Palantir · Donald Trump · United Kingdom · European Union · Ukraine · NATO · The Guardian Technology
Defence sovereignty: Europe races to build the low-cost weapons of future
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In a small workshop in England’s East Midlands, engineers at the British startup Skycutter are designing weapons for Ukraine.
Key facts
- Gen Sir Roly Walker, the UK’s chief of the general staff, last year said he wanted the forces’ equipment to be 20% “survivable” (because they have people inside), 40% “attritable” (you aren’t too
- Shaheds are estimated to cost about $30,000 (£22,200)
- Tekever, which Mendes co-founded in Portugal in 2001, reached a billion-dollar “unicorn” valuation last year, and has 1,200 people, including new factories in the UK’s drone cluster in Swindon
- Skycutter is smaller than many of the other companies raising hundreds of millions of pounds, with 15 people in the UK and 50 contractors in Ukraine
Summary
The swarms of cheap, deadly and often autonomous drones deployed in that war have already changed combat completely. Europe’s militaries are scrambling to catch up, in a drive to spend billions on weaponry, with added pressure from Donald Trump’s wavering on the Nato alliance and the US president’s insistence that members increase defence budgets. The unsettling combination of Trump and war on the doorstep has sharpened long-running criticism that the continent has relied too much on US weapons makers. The EU has responded by promising to spend €800bn on defence over four years.