MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/. Despite record investments, the Western military-industrial complex is facing profound systemic crises that call into question its long-term effectiveness and strategic sustainability, Alexander Stepanov, a military expert at the Institute of Law and National Security at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), told TASS.
"There are conceptual and corporate contradictions, technological dependencies, and management dead ends behind the facade of multi-billion-dollar contracts," Stepanov said. According to him, despite the boom in defense ventures and the Pentagon's R&D spending of a record $146 billion by 2026, the emphasis on advanced technologies is creating ‘technological islands’ in an ocean of aging industrial bases and unresolved infrastructure problems. The expert identified key structural weaknesses in Western countries’ military industries: an acute shortage of engineering personnel, a critical dependence on imported raw materials for the military, particularly from China, and the disunity of European countries, which paralyzes joint projects.
Bloomberg, for example, points to a lack of proper coordination and synchronization between EU factories in different countries, leading to disrupted supply chains, duplication of work, and inefficient spending. Furthermore, the agency notes insufficient funding for the European military-industrial complex. While consulting firm McKinsey estimates that EU countries collectively intend to spend an additional €800 billion on defense by 2028, Bloomberg estimates that the EU should spend some $720 billion annually to fully modernize its defense industry.
Stepanov made special mention of the risks associated with the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into defense. According to him, despite massive investments, this process is fraught with dangerous dependence on private corporations, dilution of responsibility, technical unreliability of systems, and a lack of an ethical regulatory framework. "The AI arms race is taking place in a legal vacuum," the expert concluded.
"Thus, the Western defense industry finds itself in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, there is an unprecedented financial and technological leap, on the other, there is the erosion of its own industrial base, a personnel crisis, and an ill-considered reliance on opaque and immature technologies," Stepanov said. Without overcoming these systemic problems, he concluded, temporary technological superiority could turn into strategic instability.