# REPORT: Rheinmetall, MBDA, Ukrainian Drones — Europe Forges Its War Arsenal at a Forced March

> As of March 31, 2026, German defence giant Rheinmetall posted a consolidated order book of €73 billion — a figure that would have seemed delusional five years ago, when Europe's defence industry was languishing in general political indifference. For the first time, the total includes the Naval Systems division, valued at €5.5 billion, reflecting the group's strategic expansion

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-06-29
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-rheinmetall-mbda-drones-ukrainiens-l-europe-forge-son-arsenal-de-guerr

## Introduction: When Europe's Defence Industry Finally Wakes From Its Long Sleep

### A €73-billion order book that tells the whole story of an awakened Europe

As of **March 31, 2026**, German defence giant **Rheinmetall** posted a consolidated order book of **€73 billion** — a figure that would have seemed delusional five years ago, when Europe's defence industry was languishing in general political indifference. For the first time, the total includes the **Naval Systems** division, valued at **€5.5 billion**, reflecting the group's strategic expansion well beyond its historical land-munitions markets. In parallel, the Franco-British group **MBDA**, Europe's leader in guided missiles, announced in **June 2026** a further **40 percent increase in production** for the current year, after having already **doubled its output** between **2023** and the end of **2025**.

These numbers are not stock-market abstractions. They represent **155-mm shells** heading toward the Ukrainian front, missiles that will protect soldiers and cities, industrial war capacity that **Europe** had methodically allowed to atrophy since the end of the **Cold War**. The era of the peace dividend is definitively over. The era of accelerated industrial rearmament is open — and it is profoundly transforming the continent's economic and security fabric.

### A decade of underinvestment clawed back under absolute emergency

To grasp the full scale of the catch-up under way, one must recall the catastrophic state of Europe's defence industrial base at the time of **Ukraine**'s full-scale invasion in **February 2022**. Ammunition stocks were at rock bottom, production lines were running on idle, and investments in new capabilities had been systematically deferred or cancelled. European armies had been designed for light expeditionary operations, not high-intensity warfare consuming tens of thousands of shells a day.

Four and a half years later, the transformation is spectacular. **Rheinmetall** has opened new **155-mm** production lines at its **Unterlüß** facility in Germany, targeting a capacity of **350,000 shells per year**. **MBDA** has tripled its investment levels compared to **2021**, thanks to massive capital injections from its shareholder governments. And **Ukrainian drone production** itself has surged vertiginously, leaping from roughly **€1 billion** in **2022** to nearly **€50 billion** in **2026**.

*These numbers should fill with retrospective shame everyone who, for decades, chose budgetary comfort over strategic preparedness. Europe failed. It is catching up. But the price of the delay — paid in Ukrainian lives and accumulated vulnerabilities — is unacceptable. This must never be allowed to happen again.*

## Rheinmetall: The Transformation of an Industrial Group Into a Geopolitical Actor

### From shell manufacturer to integrated military-industrial complex

**Rheinmetall** is no longer simply a manufacturer of armoured vehicles and munitions. The German group is becoming an **integrated military-industrial complex** capable of covering a spectrum of capabilities ranging from **155-mm shells** to naval weapons systems, armoured vehicles, air-defence systems, and defence electronics components. The acquisition of the Naval Systems division — now integrated into the order book at **€5.5 billion** — reflects this accelerated diversification strategy.

The **Unterlüß** site in **Lower Saxony** has become a symbol of this transformation. New **155-mm** munitions production lines operate in **three shifts**, seven days a week. The target of **350,000 shells per year** represents a considerable increase over pre-war capacity, and that is only one element of the group's broader strategy — which includes opening or expanding production sites across several European countries, including **Poland**, **Romania**, **Lithuania**, and **Ukraine** itself.

### Ukrainian contracts: an industrial-warfare symbiotic relationship

**Rheinmetall**'s relationship with **Ukraine** goes beyond a simple commercial contract. The group has signed direct industrial cooperation agreements with **Kyiv** for local component and equipment production, knowing that geographic proximity to the front reduces delivery times and strengthens logistical resilience. These partnerships offer a model for European defence: integrating **Ukraine** not merely as a recipient of aid but as an active production partner.

