INTERNATIONAL ARMS MARKET ROUNDUP: Russia, Trump Driving European Arms Purchases.

• Author: Machi, Vivienne
• Position: Special Report

After years of downsizing their forces, European nations are investing in defense to better protect their airspace and coastlines as Russia flexes its military muscles to the east and U.S. President Donald Trump demands greater contributions to collective defense from the west.

Cutbacks and lack of investment in critical areas "have left the greater European defense apparatus just short of everything," said Dan Darling, senior military markets analyst for Europe and Asia-Pacific at Forecast International, a Newtown, Connecticut-based marketing and consulting firm.

But recent foreign military sales agreements and future equipment competitions reveal that countries across the continent are moving to reverse that trend, he noted.

"There has been a reinvigorated push to build up European capabilities, and at least have some form of unity in terms of how they put a face forward to the rest of the world," he said.

International military operations in Libya in 2011 exposed capability gaps and the limited capacity of NATO allies, Darling said. "The U.S. basically had to patch every capability shortcoming, from aerial refueling to" intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, he added.

Though spending has ramped up in the years since, "you can't recover all those capabilities overnight," he noted. "Many European countries are focused on recapturing a hard-power edge that has been just eroded from the inside out."

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Washington, D.C-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, called it "a promising time" for foreign military sales in Europe as nations move to rebuild their military stocks to counter a resurgent Moscow.

"Russia has continued to be very anti-NATO, very anti-Western, and that has created a sense of threat that had been absent for 20 years," he said.

The United States needs its Eastern European allies to be able to control their airspace and their coastlines to allow for smooth reinforcements in the event of a conflict, Cancian said. "If they aren't in control... then we can't get our forces there at all," he noted.

Poland is putting money behind its commitment to modernize its air defenses, Darling noted.

The State Department recently approved the potential sale of several major missile defense systems to Warsaw, including Raytheon's Patriot system for $4.75 billion, and Northrop Grumman's integrated air and missile defense battle command system, or IBCS. Poland has also recently procured offensive weapons, including Lockheed Martin's AGM-158B joint air-to-surface...