An USAF E-3 Sentry
Photo. Staff Sgt. Clayton Cupit/USAF
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NATO has resigned from procuring American-made E-7 Aerial Early Warning aircraft, after US has decided not to continue the program. This unexpected shift may bring an opportunity to the European industry.
The information on resignation from procuring Boeing E-7 Aerial Early Warning and Control by NATO countries was released by the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. Previously, NATO had decided to purchase at least six of those aircraft to replace E-3 AWACS, also produced by Boeing, used by NATO countries since early 1980s. E-3s are based in German Geilenkirchen and form an international unit, which, especially since 2022 Russian full scale aggression against Ukraine, has been engaged on the NATO Eastern flank.
Earlier this year, the United States Air Force announced a decision to discontinue the procurement of E-7 for its own fleet, focusing on other distributed solutions for aerial warning, including space-based systems, as well as the purchase of American E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, as a gap filler. While this decision is still not formally final and being debated by Congress, it has consequences of its own. The US announcement was followed by a significant discussion, as aircraft such as AWACS are considered vital tools not only for intelligence sharing, but also for air defence and coordination of air battles. Aircraft such as AWACS or E-7 can detect low flying aerial targets (e.g. cruise missiles) at distances up to 600 km, while conventional land based radars can detect them at 40 to 50 km at best. AWACS aircraft can also gather signals/electronic intelligence.
Nevertheless, facing different priorities and limited budgets, US decided to discontinue the E-7 project. For now, the E-7 in various variants are used in Turkey, Australia, Republic of Korea and United Kingdom. While it seemed natural that NATO would go for E-7 as long as US would – for interoperability reasons – now, the field is open. While early warning aircraft may be vulnerable to adversarial attacks, for reasons shown above – they still are a very valuable tool to act on (and over) the battlefield, and NATO wants to continue down that path.
As Netherlands State Secretary in the Ministry of Defence puts it „The goal remains to have other, quieter aircraft operational by 2035,” explains State Secretary Gijs Tuinman. „The US withdrawal also demonstrates the importance of investing as much as possible in European industry.”
This is quite an important statement given the fact it was made by a representative of country which has a deep defence cooperation with US (e.g. F-35, Reaper UAVs, Apache and Chinook helicopters, Patriot system) and wants to expand it further, pointing to a recent memorandum of cooperation on „Loyal Wingmen” – Collaborative Combat Aircraft that are to cooperate with F-35.
But here, apparently, an European option has much more chances. One mature system that comes to mind is the Swedish Saab Globaleye, which has recently been selected by France, to replace E-3F AWACS (a French-customized variant of E-3 aircraft), and is also considered by Germany. Will NATO follow France? For now, this is uncertain, though it may indicate a trend where more NATO countries turn to European solutions particularly if US withdraws from a certain cooperation project. And this may bring further opportunities to European industries, also in NATO framework.