However, awareness of the exposure of European air power to modern systems, Russian not to mention them, and the possible loss of Western air superiority on the battlefield, should not be limited to a simple air defense response. Indeed, air power determines the majority of the available firepower of European countries and NATO. The loss of this, beyond the exposure of the forces to possible enemy air attacks, would deprive them of this firepower, even though they are largely overwhelmed by Russian mechanical power, which has 4 times more battle tanks, and 10 times more artillery systems than available in Europe.
Likewise, this awareness should, logically, lead to an adaptation of the schedules of current defense programs, such as the MGCS, or the FCAS, because there is no indication that the current balance of power between Europe and Russia can evolve. positively in the next 20 years, on the contrary.