Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast [Feb 14 ’26 Business Report]

On this week’s Defense & Aerospace Report Business Roundtable, sponsored by Bell, Dr. “Rocket” Ron Epstein of Bank of America Securities, Sash Tusa of the independent equity research firm Agency Partners and Richard Aboulafia of the AeroDynamic advisory consultancy join host Vago Muradian to discuss Wall Street had it’s worst week since November on a tech selloff even as new federal data showed lower than expected inflation and better than expected jobs growth; despite tensions with Washington, Ottawa put a down payment on the next 14 F-35 Lightning II fighters on top of the 16 jets on order as Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks alternative options; as the Munich Security Conference convenes French President Emmanuel Macron calls for Europe to become more globally competitive, British Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer seeks a multinational defense initiative with Europe and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz explores joining France’s nuclear deterrent; Macron works to savage the Franco-German SCAF program by convincing Dassault to be more accommodating as Germany’s aerospace industries association BDLI hopes two versions of a common SCAF can be built — one for Germany, the other for France; importance of defending commercial airports from drones; India’s HAL out of the fighter business save for the Light Combat Aircraft; and takeaways from Saudi Arabia’s World Defense Show.