European military aviation market expected to grow.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

Pressure from the United States coupled with rising security threats are driving increased military spending in Europe. That could lead to new contracts for fighter jets and helicopters, analysts said.

"It's a good time for the European military market in general," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' international security program. "The NATO allies are increasing their spending."

Russia is a main reason, he said. Under President Vladimir Putin, the Eastern nation has increasingly provoked its neighbors with aggressive behavior, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its military backing of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

"In 2008, there was a belief that... Russia might become part of the community of nations," Cancian said. After Crimea "you don't hear that anymore from the United States and now from the other NATO allies. So the whole perception of threat is now much greater."

Additionally, President Donald Trump has pressured alliance members to invest more money toward defense, Cancian said. NATO countries have a stated goal to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024, but only a handful of nations currently meet it.

"The effect of the Russians was there before Trump, but Trump has really pushed... [NATO members] very far," he said. "They make fun of him, they don't like him, but on the other hand, I think they are paying attention and they recognize... [he represents] a strand in U.S. popular opinion and that they need to respond to that."

As Europe funnels more money toward military spending, aviation assets will likely fare well, he said.

Aviation "is a distinctive advantage of Western militaries, both fixed wing and helicopters," he said. "It's an area where militaries really want to invest."

NATO's airpower during the Cold War was far superior to that of the Warsaw Pact, he added. The "Warsaw Pact of course had a lot of mass, they had very strong ground forces, but their aviation forces were not as strong," he said.

While budgets may be growing in terms of expenditures, the number of assets is not increasing, said Dan Darling, a senior military markets analyst at Forecast International, a Newtown, Connecticut-based market consulting firm.

"In the past two decades the cost of aircraft and the technologies embedded in them, running in parallel with force downsizing across European armies, means that while they will buy new stuff, they will buy it in fewer...