Missiles, AESA radars, and advanced engines: global rearmament is exposing industrial capacities too narrow to meet demand.
Executive Summary
Global rearmament is now colliding less with a lack of money than with a lack of industrial capacity. Military budgets reached $2.887 trillion in 2025, but factories capable of producing guided missiles, AESA radars, or advanced military engines cannot increase their production rates as quickly. A modern missile combines a seeker, semiconductors, explosives, a rocket motor, and components sometimes produced by a single company. An AESA radar requires thousands of transmit/receive modules whose manufacturing and calibration are difficult to accelerate. Adaptive cycle engines present a different problem: they are not yet in mass production, and their main bottleneck involves technological maturation. The United States retains the industrial advantage, but China possesses concerning manufacturing depth. Europe is accelerating after decades of low production rates. The military balance of power now depends as much on factories as on the platforms themselves.
Global Rearmament Outpaces Production Capacity
The global arms race has changed in nature.
For thirty years, major Western powers primarily optimized their defense industries to produce sophisticated systems in limited quantities. The logic was one of technological superiority. A few hundred highly precise missiles were meant to replace thousands of less capable munitions. Industrial supply chains were sized accordingly.
The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, followed by the accelerated rearmament of Europe and Asia, abruptly exposed the weakness of this model.
Global military expenditure reached $2.887 trillion in 2025, according to SIPRI. Spending is increasing for the eleventh consecutive year. Europe increased its spending by 14% in one year, and Asia-Oceania by 8.1%. European NATO members and Canada increased their defense spending by nearly 20% in real terms in 2025.
However, voting a budget does not immediately produce a missile.
Between the order and the delivery lie dozens or sometimes hundreds of suppliers. Boosters, radio-frequency electronic components, energetic materials, hardened computers, explosives, infrared sensors, electromechanical actuators, and testing facilities are all required.
A final assembly plant can be expanded in two years. Reconstituting an entire industrial sector often takes five to ten years.
This has become one of the main strategic issues for air forces.
Complex Missiles Concentrate the Most Urgent Bottlenecks
A modern missile is almost a small, consumable aircraft.
An AIM-120 AMRAAM requires a rocket motor, an active radar seeker, an inertial navigation unit, data links, a computer, actuators, and a warhead. Each of these components must function after several years of storage and endure extreme acceleration, vibration, and temperature.
Increasing its production is therefore not a matter of simply adding workers to an assembly line.
The problem may be located three tiers down, at a relatively small company producing a pyrotechnic initiator, a specific powder, or an electronic part.
The Rocket Motor Has Become a Critical Tension Point
Solid propellants illustrate this fragility.
For several decades, the U.S. solid rocket motor industry underwent heavy consolidation. Specialized suppliers vanished or merged. The Government Accountability Office had already noted that the American supply chain had shrunk from several thousand suppliers to a fraction of that number.
The sudden surge in demand is forcing Washington to rebuild this industrial depth.
Raytheon has secured a new American source of rocket motors for the AMRAAM and is working with NAMMO to expand production capacity in Florida. The new lines are expected to be operational in 2027.
The target is dramatic: AMRAAM production is set to exceed 1,900 missiles per year.
For its part, the AIM-9X is expected to reach approximately 2,500 units annually. Production of the SM-6 is targeted to exceed 500 missiles per year.
The movement extends beyond air-launched weapons. Lockheed Martin plans to increase PAC-3 MSE capacity from around 600 annual units to nearly 2,000 under a seven-year industrial agreement.
In August 2026, the U.S. Navy even initiated a radical increase for the Tomahawk. The production rate is set to climb from about 60 missiles per year to over 1,000 under a seven-year, $22.9 billion contract.
Above all, these figures reveal how low previous production rates actually were.
Arsenals had been designed for short wars.
Energetic Materials Remain Difficult to Scale
Solid rocket motors also require propellants whose manufacturing process is highly specialized.