Orders placed by European governments with **Rheinmetall** to support **Ukraine** account for a significant share of the **€73-billion** order book. This figure includes orders from **NATO** member states reconstituting their own stocks while feeding the military aid flow to **Kyiv**. It is a **dual strategic dividend**: strengthening collective defence while financing Ukrainian resistance.

*Watching Rheinmetall become a first-rank geopolitical actor is fascinating and somewhat dizzying. A decade ago, no one cited this group in discussions about European security architecture. Today, its investment decisions carry strategic implications that entire governments must integrate into their planning. War forges these new industrial giants.*

## MBDA: The European Missile at the Heart of the Defence Revolution

### Double in two years, then another 40 percent — a wartime industrial pace

**MBDA**, the Franco-British-German-Italian group specializing in guided missiles, is living through its own industrial revolution. After **doubling its production** between **2023** and the end of **2025**, the group announced in **June 2026** a further **40 percent production increase** for the current year. To achieve this, **MBDA** has benefited from capital injections from its shareholder governments — **France**, the **United Kingdom**, **Germany**, and **Italy** — which have tripled investment levels relative to **2021**.

This acceleration responds to explosive demand, fuelled by lessons from the war in **Ukraine**. **SCALP/Storm Shadow** missiles demonstrated their strategic effectiveness in Ukrainian deep strikes against Russian military infrastructure. **ASTER** air-defence systems equip the ships and ground systems of several allies. Demand for these capabilities is structurally high for the years and decades ahead — this is not a cyclical peak but a new strategic normal.

### The supply chain under pressure: the critical components challenge

**MBDA**'s production acceleration runs up against **supply constraints** in the electronic components and special materials needed for missile guidance systems. This tension is not unique to **MBDA** — it affects the entire European military-industrial complex and partly explains why production targets are sometimes harder to meet than announcements suggest.

Dependence on military-specification **semiconductor** components, produced largely in **Asia** and the **United States**, constitutes a vulnerability that Europeans are actively working to reduce. Investment programmes in European production capacity for critical military components are under way, but their maturation will take years — during which external dependence remains a managed, not a solved, reality.

*MBDA is living proof that Europe can build genuine defence industrial sovereignty when governments decide to invest seriously. But the lesson must endure: these investments must be maintained in calm times, not only in the panic of a war. That is the test of European strategic maturity.*

## Ukrainian Drone Production: The Most Spectacular Quantitative Leap

### From €1 billion to €50 billion in four years: a wartime industrial revolution

The most staggering figure in the panorama of defence production tied to the war in **Ukraine** is not **Rheinmetall**'s or **MBDA**'s — it is that of Ukrainian drone production itself. Jumping from roughly **€1 billion** in **2022** to nearly **€50 billion** in **2026**, this **50-fold** growth in four years represents one of the most rapid and massive industrial mobilizations in modern military history. **Ukraine** is no longer absorbing the technological war — it is redefining it.

Thousands of small businesses, technology startups, engineers, and soldiers turned entrepreneurs have built in just a few years a decentralized, resilient, and innovative industrial fabric at a pace no traditional industrial structure can match. Mass-produced **FPV drones** transformed ground combat tactics. Long-range drones have enabled strikes at **1,000**, **1,500**, even **2,000 km** deep into Russian territory. That capacity barely existed at scale in **2022** — today it is a fundamental data point of the conflict.

### The Ukrainian model as an inspiration for European defence

What **Ukraine** has achieved in the drone domain teaches Europeans an essential lesson: modern warfare demands **industrial agility** that classical bureaucratic defence structures cannot produce alone. Acquisition cycles lasting ten years, specifications locked in before the threat is even known, industrial consortiums shielded from competition — all of that belongs to a world that the war in **Ukraine** has shattered to pieces.

Several European countries — **Poland**, **Estonia**, **Denmark** — have begun adapting their acquisition models to incorporate shorter **develop-test-deploy cycles**, drawing directly from the Ukrainian experience. This is not a futuristic luxury — it is an operational necessity for any army that might need to fight tomorrow against a high-intensity adversary.

