The political winds are changing. Germany and Russia are going to ease sanctions on each other rather soon and I don’t think Russia will do anything to compromise a new detente with Germany or Europe. As this new detente emerges, the political priority for defense spending on things like fighters will not exist.

Merkel turning toward Moscow? Bavaria’s governor leads huge German delegation to Russia
http://theduran.com/merkel-bavarias-governor-meets-putin-moscow/

Besides French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s surprise meeting with Vladimir Putin today, another important meeting between German leaders and Russia’s president happened last week, but has gone almost unreported outside German media.

Bavarian governor Horst Seehofer, who holds a powerful position in German politics, visited Moscow on March 16th, bringing with him a massive delegation of German political and business leaders.

The Duran?! Next a Sputnik article…

Berlin will ease the sactions when the UE eases its sanctions, and taking into acount that the European leader who pretty much imposed its will on that particular matter is called Angela Merkel…
Not going to happen soon, unless the entire Ukranian imbroglio is resolved, and that includes Crimea, and by “resolved” i dont mean a Western European “Kow Tow” to Moscow.

Just a reminder of what Japan is looking at:

http://archive.aviationweek.com/image/spread/20141124/12/2

Well swivelling plate works for Typhoon when you are trying to repurpose that big nose. Whether that is the answer in the age of distributed arrays is a different matter. There is a fair chance this aircraft could be tailless (BAE have a lot of experience here and the Japanese have pondered it themselves).

The basic design for the Mitsubishi I3 seems to be pretty much frozen, i doubt that the Japanese MOD will deviate alot from that and i also doubt that the British will want such a big beast. Its an interesting story and i can believe that the Jap and Brit MOD and respective main companies will share quite a bit of information, and some technology blocks can be made together, but an entire new airframe? Doubt it (but delighted if wrong).

Indeed interesting.

Another European country that may also start to look at developing a new fighter is of course Germany — unless they change their minds and go for the F-35. However I doubt it, the urge to keep the industry going is probably going to be too strong. I wonder who they will team up with? Sweden and France perhaps?

They´ll team with anyone in Europe who doesnt buy American or Russian. The Germans in a pinch (read Putin goes semi berserk in Ukraine or something like that) might go for the F-35A for part of their fleet, but they wont kill their own industry and they´ll go European for the lions share of the Luftwaffe, thats policy, its written and no one wich has a shot at being government in Berlin wants to change. So, that means in the next decade we are going to see “ZeGermans” teaming up with France and/or GB and a few others.
There´s one thing that has not been mentioned, if the German MOD gets its “2% of the GDP” till 2024 has promised… well, they dont need to team with anyone, their defense budget almost doubles, outstriping (by a fair margin) everyone in Europe (yes, everyone).

It looks like Leonardo will be withdrawing too.

http://aviationweek.com/defense/raytheon-out-leonardo-drs-touts-lower-cost-t-100

Offcourse they are…