Which European NATO member has had the least nonsensical procurement in the twenty-first century?
Short answerItaly is the panel's leading answer, with Poland also doing well through broad purchasing, though comparisons must account for fleet size and each country's self-inflicted program failures.
NotesThe panel chooses Italy cautiously, emphasizing 'least nonsensical' rather than declaring any system ideal. It warns that clean-looking programs may buy very few ships: France and Italy each field only a small Horizon-class force, while Britain bought six Type 45s. Turkey illustrates a different failure mode, building an aviation concept around the F-35B and then losing access through the S-400 purchase. The panel also attributes the S-400's modernization gap to Russia's post-Cold War difficulty retaining younger engineers, linking weapon performance to the depth and age structure of the engineering workforce.