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17 Jul 25. NATO to open third permanent CAOC. NATO is to open a third Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) in Norway to augment those already operational in Germany and Spain. An alliance official told Janes on 17 July of the plan to establish the CAOC in the Nordic country to function alongside those at Uedem in Germany and Torrejón in Spain.
“NATO is planning to open a permanent third CAOC in Norway. This new CAOC will plan, direct, task, co-ordinate, supervise, and support military air operations primarily in the Nordic regions and the High North. It will work closely with the two existing CAOCs in Uedem and Torrejón, as well as with the Deployable Air Command and Control Centre (DACCC) based at Poggio Renatico, in northern Italy,” the official said.
The Norwegian government announced in May that it had proposed the mountain facility of Reitan, which is the current site of the Joint Headquarters of the Norwegian Armed Forces, for the new CAOC. Nearby Bodø Air Base will temporarily accommodate the CAOC, commencing operations later in 2025, until construction work is completed at Reitan. Norway recently hosted a temporary CAOC at Bodø Air Base for exercises in March 2024, drawing personnel from the Royal Norwegian Air Force and the air forces of the three other Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, along with substantial support from the UK Royal Air Force (RAF) and US Air Force (USAF). It will now build on that experience as its establishes its new permanent facility. (Source: Janes)
16 Jul 25. US Army Europe chief unveils NATO eastern flank defense plan. The U.S. Army and its NATO allies are embarking on the execution of a new “Eastern Flank Deterrence Line” plan that aims to enhance ground-based capabilities and drive military-industrial interoperability across the alliance, the U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander said Wednesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s inaugural LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. As part of the plan to counter Russian threats and enable scalable, global deterrence, the Army and its NATO allies are urgently developing standardized, data-driven systems, common launchers and cloud-based coordination, according to Gen. Christopher Donahue. Regional plans have been coming together for some time, but the Army, along with NATO, is first focusing on the Baltic states “to try to get to how do you actually make it so that industry and the nations know exactly what the requirements are — ultimately that is now known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line,” Donahue said.
“We know what we have to develop and the use case that we’re using is you have to [deter] from the ground,” he said. “The land domain is not becoming less important, it’s becoming more important. You can now take down [anti-access, aerial-denial] A2AD bubbles from the ground. You can now take over sea from the ground. All of those things we are watching happen in Ukraine.”
For example, Donahue noted, Kaliningrad, Russia, is roughly 47 miles wide and surrounded by NATO on all sides and the Army and its allies now have the capability to “take that down from the ground in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster than we’ve ever been able to do.”
“We’ve already planned that and we’ve already developed it. The mass and momentum problem that Russia poses to us … we’ve developed the capability to make sure that we can stop that mass and momentum problem,” Donahue said.
The plan includes a system to share data. NATO has already procured that system, Donahue said, referencing its choice of Palantir’s Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence platform from Palantir that takes a vast amount of data and rapidly analyzes information to help military commanders make decisions.
“We already know exactly what we have to do with cloud and we know exactly the type of actual unmanned systems, brigades, everything else that we need for that,” Donahue said.
Specifically, the Army wants these capabilities to be interoperable with NATO partners. (Source: Defense News)
16 Jul 25. Francois slams Boeing and demands clarity on Wedgetail. Shadow Defence Minister Mark Francois has issued a stark warning over the UK’s lack of airborne early warning capability, accusing Boeing of presiding over a troubled and delayed E-7 Wedgetail programme and demanding urgent answers from the Ministry of Defence. Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate on 16 July, Francois said it was time to confront “the sheer lack of progress” on delivering the RAF’s next-generation airborne early warning and control aircraft, warning that Britain currently has “no eyes in the sky.”
“We live in an increasingly dangerous world,” said Francois. “If we are to take seriously the warnings from the head of the British Army that we could face peer-on-peer conflict with Russia by 2027, then having a modern airborne early warning control aircraft such as Wedgetail in operational service would be vital.”
Francois stressed that the capability gap left by the retirement of the E-3D Sentry was deeply concerning, particularly in light of Russia’s demonstrated ability to strike fixed installations with long-range cruise missiles.
“In the event of a peer conflict with Russia, it is highly likely that most of our fixed RAF radar stations would fall victim to cruise missile attacks within the early few days, or even hours, of such a conflict,” he said. “At present, we can supplement those with a limited number of mobile radars, but we simply do not have any operational airborne early warning capability right now.”
