NATO has announced its intent to procure up to ten GlobalEye Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) systems from Saab. However, Operation Sindoor, the name given to India’s operations against Pakistan in 2025 suggest caution is warranted.
By Sam Cranny-Evans, editor of Calibre Defence, published on July 7, 2026.
Operation Sindoor was a short conflict fought between India and Pakistan from 7-10 May 2025. It was primarily an air and air defence campaign with some notable developments and successes on both sides. The event that this article is concerned with, however, is potentially very relevant for NATO and its GlobalEye procurement.
On August 9, 2025, India’s Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal A Singh, discussed the Indian Air Force’s performance during Operation Sindoor at the Air Chief L M Katre lecture in Bengaluru. Here’s what he had to say:
“An AEW&C hangar was attacked and here we have very clear intel that there was an aircraft inside when this attack took place…one large aircraft which could be either an ELINT aircraft or an AEW&C aircraft which was taken out at a distance of about 300 km. This is the actually largest ever recorded surface to air kill that we can talk about.”
The Indian Air Force had deployed its S-400 air defence systems, which have received the name of Sudarshan. It was working with a variety of missiles, but a commemorative plaque awarded to the crew in July shows the end cap of a 40N6E, which has a range of around 380 km. While this is not confirmation of the claim, it does to some extent reflect India’s conviction that it did happen.
Pakistan’s rebuttal
S-400 launch vehicles and radar arranged in berms during an exercise. Credit: Russian MoD.
Pakistan has denied India’s claims about its AEW&C losses, with Khawaja Asif, the country’s defence minister taking to X.com to declare that “the belated assertions made by the Indian Air Force Chief regarding alleged destruction of Pakistani aircraft during Operation Sindoor are as implausible as they are ill-timed.”
It is difficult to prove either side’s claims, especially without any recorded wreckage. However, if India’s claims are true, they would represent up to 20% of the Saab 2000 Erieye fleet that Pakistan started the war with.
NATO and the Saab GlobalEye
AEW&C aircraft are critical for the NATO way of war, they provide coordinating functions and organise strikes as well as early warning of threats amongst many other things. However, they are known to be vulnerable and, in the past, have flown with large fighter escorts.
The Saab July 7 press release is clear that no contract has been signed, but states, “The announcement by the NATO Secretary General [during the NATO conference in Ankara] confirms that Saab’s GlobalEye is NATO’s chosen solution for its future AEW&C capability.”
Saab will now enter into contract negotiations with the NATO Support and Procurement Agency. Once in service, they will begin to replace the E-3 Sentry AEW&C aircraft currently held as a central fleet by NATO. The GlobalEye itself builds on the Erieye, providing detection of “low-observable and stealthy threats, as well as drones, ballistic and hypersonic missiles,” according to Saab.
It is certainly a capable AEW&C platform and will make a welcome – importantly European – contribution to the Alliance’s capabilities. NATO had previously planned to replace its E-3 Sentries with six Boeing E-7 Wedgetail aircraft, but that plan lost momentum after the US Air Force scaled back its own E-7 program in favour of greater reliance on space-based surveillance, reopening the competition.
Calibre comment: The warning from Op Sindoor
The F-35 could make a significant contribution to NATO’s airborne situational awareness. Credit: Danish MoD
However, the reporting from Op Sindoor carries a clear warning for the NATO GlobalEye fleet. Whether or not India did shoot an Erieye down at a range of 300 km, that is the concept of employment that the S-400 is designed for. Its missiles, especially the 40N6, are intended to fly a high trajectory, looking down for the large and hard-to-hide shape of a big-wing enabler like the GlobalEye.
The system has been used in limited scenarios in Ukraine, reportedly proving a capable and valuable system at long-range, according to Russian media. Moreover, Russia has tended to reserve its more capable missiles like the 40N6, preserving their capabilities to prevent NATO from learning from them. It is also worth noting that two Russian A-50 AEW&C aircraft have also been lost, reportedly to Ukrainian air defence systems.
The warning here is that these big wing enablers, whether GlobalEye, the E-7, or Erieye, are high value targets that an adversary like Russia will invest real effort in targeting. The numbers quoted by India – 300 km – are plausible, which would likely result in the GlobalEye operating at the limits of its sensor range in order to reduce losses. Alternatively, NATO must prepare to lose some of its enabler fleet in the early phases of a war and also prepare to replace them. Perhaps more importantly, real efforts should also be made to exploit the data from the continent’s growing fleet of F-35s, which are supposed to generate their own situational awareness. Achieving this does have many technical and political hurdles in the way, but the benefits could be potentially very valuable to NATO.
Overall, Op Sindoor reconfirms that AEW&C aircraft are vulnerable to long-range air defence systems, that is not particularly new. But it also should serve to emphasise the importance of properly resourced suppression of enemy air defence capabilities. Ideally, NATO would seek to force an enemy to fight in its preferred kind of war, rather than ceding advantages because it is expensive to do something else.
Read on:
The lead image shows the Saab GlobalEye which has been selected by NATO. Credit: By Airwolfhound from Hertfordshire, UK – Globaleye, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135501282