Saab CEO: EU Arms Makers Lack Capacity to Support NATO Buildup

US Demands Pushing Major Companies Beyond Their Capacities

US pressure on European member nations of NATO to massive increase their military spending is risky, warned Saab CEO Hakan Buskhe today, who cautioned that the European arms makers don’t have the spare capacity to support such a buildup.

Saab produces fighter jets and some other military vehicles. Bushke warned that since the Cold War, decreasing military spending across the alliance has had many such companies shedding their excess capacity, and they can just ramp up capacity at a moment’s notice.

That’s a fact likely not lost on the US, home to a number of massive, well-connected arms dealers, and dealers which the Obama Administration has pledged to grow the export markets for. If European arms makers can’t supply the new, US-mandated demand, the US companies surely will.

Whether European nations fall for that is another matter, as it’s hard to imagine that they’ll voluntarily break their budgets on higher defense spending only to see all that money going abroad to buy US-made weapons to fight US-made wars.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.