Francois praised the workforce at the conversion facility in Meriden, where commercial Boeing 737s are being transformed into Wedgetail variants, but reserved harsh criticism for Boeing’s leadership.
“None of this is aimed at the workforce,” he said. “It is much more at the senior management of Boeing, a company now facing massive reputational issues in both civilian and defence areas.”
He also took aim at political opponents who have remained silent on defence matters. “I would like to have congratulated the Reform MP who contributed to this debate but, as ever, they are not here because Reform don’t do defence.” Francois urged ministers to provide a definitive timeline for when the RAF’s three Wedgetails will be fully certified and operational, stating that “part of the purpose of today’s debate is to elicit from the Government when E-7 Wedgetail will finally enter operational service.” The long-delayed programme, which replaces the retired E-3D Sentry fleet, has drawn sustained criticism from across the House of Commons over cost-cutting decisions and capability risks. Defence officials have yet to confirm when the first aircraft will be declared operational. (Source: UKDJ)
15 Jul 25. Healey apologises after gagging order lifted, revealing how Afghans’ details were leaked. Defence Secretary John Healey has offered an apology on behalf of the Government for a data breach that saw the details of people who supported British forces in Afghanistan leaked by mistake. Details on the dataset include the names and contact details of more than 18,000 applicants to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, also known as Arap. Thousands of Afghans are being relocated to the UK after a secret scheme was set up in the wake of the leak. The Arap scheme was responsible for relocating Afghan nationals who had worked for or with the UK Government and were therefore at risk of reprisals once the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Around 4,500 people – made up of 900 Arap applicants and approximately 3,600 family members – have been brought to the UK or are in transit so far through the Afghanistan Response Route. A further estimated 600 people and their relatives are expected to be relocated before the scheme closes, with a total of around 6,900 people expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme. It is understood that the unnamed official had emailed the dataset outside of a secure government system while attempting to verify information, believing the dataset to only have around 150 rows. However, there were more than 33,000 rows of information which were inadvertently sent. Data containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied to the Arap scheme was released in error in February 2022 by a defence official. The Ministry of Defence only became aware of the breach over a year after the release, when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023. The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – in April 2024, details of which have only just emerged. The scheme is understood to have cost around £400m so far, with a projected cost, once completed, of around £850m, but millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation. An unprecedented superinjunction was made at the High Court in September 2023 to reduce the risk of alerting the Taliban to the existence of the data, with the decision to apply for an order made by then-defence secretary Ben Wallace. The Information Commissioner’s Office and Metropolitan Police were also informed. The superinjunction, which has now been lifted, is thought to be the longest lasting order of its kind and the first time the Government has sought such a restrictive measure against the media. (Source: https://www.forces.net/)
14 Jul 25. France to quicken defense-spending boost in bid to be ‘feared.’ France will accelerate a hike in defense spending to reach €64bn (US$75bn) in 2027, three years earlier than planned, President Emmanuel Macron told troops and military brass ahead of Bastille Day celebrations on July 14. In the face of the greatest threat to freedom since 1945, France needs to step up, the president said in his traditional speech at the Armed Forces Ministry in Paris the evening before the national holiday. Macron said Europe must be ready to face a permanent Russian threat on its borders, from the Caucasus to the Arctic.
“Across Europe, nations are rearming, and France cannot leave its European allies on the front line in the face of very short-term threats,” Macron said.
France will add €3.5bn to the 2026 defense budget on top of a planned increase, and €3bn to the 2027 budget, the French president said. With that, the country will have doubled its defense budget from when Macron took office in 2017, ahead of a plan to reach that level by the end of the current 2024-2030 military planning law. The planned increase comes after NATO members agreed to raise core defense spending to 3.5% of GDP, at a June meeting in The Hague, Netherlands. While a number of allies, including Germany, Sweden and Norway, in recent weeks announced plans to meet the target within the next five years, France has yet to say whether and when it will meet the spending goal. While “certainly appreciable,” Macron’s announcement for an additional €6.5bn spending over two years amounts to little less than 0.2% of additional GDP at the end of 2027, from a level of defense spending of 2.3% of GDP in 2025, Francois Heisbourg, senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote in a social media post on Sunday.
“The target of 3.5% is a long way off, while Germany plans to reach it in 2029,” Heisbourg said.