Fuel, oxidizer, and binder must be mixed in extremely precise proportions. The resulting grain must then burn in a completely predictable manner. An internal crack can abruptly alter the burning surface area and cause a catastrophic overpressure.
Certain chemical components rely on very few producers.
The issue is now serious enough that the European Union reserved over €165 million in 2026 to boost production capacity for explosives, powders, and energetic components. Combined with associated industrial investments, nearly €470 million could be mobilized.
The Pentagon likewise views rocket motors, ignition devices, and guidance systems as priority industrial bottlenecks.
The problem is thus no longer theoretical. It directly impacts the quantities of available missiles.
AESA Radars Are Constrained by Microelectronics as Much as Assembly
The second bottleneck involves Active Electronically Scanned Array, or AESA, radars.
An AESA radar does not use a single radio-frequency source mechanically feeding an antenna. Its surface contains a large number of transmit/receive modules capable of individually generating and receiving electromagnetic energy.
The beam is steered electronically.
This architecture allows the radar to change direction almost instantaneously, track multiple targets simultaneously, and distribute its resources between detection, tracking, mapping, and sometimes electronic warfare.
However, it also turns a radar into an extremely complex microelectronic product.
Thousands of Modules Turn Each Radar into an Industrial Challenge
Raytheon’s upgraded APG-82, for example, utilizes thousands of transmit/receive modules.
The latest radars increasingly use gallium nitride, or GaN, instead of gallium arsenide. GaN handles high power levels and temperatures. It yields greater radio-frequency power output within a smaller surface area.
This increases range or allows for a reduction in antenna size.
Yet before a radar can be produced, semiconductors must be fabricated, integrated into modules, assembled onto boards, each subassembly tested, panels assembled, and the complete antenna calibrated.
The example of the American SPY-6 provides a sense of scale.
Raytheon reports having already produced roughly 1.8 million microwave components and 50,000 transmit/receive modules for more than 2,000 Radar Modular Assemblies. The group has invested over $800 million in its SPY-6 industrial infrastructure and plans to double production by 2028.
Such a supply chain is not easily replicated.
It requires cleanrooms, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, radio-frequency test chambers, calibration software, and above all, engineers possessing highly specialized skills.
GaN Delivers a Technological Advantage but Creates Strategic Dependence
Gallium nitride is valuable because it concentrates more power than previous generations of radio-frequency semiconductors.
However, the supply chain does not depend solely on raw gallium.
Strategic value lies in the capacity to produce military-grade wafers, execute lithography steps, manufacture radio-frequency integrated circuits, perform packaging, and achieve acceptable manufacturing yields.
Producing ten excellent prototypes is not enough.
A credible military industry must produce tens of thousands of virtually identical components.
This is why the United States is investing in the vertical integration of its production. In Andover, Raytheon can go from GaN component fabrication all the way to radar testing within the same industrial complex.
This setup reduces external dependencies.
It is expensive, but it becomes a strategic asset when demand surges.
Adaptive Cycle Engines Present a Different Industrial Challenge
Next-generation military engines must be distinguished from missiles and AESA radars.
They are not currently experiencing a comparable mass-production shortage because they are not yet in serial production.
The bottleneck occurs earlier in the cycle: design, materials, testing, and industrialization.
The United States is currently developing GE Aerospace’s XA102 and Pratt & Whitney’s XA103 under the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion program.
The goal is to provide propulsion for future American fighter aircraft.
The Third Stream Must Solve the Trade-Off Between Range and Power
A traditional turbofan engine is optimized around relatively fixed compromises.
A military engine must deliver immense thrust during certain flight phases while consuming as little fuel as possible during cruise.
An adaptive cycle engine seeks to alter its operation according to the mission.
A key innovation is the addition of a third stream of air. This third stream can help optimize propulsive efficiency and, crucially, reject far more heat.
This last point is essential.