*Ukraine, going from €1 billion to €50 billion in drone production in four years, proved that wartime industrial mobilization is possible in a democracy, under bombs, with limited resources. It is humiliating for countries that struggle to double their munitions output after four years of advance warning. Europe must look at this mirror without flinching.*

## The 155-mm Shell: Symbol and Core Stake of the Industrial War

### The munitions war, the conflict's first industrial battle

If one were to choose a symbol of the industrial battle between **Ukraine** and its supporters against **Russia**, it would be the **155-mm shell**. This standard **NATO** artillery munition has become the reference indicator of the West's capacity to sustain support to **Ukraine**. At certain points the country consumed several tens of thousands of rounds per day — a pace that Western industries were absolutely unprepared to sustain in **2022**.

Ramping up European **155-mm** production has been one of the most pressing industrial challenges of the past two years. The **European Union** set a target of one million shells for **Ukraine** in **2024** — a target missed and then partially made up. **Rheinmetall**'s sites in **Germany**, new Polish investments through **Niewiadow/Polska Grupa Militarna** in partnership with a French player, capacity increases in Nordic countries — all of this converges toward a durable reinforcement of production lines.

### The skilled-labour challenge in the defence industry

One of the least visible but most real obstacles to accelerating munitions production in **Europe** is **skilled-labour availability**. Munitions factories require specific technical skills, strict safety protocols, and certifications that take time to obtain. Rapid site expansion means recruiting and training thousands of new employees in an already-tight labour market.

Several European defence groups have set up accelerated training programmes in partnership with technical education centres. **Rheinmetall**, notably, has developed training modules of **six to twelve weeks** for certain production roles — a drastic shortening of the usual pathways. These adaptations show that defence industrial mobilization requires not only capital but a profound transformation of human resources.

*You do not manufacture 155-mm shells the way you open a hamburger chain. It takes time, skill, and safety. Poorly organized haste creates accidents, delays, and waste. Real defence industrial power is built over years — which is precisely why the disarmament of the 1990–2010 period was such a serious strategic fault.*

## The ReArmEurope Programme: The Political Framework of Industrial Remilitarization

### Brussels as financial and regulatory accelerator of rearmament

The rise of **Rheinmetall** and **MBDA** is not simply the product of market forces — it is actively supported by the political and financial framework put in place by the **European Union** under the **ReArmEurope** programme. With production-line modernization aid budgets, guaranteed-loan mechanisms for capacity investments, and accelerated procurement procedures, **Brussels** has played a decisive accelerator role.

The **European Commission** has prepared a programme of **€165 million** to modernize munitions production lines in several member states — a modest figure relative to total needs, but symbolically important because it marks the **EU**'s entry into the direct financing of defence industrial capabilities, a political taboo lifted by the war. Larger mechanisms are being negotiated for the years ahead.

### NATO-EU coordination: avoiding fragmentation of industrial efforts

Coordination between the **NATO** framework and the **EU** framework for the defence industrial build-up remains a persistent challenge. The two organizations have partially different memberships — notably the **United Kingdom**, in **NATO** but outside the **EU** — and their own institutional logics. Duplication of effort, lack of production-standard interoperability, or competition for the same suppliers can limit the overall effectiveness of rearmament.

Coordination structures have been strengthened since **2022**, with regular meetings between defence industry officials from both institutions and progressive alignment on technical standards. But further progress is needed to reach the level of industrial integration that the current strategic challenge demands. War does not forgive inter-institutional bureaucratic inefficiencies.

*NATO-EU coordination on the defence industrial base is European strategy's blind spot. We have made significant progress since 2022, but not fast enough. While Europe deliberates on governance structures, Russia continues producing missiles at an industrial pace we took too long to recognize as existential.*

## Poland: The New Defence Industrial Hub at NATO's Heart

### Niewiadow and the rise of the Polish-French defence industry

**Poland** is becoming one of **Europe**'s most important defence industrial hubs. Polish company **Niewiadow/Polska Grupa Militarna (PGM)** has deepened its partnership with a French player to develop **155-mm** munitions production capacity, while simultaneously pursuing ambitions in **40-mm** munitions. This geographic positioning — at the junction of **Western Europe** and **NATO**'s eastern flank — gives **Poland** considerable logistical value for crisis-time supply chains.

