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Lockheed Martin spoke to the British government to offer support in building a new rocket defense system for Great Britain.
Frank St. John, Chief Operating Officer von Lockheed, said that the US defense group believes that it could offer Britain critical skills if the government decides which approach should take. Labor’s youngest Strategic defense examination However, the importance of air defense systems emphasized, but did not contain any specific plans.
St. John’s remarks in an interview with the Financial Times consequences of the Trump administration and ask for suggestions from defense companies, “Golden Dome” for the USA. Inspired by Israel Iron Dome short-distance air defense system, the project aims to establish a spatial rocket sign to protect the USA from advanced rockets.
Said St. John Lockheed Already had skills such as “Interceptors, ground-based sensors, spatial-based situational awareness that could convey the British (initial) skills very quickly”.
The company, he added, would also like to “whoever in Great Britain wanted to work together to create the command and control system that integrates all of this and makes it interoperable with other systems in Europe and the United States”.
British defense Sources that were familiar with the situation confirmed that Lockheed executives recently informed the Ministry of Department of what the US group could offer with regard to air defense skills.
However, they played the prospect that Great Britain has a similar approach to the United States with plans for a golden dome, but it was a focus to develop better integrated air and rocket defense systems.
The most recent review was only £ 1 billion for air defense – far below the estimated costs for the US project.
In an explanation, the mod said that the “priority focus” of the assigned financing is to “increase our ability to recognize air and rocket threats in the range, to improve the ability of integrated strength, to defeat these threats together and to improve integration into our NATO partner with the same threats”.
The development of better integrated European air and rocket defense systems has become a priority for governments since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Mark Rutte, General Secretary of NATO, recently estimated that about four times more systems are needed than alliance today, to counter the threat to Russia.
Lockheed makes Thaad and PAC-3 rocket defense systems, has radar systems and the “Leo” constellation of satellites that can counteract threats in various areas.
Lockheed is part of a number of US defense companies and Silicon Valley companies that fight for a role in the proposed Golden Dome of President Donald Trump. St. John said that the company had “submitted more than a hundred white papers with skills and plans” and was also about the partnership in discussions with start-ups in Silicon Valley and technology groups.
Regardless of this, St. John said that Lockheed intends to strengthen his partnerships with European defense companies to ensure that the US group was not completed from lucrative export options because the region wants to increase its domestic skills.
Managers of European industry said the region had to focus on buying weapons and not on US equipment. There were also concerns that the USA could immobilize aircraft and weapon systems, including Lockheeds F-35 Fighter Jetwhich is flown by numerous European air forces, although this was rejected by the Pentagon.
We set “more production in Europe,” said St. John and noticed the company’s partnership to build F-35-fingeled with Rheinmetall.
Lockheed builds on relationships with Norway’s Kongsberg and Rheinmetall. The German defense group announced plans for setting up a large -scale rocket production in Europe at the beginning of this year together with Lockheed. The joint venture aims to produce long-distance Atacms and Patriot PAC-3 rockets in order to satisfy European demand.
Lockheed’s European partnerships, said St. John, would “serve us well” because Europe wanted to buy more in the region.
He rejected suggestions that Lockheed would lose the turnover of his F-35 jet in Europe due to tensions between the USA and the region. The company had “three or four countries that actively evaluate the F-35 for their fighter requirements,” he said, adding: “We have lost nothing in years.”
