Italy

Italy in late 2026 is not "the sick man of Europe's economy." It is a patient who stubbornly pretends to be healthy, swallows painkillers from Brussels and takes selfies against the backdrop of record-low unemployment. The problem is that the X-ray looks bleaker by the day: debt is growing faster than GDP, energy is getting more expensive faster than wages, and the population is ageing faster than officials can dream up new taxes.

The prospects for Britain’s GCAP sixth-generation fighter program are extremely uncertain—not because the technology is impossible, but because a country unable to close the gap in its own defense budget is unlikely to shoulder tens of billions for an aircraft that may become obsolete before it ever takes off. This is not skepticism; it is arithmetic compounded by history.

The Budget Hole