Macron said France – one of the most indebted countries in the European Union – must not rely on more borrowing to pay for more defense. He said Prime Minister Francois Bayrou will explain how the defense budget will be financed on Tuesday, with increased spending to be paid for through “increased activity and more production.”
The French effort will allow the country to be credible vis-à-vis its partners, Macron said. He said France and Germany will meet at the end of August for a joint defense and security council, where the countries “will have new decisions to take,” and combined investment and enhanced cooperation will allow to build the European pillar of NATO that France has been calling for. The world is experiencing a technology race in multiple areas with the emergence of artificial intelligence and drones, the return of electronic warfare and new areas of confrontation such as space, cyberspace and the seabed, as well as the shift to quantum technologies, according to Macron. The world is also seeing the return of nuclear proliferation and major conflicts, and “ultimately, let’s be clear, to be free in this world, you have to be feared,” Macron said. “To be feared, you have to be powerful.”
That means France must be stronger, “because it’s the nation above all that must defend the nation,” the president said. The war in Ukraine has shown “we need bravery, but also stocks and an appropriate defense industry. We need a nation that is capable of holding out and being mobilized.”
Macron said France needs to address areas of weakness, first and foremost its stocks of ammunition, including loitering munitions, as well as saturation weapons and precision arms. French combat groups, frigates and air bases must be equipped with more drones, he said. Other areas to be strengthened include air defense and electronic-warfare capabilities, as well as space capabilities, according to the president.
While France has “solid armies,” the country needs to “harden the model and also gain in mass,” Macron said. “These are the areas of efforts that have been identified and which will be the priority areas in the additional efforts to be made under the current military programming law.”
The effort will also require defense companies to produce more, faster and at lower cost, according to Macron. He said France’s Directorate General for Armament will monitor this, and prioritize new capabilities and production on French territory. France has world-class capabilities that “should become European solutions,” including the SAMP/T NG air-defense system, missiles, Rafale fighter jets, constellation of low-orbit satellites as well as AI companies, radar and anti-drone systems, according to Macron.
“We often already produce them in partnership with several other major European manufacturers or through our groups that already have a European footprint and shareholding structure,” Macron said. “So let’s buy European en masse.”
Developing European defense strengthens rather than takes away from French sovereignty, Macron said, calling to “move on from the ridiculous old debates” in a jab at frequent criticism from French nationalist and populist lawmakers slamming pan-European defense cooperation. France’s nuclear deterrent, while “totally and invariably sovereign,” plays a role in Europe’s security, Macron told the troops and officers gathered in Paris. The president said he asked Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Gen. Thierry Burkhard to engage in dialogue with European partners ready to do so to “fully assess the role of our deterrence in collective security.” Macron also said France, as the EU’s only nuclear power, has a “major responsibility” to make sure conventional rearmament is “effective, credible and consistent.” (Source: Defense News)
14 Jul 25. German minister to press Hegseth on arms supplies, missile deployment.
- Summary
- Berlin has offered purchasing U.S. Patriots for Kyiv
- Pistorius seeks clarity over planned U.S. missile deployment
- European NATO allies urge coordination of any troop drawdown
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius heads to Washington on Monday to meet U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, to seek clarity on American arms supplies to Ukraine, missile deployment plans and the future of U.S. troop levels in Europe.
Pistorius is likely to receive a warm reception as Europe’s biggest economy recently emerged as a key player in NATO’s largest military build-up since the Cold War, having for decades lagged behind in defence spending. (Source: Reuters)
15 Jul 25. Germany’s defence minister has told weapons makers to stop complaining and “deliver” on re-arming Europe, as he called for production to increase to match his country’s booming spending plans. (Source: FT.com)
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Founded in 1987, Exensor Technology is a world leading supplier of Networked Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Systems providing tailored sensor solutions to customers all over the world. From our Headquarters in Lund Sweden, our centre of expertise in Network Communications at Communications Research Lab in Kalmar Sweden and our Production site outside of Basingstoke UK, we design, develop and produce latest state of the art rugged UGS solutions at the highest quality to meet the most stringent demands of our customers. Our systems are in operation and used in a wide number of Military as well as Homeland Security applications worldwide. The modular nature of the system ensures any external sensor can be integrated, providing the user with a fully meshed “silent” network capable of self-healing. Exensor Technology will continue to lead the field in UGS technology, provide our customers with excellent customer service and a bespoke package able to meet every need.
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