SK is clearly punching up a lot and performing very well on the export market, but in real number terms, SK is still trailing both France and Germany in arms exports (though clearly SK appears to be trending upwards). It seems very likely to me that SK (~2% of global exports) can probably overtake Germany (~5%) relatively soon, but it's still quite a journey to get to France (~10%).

https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/fs_2403_at...

French defense spending, strategy, and export has always been... less aligned with US interests. SK's recent resurgence in popular awareness is in part due to the alignment between Ukraine's situation and SK's situation (ie, artillery production). France's defense industry has been aligning towards French interests for the last few decades (ie, maintain high end halo products like Rafale, FREMM, and also have equipment suitable for expeditionary war in Africa). Similarly with SK... just that SK's situation involved huge amounts of artillery.

Especially with the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, I think it is quite difficult to speak of a single "European NATO". I think there's a clear east-west split in terms how you hear American analysts speak of NATO. It's not really possible to criticize the activity of most of the eastern NATO countries.