Future fighters will carry more powerful radars, electronic warfare systems, artificial intelligence processors, and potentially directed-energy weapons. All of these generate enormous amounts of heat.
GE Aerospace claims a potential 30% increase in operating range and a more than 20% improvement in acceleration for its adaptive technology compared to reference architectures evaluated by the company.
Yet achieving this performance in an engine that must operate for thousands of hours is extraordinarily difficult.
Materials Become the True Technological Frontier
Temperatures inside the hottest sections of a modern engine can exceed the melting point of the alloys used.
The turbine survives only through a combination of metallic single-crystal superalloys, thermal barrier coatings, and extremely sophisticated internal cooling circuits.
Future engines add ceramic matrix composites, additive manufacturing, and increasingly complex geometries.
Every advance complicates industrialization.
A turbine blade that works on a test bench is not yet an operational military capability. It must be possible to manufacture thousands of them with consistent quality and then demonstrate their endurance.
In May 2026, GE passed the Assembly Readiness Review for the XA102. Pratt & Whitney is continuing work on the XA103. The U.S. budget for the NGAP program still runs into hundreds of millions of dollars annually in research and development.
The real test will come when propulsion must transition from prototype status to hundreds of operational engines.
The United States Remains Best Positioned but Discovers the Limits of Its Model
The United States holds the primary Western industrial advantage.
It gathers within its borders Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, Boeing, GE Aerospace, and Pratt & Whitney, as well as a vast network of subcontractors.
It can also commit sums that few nations can match.
Yet this power masks a vulnerability: concentration.
The Department of Defense relies on more than 200,000 suppliers without possessing full visibility over every tier of the supply chain. The GAO notably highlights foreign dependencies regarding certain microelectronics and critical raw materials.
This vulnerability explains current policy.
Washington is no longer content merely ordering more. It is directly funding production lines, guaranteeing multiple years of orders, and encouraging the arrival of new suppliers.
Anduril has thus emerged as a new American actor in solid rocket motors. Its Mississippi facility targets a capacity of several thousand tactical motors per year.
The winner is the one who guarantees demand.
A company will not invest hundreds of millions in a new plant if a ministry orders 2,000 missiles one year and then nothing for five years.
The major American revolution may therefore be less technological than contractual: providing industry with sufficient visibility to invest.
China Enjoys Industrial Depth That the West Now Takes Seriously
China represents the hardest case to measure.
The exact production rates of the PL-15, PL-17, AESA radars, or Chinese military engines are not published with sufficient transparency to allow direct comparison.
However, the depth of its industrial base is unquestionable.
The U.S. report on Chinese military power considers that Beijing produces a very broad range of ballistic, cruise, air-to-air, and surface-to-air missiles, many models of which reach a level comparable to top international standards.
Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, even warned in 2025 that China was surpassing the United States in production volume across several aerospace, naval, and missile categories.
This statement should be viewed as an American military assessment rather than a verifiable industrial statistic.
Nonetheless, it explains Washington’s concern.
China also possesses a powerful radar industry. Work by the China Aerospace Studies Institute describes a broad industrial base capable of producing modern systems across the entire air defense radar spectrum.
Finally, Beijing holds an advantage in certain critical raw materials. China dominates the production and refining of several rare earths in particular and holds a major position in gallium.
Its weak point lies further up the chain.
It continues to face difficulties in certain advanced semiconductor generations, their packaging, and several production technologies. Aeronautics also remains historically a more challenging domain, particularly regarding engines.
China is therefore not invulnerable.
Yet in an industrial war of attrition, Chinese manufacturing mass becomes a weapon.
Europe Possesses the Technology but Has Yet to Recover the Logic of Scale
Europe finds itself in almost the opposite situation.
It boasts technologically excellent groups: MBDA, Thales, Leonardo, Safran, Rolls-Royce, Saab, and several other industrial players master critical domain areas.
The problem has long been order volume.
