The International Traffic in Arms Regulations were designed in a different era for a different defense industrial geography. The assumption embedded in their architecture is that the United States is the primary producer of defense articles and that Europe is primarily a consumer of U.S. defense technology under controlled transfer arrangements. That assumption is being tested by the realities of the post-2022 European defense expansion.
In 2026, the European defense industrial base is scaling rapidly. Production of ammunition, armored vehicles, missiles, sensors, and autonomous systems is expanding across Poland, Germany, France, Italy, Czechia, and an increasing set of Central European partners. Much of this expansion involves U.S.-origin technology licensed into European production. And the ITAR framework is the primary regulatory instrument governing that technology transfer.
The practical question for practitioners is this: can ITAR operate at the speed and scale that the European defense expansion requires?
The MLA and TAA framework at scale
Manufacturing License Agreements and Technical Assistance Agreements are the instruments through which U.S.-origin defense technology is licensed into European production. The framework works. It has worked for decades. But its design assumed a smaller number of simultaneously active agreements, a more deliberate pace of technology transfer, and a smaller community of European prime contractors and subcontractors receiving controlled technology.
The post-2022 expansion has stressed all three assumptions. The number of active MLAs and TAAs is unprecedented. The pace of required transfers is compressed to timelines that DDTC review processes were not originally calibrated for. And the European industrial ecosystem receiving technology now includes tier-2 and tier-3 suppliers that require individual compliance frameworks of their own.
In our practice, we observe three points of friction most consistently. First, the MLA and TAA approval timeline is increasingly the gating constraint on European defense production scale-up, not the commercial negotiation or the operational readiness. Second, the compliance architecture at tier-2 and tier-3 suppliers is often under-developed, creating risk that compromises the entire controlled-technology chain. Third, the End-Use Monitoring obligations are being interpreted and enforced inconsistently across jurisdictions, creating compliance uncertainty for European principals and their U.S. counterparts alike.
The framework works. It has worked for decades. But the post-2022 expansion has stressed all three assumptions on which its design depended.
The dual-use overlay
Many of the technologies currently moving into European defense production are classified as dual-use rather than defense articles. This includes much of the compute, sensor, and connectivity layer of modern defense systems — technologies that are governed by the Export Administration Regulations and the EU dual-use regulation rather than ITAR.
In practice, a single defense production program frequently requires compliance architecture across ITAR, EAR, and EU Regulation 2021/821 simultaneously. The three regulatory systems do not fully harmonize. A technology may be ITAR-controlled in its U.S. classification, EAR dual-use in its export licensing, and Annex I listed under the EU regulation in its European handling. Each classification triggers different licensing obligations, different end-use monitoring requirements, and different criminal-liability frameworks.
Compliance officers at European primes have found that ITAR-only expertise is insufficient. The practical competency required is integrated — a single team that can classify, license, and monitor across all three frameworks with operational understanding of what the technology actually does.
Commercial-to-defense conversion: the next frontier
The next phase of European defense expansion will increasingly involve commercial manufacturers entering defense production. European industrial firms with expertise in precision engineering, specialty chemicals, electronics assembly, and advanced materials processing are increasingly being recruited as tier-2 or tier-3 suppliers to the major European primes — and by extension into the ITAR compliance chain.
For these commercial manufacturers, the transition is regulatory before it is operational. A specialty-coatings manufacturer with no prior defense exposure may find itself handling ITAR-controlled coatings within a European ammunition program. A precision-engineering firm may find itself machining components subject to multi-layered export controls. The compliance infrastructure required to do this legally and safely is substantial.
Our practice advises on these conversions frequently. The sequencing matters. A commercial manufacturer that begins defense-adjacent production without prior compliance structuring faces substantial remediation costs and, in some cases, criminal-liability exposure. A commercial manufacturer that structures compliance before beginning defense-adjacent production proceeds without exposure.
The European defense expansion will continue for the remainder of the decade. The ITAR framework will remain at the center of its regulatory architecture. The practical question is whether practitioners can build the integrated compliance capability the scale of the expansion now requires.