The Polish government has allocated defence budgets equivalent to **4 percent of GDP** — the highest in **NATO** — and a significant share of those investments goes toward modernizing and expanding the national defence industrial base. The objective is twofold: ensure Polish sovereignty over its most critical defence capabilities, and position **Poland** as a reference producer and exporter for **NATO** allies.

### The production decentralization strategy as resilience against strikes

One of the war's lessons from **Ukraine** is that concentrating defence industrial production at a few large sites is a **strategic vulnerability**. Russian strikes on Ukrainian industrial sites showed that known, localized facilities are prime targets. The Ukrainian response — decentralize, disperse, duplicate — offers a model that Europeans must integrate into their own defence industrial planning.

This decentralization logic argues for developing production capabilities across several **NATO** countries, including the Baltic states and **Poland**, even if unit costs there are sometimes slightly higher than at large German or French factories. Resilience against adversary strikes has a strategic value that justifies this premium — a lesson that **Ukraine** paid dearly to teach its allies.

*Defence industrial decentralization is not a theoretical concept — it is an operational necessity that Russia validated through its strikes on Ukrainian production infrastructure. Europe building its new munitions factories while ignoring this reality is committing a strategic error it could pay very dearly for.*

## New Capabilities: Drones, Loitering Munitions, and Autonomous Systems

### Beyond conventional munitions: the rise of autonomous weapons systems

The defence industrial boom in **Europe** is not limited to **155-mm shells** and conventional guided missiles. A new wave of investment targets **autonomous weapons systems**, **loitering munitions** (kamikaze drones), and **electronic warfare** capabilities. These categories, massively deployed in the war in **Ukraine**, have demonstrated their tactical and strategic effectiveness to the point of fundamentally reshaping the operational doctrines of ground and air forces.

European defence startups have raised unprecedented amounts of venture capital, attracted by defence public procurement markets opening up to non-traditional players. **France**, **Germany**, **Estonia**, and the **United Kingdom** have all adapted their procurement procedures to give these new companies easier access to defence markets. This is a structural transformation of the sector that, if sustained, could shift the technological balance of power relative to **Russia** and **China** in the years ahead.

### Electronic warfare: the neglected domain reclaiming its central place

**Electronic warfare** — jamming, countermeasures, communications protection — has returned to the forefront of European defence investment priorities. The war in **Ukraine** demonstrated that **electronic superiority** is a decisive force multiplier: an enemy capable of jamming your communications, disrupting your GPS navigation, and intercepting your transmissions enjoys a considerable asymmetric advantage.

Companies such as **Leonardo** in **Italy**, **Thales** in **France**, **Rohde & Schwarz** in **Germany**, and several Nordic players have received substantial orders for mobile electronic warfare systems, drone jammers, and military communications protection equipment. These investments, long neglected in modernization plans, are now being treated with the same urgency as conventional munitions.

*Electronic warfare is the domain where Russia historically held an advantage over NATO in Eastern Europe. Ukraine taught us that this advantage, if not closed, can be lethal on the battlefield. I would rather Europe learns that lesson by proxy than by paying directly in the lives of its own soldiers.*

## Financing Rearmament: National Budgets and European Mechanisms

### Rising NATO defence budgets: finally a generalized reality

For the first time since the end of the **Cold War**, virtually all **NATO** members are reaching or exceeding the target of **2 percent of GDP** devoted to defence — a target that seemed unachievable for many just five years ago. **Germany**, long the canonical example of chronic underinvestment at **1.2 percent of GDP**, exceeded **2 percent in 2024** and is now approaching **3 percent**. **France**, the **United Kingdom**, the Nordic countries, and the Baltic states all maintain budgets above the target.

This budgetary reality translates directly into the order books of defence industrialists like **Rheinmetall** and **MBDA**. But it also raises the question of long-term sustainability: in a context of pressure on public finances, demographic ageing, and growing social needs, maintaining defence efforts at these levels for decades will be a major political test for European governments.

