Diehl’s IRIS-T Ramp-Up and Europe’s Air-Defence Industrial Reset

From boutique output to scaled-throughput production: the IRIS-T line becomes a test case for Europe’s ability to finance, procure, and sustain integrated air and missile defence at pace.

Europe’s air-defence shortfall is being defined less by concepts than by the mechanics of production and funding. For years, ground-based systems were financed and procured as supporting assets, with limited peacetime demand and slow replacement cycles; since 2022, Ukraine has turned interceptor expenditure into a sustained consumption pattern while Eur…