Leonardo and KNDS Announce a Strategic Partnership
On 13 December, Leonardo, Italy’s largest defense industry holding company, published a press release announcing the formation of a “strategic alliance” with KNDS (KMW+Nexter Defense Systems), a Franco-German owned company responsible for, among others, work on the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) project, aiming to develop a new generation of main battle tanks (MBTs).
According to the press release the aim of the cooperation is to: “create a truly European Defense Group and, in addition, to co-operate more closely in the field of land based electronics.”
In practice, and most importantly, the announcement of the partnership means that Italy will join the MGCS initiative, which is a project launched in 2017, which aims to replace Germany and France’s Leopard 2 fleets with a a new generation of MBT.
Italy’s participation, outside of purely technical benefits, like bringing in Leonardo’s expertise in the field of sensors and land-based electronics, will have an additional advantage of Italy becoming a potential mediator in case of rather frequently arising tensions between France and Germany, as well as the costs of the project being split with a third actor.
Additionally, the two firms have agreed to work together on development, manufacturing and maintenance of Leopard 2A8s, including a custom-made variant, that is likely to be dubbed 2A8IT, given the historical examples of 2A8PL and 2A8NOR, made for Poland and Norway respectively.
The partnership, which has been reached under the auspices of Italy’s MoD, and in accordance with its recently-published multi-year plan, seems to be a direct consequence of its renewed push for strengthening Italy’s military in the light of the conflict in Ukraine, and broadly rising world tensions.
Given the escalating tensions in the East, declining old equipment stockpiles, and growing pressure to remilitarize, the military-industrial complex of the European Union is poised to expand and further integrate.