### Innovative mechanisms: common borrowing and European defence funds

To finance rearmament without excessively widening national deficits, the **European Union** is exploring innovative financing mechanisms. Modelled on the post-**COVID** recovery fund, proposals circulate for **joint European borrowing** dedicated to defence, which would allow the cost of the transition to a **militarily capable Europe** to be shared. These mechanisms face the traditional resistance of frugal countries, but political dynamics are pushing toward a gradual agreement.

The **European Defence Fund**, already operational for research and development, is set to grow significantly. Ongoing discussions in the **European Parliament** and the **Council** suggest that the next multiannual financial framework's budgets will include a substantial increase in the defence component — a quiet revolution in the **European Union**'s identity.

*The question of joint European borrowing for defence is politically sensitive but strategically unavoidable. The countries with the strongest economies are often those geographically furthest from the danger. Financial solidarity in defence matters is the ultimate test of European cohesion. Passing or failing it will say everything about what the Union truly is.*

## Risks and Challenges: Not Confusing Orders With Deliveries

### The gap between the order book and the reality of deliveries

A **€73-billion** order book for **Rheinmetall** is impressive. But the real value for collective security is measured by what is actually delivered, on time, to correct specifications. Delivery timelines in the defence industry can stretch over years, particularly for complex systems. Supply chain bottlenecks, subcontracting problems, recruitment difficulties — all factors that can turn a reassuring order book into a disappointing reality.

The lessons of the early years of Western support to **Ukraine** are eloquent: several equipment commitments took far longer than expected to materialize, creating windows of operational vulnerability that the Ukrainian army had to manage with insufficient resources. The risk of this repeating with new orders is real and must be actively managed through rigorous tracking mechanisms.

### The standardization question: interoperability as a condition of success

One of the paradoxes of accelerated European rearmament is that, absent sufficient coordination, it risks producing greater fragmentation of equipment and standards rather than better interoperability. Countries rushing to order whatever is available may choose systems incompatible with those of their allies, creating logistical and operational challenges for decades to come. **NATO standardization** of munitions, communications, and weapons systems is an operational necessity that urgency pressures must not sacrifice for the sake of speed.

This tension between speed and coherence is one of the central challenges that European military planners must manage. Accelerated coordination mechanisms exist within **NATO** to address these questions — their effective activation in the context of current rearmament will be decisive for the real operational value of the investments made.

*Buying fast but poorly is a form of strategic waste. Europe cannot afford to order equipment that does not integrate into a coherent architecture. The pressure is real, but rigour must prevail — in the interest of the soldiers who will depend on this equipment tomorrow.*

## The Future of the European Defence Industrial Base: A Ten-Year Outlook

### Three scenarios for the coming decade

The **optimistic scenario** for Europe's defence industrial base in ten years sees an **integrated Europe** with pooled production chains, a diversified technological base including autonomous systems and space capabilities, and logistical resilience that has been tested and proven. That is the scenario toward which **Rheinmetall**, **MBDA**, and the governments backing them are actively working. The **middle scenario** sees an improved but fragmented Europe, with substantial progress but persistent gaps in coordination and critical capabilities.

The **pessimistic scenario** would see the current momentum falter if a peace agreement in **Ukraine** — even a fragile, insufficiently guaranteed one — released the political pressure for a return to budgetary compromises and temptations of gradual disarmament. This last scenario is the most dangerous for long-term European security. The history of the **peace dividend** of the **1990s** showed us that democracies can demobilize with disarming speed when the threat seems to recede.

### The new geopolitical reality as a durable anchor for rearmament

There are, however, reasons to believe that the current situation is structurally different from the **1990s**. The Russian threat is not a perception that can be dissolved by reconciliation rhetoric — it is a documented reality, embodied in the figures of a Russian military-industrial base in expansion and in **Putin**'s own statements about his geopolitical objectives. The countries most directly threatened — Baltic, Polish, Scandinavian — have internalized this reality in a way that makes a return to the naivety of the **1990s** politically impossible for them.