European states used to buy small batches on differing national schedules. This approach maintained capabilities but did not encourage the creation of massive industrial capacity.
Since 2022, change has been swift.
MBDA doubled its overall missile production between 2023 and the end of 2025. The group projects another 40% increase in 2026 and plans to invest €5 billion in Europe between 2026 and 2030.
For the ASTER, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom have initiated production of nearly 1,000 additional missiles. MBDA aims to cut the production cycle by more than half compared to 2022.
This is substantial.
Yet it also demonstrates the extent of the accumulated backlog.
When doubling production remains insufficient to satisfy demand, the initial problem was indeed the weakness of installed capacity.
Europe will lose this industrial battle if it reverts to old habits once the immediate crisis subsides.
Factories require ten- or fifteen-year order visibility, not three-year emergency plans.
Nations Without Sovereign Industry Discover That Money No Longer Guarantees Delivery
The most abrupt shift affects buyers.
For a long time, a country with a sufficient budget could assume that the American or European market would quickly supply it with top-tier equipment.
That is no longer necessarily true.
When a production line is already operating at full capacity, a new order joins a queue.
The manufacturer cannot instantaneously produce more.
This grants industrial powers a new diplomatic leverage tool: delivery priority.
A country capable of producing its own missiles can replenish its stockpile according to its own priorities. A country entirely dependent on a foreign supplier is equally dependent on the order in which that supplier serves its clients.
Sovereignty therefore no longer means merely mastering the design of a weapon.
It means being able to reproduce it in wartime.
Stockpiles Become Less Important Than the Capacity to Replenish Them
This evolution alters how military power is measured.
Possessing 3,000 missiles is obviously preferable to possessing 500.
However, two countries each possessing 3,000 missiles are not equivalent if the first can produce 2,000 more every year and the second only 200.
In a short war, the initial stockpile dominates.
In a long war, industrial production rates eventually become decisive.
This logic applies particularly to air combat.
Modern fighters can fly thousands of sorties. Yet without AIM-120, Meteor, MICA, PL-15, or long-range strike missiles, their military value rapidly diminishes.
There is also an economic question.
Intercepting a drone costing a few tens of thousands of euros with a missile priced at one or several million euros creates a disadvantageous industrial trade-off.
Air forces will thus need to develop layered defense: jamming, guns, cheap missiles, and directed-energy weapons for simple threats, reserving complex interceptors for targets that justify them.
Industrial capacity is thus beginning to directly influence doctrine.
The Next Military Advantage Will Also Be a Manufacturing Advantage
The technological race is not disappearing. It is changing constraints.
A more powerful AESA radar remains useful. A missile with a better seeker retains an advantage. An adaptive cycle engine can transform the range of a future fighter.
Yet an extraordinarily capable weapon that can only be produced in a few dozen units carries a different strategic value from a slightly less sophisticated weapon available by the thousands.
Defense manufacturers have recognized this.
Modularity, common components, additive manufacturing, automated testing, and vertical integration are becoming almost as vital as pure performance.
The ongoing rearmament could thus trigger a major doctrinal shift in Western defense industry: moving from optimizing a few highly sophisticated platforms to seeking a balance between sophistication and production capacity.
This transformation will favor companies capable of controlling multiple tiers of their supply chain, solid rocket motor producers, radio-frequency semiconductor foundries, and advanced materials specialists.
It will penalize states that possess money but lack suppliers, as well as programs built around unique components impossible to replace quickly.
Industrial warfare is thus returning to the core of airpower.
In the 2030s, the decisive question may no longer be solely which country possesses the best missile, the most powerful radar, or the most advanced engine.
It will be how many it can manufacture each month, how long its suppliers can hold out, and how quickly a destroyed factory or an inaccessible raw material can be replaced.
It is a reality less dramatic than a new stealth fighter. It is likely more important in determining who could actually sustain a high-intensity war.
War Wings Daily is an independant magazine.
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