Europe has been talking about defense as an abstract concept for years, but the war in Ukraine turned the threat into something physical and quantifiable: drones, missiles, loitering munitions and a logistics chain under constant fire, forcing NATO to assume that the modern battlefield is a “death zone” where those who do not mass produce are at a disadvantage.
And in that equation an unexpected nation has emerged: Spain.
The new shield of Europe. To that strategic pressure after the invasion of Russia and the appearance of his ghost fleet An even more uncomfortable factor has been added: the political tension with the United States and the growing sense that the Western security umbrella is no longer It is not an automationbut a negotiation.
In this double impulse is born the rush for a European defensive shield (perhaps that repeated drone wall), and not only in radars or interceptors, but in industry, stocks and real response capacity, where manufacturing speed matters as much as quality and where technological sovereignty becomes a survival requirement.
The unexpected actor: Spain. In this scenario of rapid rearmament and need for autonomy, Spain aims to go from being a country that buys to being one who producesand also do it with a weapon that defines contemporary war: the kamikaze droneor loitering munition, which watches, waits and strikes with precision at costs much lower than manned aviation or traditional missiles.
The move is ambitious because Spain does not compete from the heavy industrial tradition of other European partners, there is no doubt, but from a commitment to the most demanded segmentscalable and urgent of the moment: cheap, numerous, quickly upgradeable platforms and capable of saturating defenses. The political and military thesis seems clear: if Europe’s immediate future is decided by who can produce and replenish drones the fastest, then a country that leads that manufacturing not only wins contracts, also influence.
Comparison of UAVs in the international market
The Indra-Edge alliance. The core of the movement was in the news yesterday with the agreement between Indra and Emirati giant Edge to create a joint venture focused on the development, production and full lifecycle support of loitering munitions and smart weapons, with an estimated order book of about 2 billion euros annually.
There is talk of manufacturing drones and sustained capacity: design, assembly line, maintenance, replacement and scaling, something essential in a type of war where systems are consumed at an industrial rate. Indra relies on experience Edge on suicide drones to accelerate the technological leap, while underlining that the real value for Europe is in pproduce in European territoryfulfilling the logic of sovereignty and reducing dependencies and deadlines in a market that is moving due to urgency and not by comfortable calendars.
Castilla y León as a military-industrial hub. The bet has taken concrete form with two plants in Castilla y León: in Villadangos del Páramo (León), a production facility dedicated to drones and loitering munitions will be built, with an investment of about 20 million euros and a forecast of up to 200 jobs at full capacity. Another plant focused on micromotors will be installed in Boecillo (Valladolid), a critical component that defines autonomy, reliability and production capacity.
The combination is revealing: it is not only the “final product”, also, and very important, the control of key pieces, which allows manufacture without bottlenecks and sustain a high exit rate when the strategic environment demands constant replacement. The objective is for Spain to not only be an assembler, but also part of the industrial heart that makes war with drones possible.
Defense turns it into a state program. The Ministry of Defense has presented the project as part of the Industrial and Technological Plan for Security and Defense approved in May 2025, and has stated that the León factory will produce “the most advanced drones that can operate today in Europe and NATO.”
Beyond the owner, what is relevant is that the new company would already be born with valued contracts around 2 billion of euros, with a workload committed to covering the needs of the Spanish Armed Forces and also other European armies, and with a performance horizon in 2026 and 2027. The implicit message is that Spain wants to be in the industrial layer that supports the European defensive shield, not as a secondary actor, but as a real supplier of a capacity that decides tactical survival on the front.
Politics gets on the drone. The announcement, furthermore, is made with a staging in the Senate and in a pre-electoral context in Castilla y León, where the local impact (those 00 jobs distributed between León and Valladolid) turns the defense industry into territorial policy tool.
The narrative mixes national security and reindustrialization: Small areas such as Villadangos del Páramo appear as recipients of a project of high technological value, while it is presented as a historic turn for the Spanish industrial base. At the same time, it is linked to other military initiatives in the community, emphasizing that rearmament It is not only a strategic debate, but a map of investments, works, infrastructure and employment that reorders public priorities.
The real game. Finally, the movement also gives clues about the future of Europe with Ukraine as a mirror: the defensive shield It is no longer measured only in troops and doctrine, but in the ability to produce cheap, intelligent and massive systems, with short innovation cycles and controlled supply chains.
Somehow, Russia has imposed the pace of the threat, and Washington has added the political pressure of not depending eternally on an external guarantor. In this scenario, Spain tries to occupy an unexpected gap: become the protagonist of the European loitering ammunition, the tool kamikaze which not only serves to attack, but also to deny space, saturate defenses and impose costs on the adversary.
In a Europe that has belatedly discovered that modern war is also won in factories, Spain wants are in their territory.
Image | Khamenei.ir
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