This structural pressure from **NATO**'s most exposed members constitutes a **durable safeguard** against demobilization. It is reinforced by the ongoing cultural transformation in countries like **Germany** — where the historical taboo on military power is crumbling under the pressure of events. Europe's defence industrial base will benefit from this new political reality to consolidate its investments and capabilities.

*I want to believe that this time Europe has truly understood. That the Rheinmetalls, MBDAs, and Dassaults of 2030 will be more powerful, better integrated, better funded than those of 2020. But the history of European defence policy is strewn with good intentions not followed through. Watching, documenting, holding governments accountable — that is the work of those who cover this domain. I am committed to it.*

## Strategic Lessons for NATO: What Rheinmetall and MBDA Reveal

### Industrial war precedes and conditions military war

One of the most fundamental lessons of the war in **Ukraine** — and one that the figures from **Rheinmetall** and **MBDA** embody — is that industrial war precedes and conditions military war. A country or alliance that cannot sustain, over time, the consumption of munitions and equipment demanded by a high-intensity conflict is condemned to lose, regardless of its soldiers' worth or the justice of its cause.

**Russia** banked on this Western industrial exhaustion from the beginning of the conflict. It underestimated Ukrainian resilience and the allies' willingness to sustain support. But it was partly right about the initial limits of Europe's industrial base. The ongoing industrial rearmament is precisely the response to that identified vulnerability — and **Rheinmetall**'s **€73-billion** order book is its most tangible measure.

### The Ukraine-NATO convergence: a transformation of the security architecture

Beyond the production figures, Europe's defence industrial boom represents a transformation of the continent's security architecture. **Ukraine** is no longer simply a country at war receiving help from its neighbours — it is a production partner, a laboratory of innovation, a testing ground for the technologies that will define tomorrow's warfare. This gradual integration of **Ukraine** into the European defence industrial fabric prefigures its future integration into **NATO** and the **EU**.

**Ukraine**'s **€50-billion** drone production and **Rheinmetall**'s **€73-billion** order book are inseparable — these two dynamics feed each other and converge toward the same strategic direction: a **European defence** that is stronger, more integrated, and more capable of protecting itself and its values against the powers that seek to destroy them.

*The convergence between the Ukrainian and European defence industrial bases may be the most significant and least commented geopolitical transformation of this war. It will create lasting interdependencies that make Ukraine's political integration inevitable. Munitions and drones built together are a more solid cement than many treaties.*

## Critical Look: The Dark Angles of the Defence Industry Boom

### Racing for profits in a booming sector: the risk of military rent-seeking

The European defence industry boom also raises legitimate questions about **governance and transparency**. Groups like **Rheinmetall** have seen their share prices soar since **2022**. Profit margins have improved. Executive compensation has followed. In a context of war and massive public funding, the question of whether taxpayers are getting the best possible value for their defence investments is legitimate and necessary.

Mechanisms for parliamentary oversight and defence contract auditing exist in democratic countries — but their effectiveness in the current emergency context, where normal procedures are often accelerated or bypassed in the name of delivery imperatives, warrants close attention. Transparency in defence spending is not a democratic luxury — it is a condition of the legitimacy of rearmament itself.

### The environmental impact of accelerated military production

One aspect rarely mentioned in discussions about European industrial rearmament is its **environmental footprint**. The production of munitions, weapons systems, and military vehicles is by nature an energy- and materials-intensive activity. The current acceleration of this production enters into direct tension with the **EU**'s decarbonization objectives and the commitments made under the **European Green Deal**.

Efforts are under way in the industry to electrify certain processes, optimize logistics, and reduce the carbon footprint of the supply chain. But it must be said honestly: under current conditions, security priority takes precedence over environmental priority in defence investment decisions. This trade-off is acceptable if the threat is real — and it is — but it must be named clearly rather than ignored.

