In the 1980s, Germany was a partner with the UK in the ASRAAM program. But after German reunification, Germany found itself with large stockpiles of the AA-11 Archer and concluded that the AA-11's capabilities had been noticeably under-estimated. In particular, it was found to be both more far more manoeuvrable and far more capable in terms of seeker acquisition and tracking. These conclusions led Germany to question certain aspects of the design of ASRAAM, particularly the lack of thrust vectoring to aid manoeuvrability. Germany and Britain could not come to an agreement about the design of AMRAAM, so in 1990 Germany therefore withdrew from the ASRAAM project; Britain continued alone to produce and procure ASRAAM.
In 1995, Germany announced the IRIS-T program, in collaboration with Greece, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Canada. Canada later dropped out.
