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That's not entirely true, Airbus is a participant in most European military aircraft projects. They participated in Eurofighter for example and are part of the FCAS program.

It's true to the extent that the US does a lot more and broader military procurement in general, so Boeing gets a smaller piece of a much bigger pie. Wheras Airbus is getting a piece of most European projects as a member of one consortium or another, it's just a smaller pie.

compare to Boeing's volume? maybe, but Airbus is one of _Europe_'s largest defense contractors

Well, it does have quite a lot of European state ownership. It would be very surprising if it didn't win a lot of European contracts.

Are they? Airbus has its hands in quite a few major military programs (Eurofighter, A-400M, Tigre, Super-Puma, ...), as well as in spatial programs, especially satellite intelligence.