*I am not naive: a munitions factory is not a solar installation. War has a real environmental cost, on top of its human cost. But I am convinced that freedom and security hold greater value than the purity of our defence carbon balance sheet. The real solution is to stop the war — not to slow the rearmament necessary to achieve that.*

## Conclusion: Europe Forges Its Future in the Fire of the Defence Industry

### A brutal but necessary awakening for the continent

**Rheinmetall**'s **€73-billion** in orders, **MBDA**'s **doubled production**, **Ukraine**'s **€50-billion drone output** — all of this tells a single story: **Europe** is rearming, not by ideological choice but by existential necessity. The awakening has been brutal, belated, and costly in lives and resources. But it is real, it is under way, and it is producing measurable results on the ground in **Ukraine** and in allied arsenals.

This industrial rearmament is also a sovereignty project. A **Europe** capable of producing its own munitions, its own missiles, its own drones is a **Europe** less dependent on the **United States** for its defence — which is in the interest of all allies, including Americans who are tiring of bearing the burden of collective security alone.

### Collective responsibility before history

In a decade, **Europe** will look back on this period — these years when factories ran day and night to forge the tools of a collective security too long neglected. History's judgement on today's decisions will hinge on one thing: did this industrial effort suffice to deter a new aggression, to protect **Ukraine**, to preserve European freedoms? No one can answer with certainty. But the effort itself is beyond dispute — and the figures of **Rheinmetall** and **MBDA** are its most eloquent industrial testimony.

*There is something deeply human about these industrial numbers: behind every billion of order book sits a worker, an engineer, a soldier hoping to receive what they need in time. The chain runs from the factory floor to the battlefield, and every link matters. Honouring that chain means honouring those risking their lives at the other end of it.*

## Final Conclusion: From Molten Metal to Recovered Security

### The irreversible transformation of Europe's defensive identity

What **Rheinmetall** and **MBDA** represent is not merely an industrial story — it is the beginning of an irreversible transformation of **Europe**'s defensive identity. After decades of comfortable dependence on the American security umbrella, the continent is learning, in pain and under urgency, what it means to take its security into its own hands. This process is slow, imperfect, and costly. But it is under way. And the figures from **March 2026** attest to this with a clarity that no one can deny.

### Future generations will judge our choices of today

In twenty years, the generations that inherit the **Europe** we leave them will judge our choices today. Did we invest enough to protect them? Did we support **Ukraine** with enough determination for it to survive free? Did we build a defence industrial base robust enough to deter future aggressions? These questions deserve the best possible answer — and **Rheinmetall**'s **€73 billion** is a step in the right direction. One step, not a destination.

*I will close with this thought: every 155-mm shell coming out of the Unterlüß factory is an argument for peace — not the peace of surrender, but the peace of deterrence. That is not a contradiction. It is the reality of the world we did not choose but must face with every ounce of our collective resolve.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [DebugLies Intel — European Defence Industrial Surge: munitions boom amid ReArm initiatives — June 11, 2026](https://www.debugliesintel.com/european-defence-industrial-surge-munitions-boom-amid-rearm-initiatives/)

- [EU Perspectives — Paris saw the future of defence, can Europe keep pace? — June 2026](https://euperspectives.eu/2026/06/paris-saw-the-future-of-defence-can-europe-keep-pace/)

- [Brussels Times — EU prepares €165M defence boost to modernise munitions production lines — 2026](https://www.brusselstimes.com/2197057/eu-prepares-e165m-defence-boost-to-modernise-munitions-production-lines)

### Secondary sources

- [Industry Alarm — Poland's Niewiadow/PGM deepens 155-mm ammunition production with French partner — 2026](https://industryalarm.eu/polands-niewiadow-pgm-deepens-155-mm-ammunition-production-with-french-partner/)

- [Euro SD — Niewiadow PGM: building Europe's next 40-mm ammunition hub — June 2026](https://euro-sd.com/2026/06/sponsored-content/51236/niewiadow-polska-grupa-militarna-building-europes-next-40-mm-ammunition-hub-and-a-new-pillar-of-nato-security/)

- [EU Perspectives — Defence industry meet in France addresses Europe's arsenal gap — June 2026](https://euperspectives.eu/2026/06/defence-industry-meet-in-france-address-europes-arsenal-gap/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-rheinmetall-mbda-drones-ukrainiens-l-europe-forge-son-arsenal-de-guerr