Should you collaborate on joint defense projects?

Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran, should they collaborate on joint defense projects? Really?

I see many talking about the need for greater defense cooperation, but is the situation really as rosy as that?

My academic specialization is collaboration in the defense field, and over time I have come to understand the complexity of this issue, and how it often fails..

The issue involves many details, the most important of which is that defense cooperation is not a political decision that is simply made and implemented. The first question is always: who are the participating companies? Are their capabilities equivalent? Or will there be a leading company and the others just suppliers?

History tells us that most cooperation projects collapse at this very point, as each country tries to protect its local industry and get the largest possible share of the "cake," even at the expense of the project's efficiency itself..

A clear example of the complexity of defense cooperation is the "Eurodrone" (Eurodrone). France itself, which is one of the pillars of the defense industry in Europe, withdrew from the project weeks ago due to rising costs, extreme delays in execution, and the inflation of technical requirements compared to actual operational needs..

The project started with the goal of producing a joint European drone as an alternative to American systems, but it slowly transformed into a massive and complex industrial entity due to the attempts to appease every participating country and protect the shares of their national companies..

Therefore, even among politically allied countries, technologically close, and having strong industrial bases, defense cooperation remains extremely fragile, and any difference in priorities or economic calculations could threaten it with paralysis or fragmentation..

Defense cooperation is not just about "let's develop a weapon together," but it involves highly sensitive sovereign files, such as: who owns the intellectual property? Who is authorized to export and to whom? Is selling weapons to a party that the other country politically rejects allowed? Who controls the software and updates?

These questions alone can halt any cooperation before reaching the production phase, especially when the participating countries have conflicting foreign policies, as in the case of Egypt and Turkey or Iran and Pakistan..

Moreover, defense cooperation is not just a technological or industrial challenge, but is fundamentally a challenge in governance and management..

Any joint project requires a clear and rapid decision-making system, mechanisms for resolving disputes, a binding timeline, and a stable funding model..

However, once more than one country is involved, parliaments, oversight agencies, armies with different doctrines, and lobby groups come into play. Each party seeks to protect itself from risk before thinking about the protection or success of the project itself..

Often, the cost of coordination becomes higher than the benefit of the cooperation itself, turning the project into an administrative and financial burden. For this reason, many countries throughout history have returned to simpler models, such as local development with guaranteed supply chains, or very limited partnerships in specific components, instead of large cooperation projects that seem politically attractive but are practically fragile..

As for if we move to the specific example of Egypt–Turkey–Iran–Pakistan, we find that these countries differ fundamentally in military doctrine, combat styles, alliance networks, and even in the nature of sanctions..

Iran is subject to extensive sanctions, and this alone restricts any joint project because the supply chains and the technologies used will also be subject to sanctions..

Turkey is a member of NATO and adheres to different standards, while Pakistan's defense orientation is linked to India and China, not the Middle East at all..

Therefore, the idea of us all coming together and launching a giant defense project seems attractive theoretically, but practically it is extremely difficult..

This is an AI-generated English translation. The original text is in العربية