France, Germany, Italy, and Poland signed an agreement to develop a ground-based cruise missile on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington.
Currently, its name is not announced, and the only parameter specified is a range of 500 km, with the goal of filling the capability gap of European countries in light of the real experience of russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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Defense Express immediately notes that the signing of this agreement was announced by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius at the end of June. At that time, the missile was also not named, but among the announced developments were the Land Cruise Missile, which is an evolution of the Storm Shadow missile, and the Joint Fire Support Missile (JFS-M) by MBDA.
Against this background, it is possible to immediately note the timeframe for the development and start of serial production. For the JFS-M, it was set within 3-5 years.
At the same time, the Land Cruise Missile may appear even earlier because it is essentially a "land-based" MdCN (Missile de Croisière Naval). However, in this case, the range of 500 km may be significantly understated, as the naval version has a range of over 1000 km.
But the main point is that by announcing the start of work on creating their own long-range ground-based cruise missile, these European countries directly indicated to the United States that it had just lost a huge defense market in Europe. Moreover, they did this right in Washington.
The fact is that Lockheed Martin had already planned to enter Europe with the ground-based version of the JASSM cruise missile in a joint project with Rheinmetall - GMARS. But now this project is unlikely to receive government funding, even from Germany, because having their own long-range weapon has become a higher priority.
The only reason why France, Germany, Italy, and Poland unexpectedly wanted to have their own ground-based cruise missile is the absence of risks associated with aligning with the US position on how to use their weapons. In other words, while the US prohibited Ukraine from using American missiles against russia, Europe arrived at one clear conclusion.
In doing so, for the United States, this decision by European countries means billions lost in contracts because the air-launched version of the JASSM costs around $8 million per unit. Meanwhile, the EU actively promotes unified defense procurement and lobbies for its own armaments. Therefore, it is highly probable that all other EU member states will purchase the European cruise missile.
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