Your Comment about the boycott of the Paris air show by the USA (Flight International, 6-12 May) is wrong.
The only expanding military budget for aerospace of significance is that of the USA and, you can be certain, no French, German or Russian equipment will be purchased by the US Department of Defense. French and German expenditure has shrunk significantly over the past five years and the drawn-out saga of the Airbus military A400M programme shows their lack of true commitment.
The only European nation to expand military spending has been the UK. Australia is making more efforts to expand defence spending than most of Europe. If I were a colonel in the US military, I would not waste my time at Le Bourget. There is no technology of significance emerging from Europe, mainly because European governments are not putting enough funding into research and development.
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Source: Flight International
