The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) announcement earlier this month of 11 nations’ support for the procurement of Saab GlobalEye aircraft as NATO’s new Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) is drawing varied reactions, with one former U.S. official warning that the path forward is an “easy button” that puts other aspects of the broader alliance in danger.
The decision, announced July 7 during the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum in Ankara, is described by NATO as a significant step in modernizing the alliance’s airborne surveillance and early warning capabilities by replacing part of the alliance’s aging Boeing E-3 fleet.
The news followed months of speculation following the collapse of an agreement in November 2025, as multiple European allies of the United States aborted a multi-billion-euro plan to collectively procure six Boeing E-7A Wedgetail airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft to replace that Boeing E-3A fleet that will reach the end of its service life in 2035.
The United States’ role in negotiations played a major role in this latest announcement. In June 2025, the Pentagon pulled out of the replacement program, alluding to production delays and concerns about the E-7’s survivability in “contested environments,” in addition to a purported per-plane cost increase from $588 million to $724 million.
In July 2025, the U.S. withdrew from the process and put NATO and several nations at the helm of figuring out the next strategic play.
Dutch State Defense Secretary Gijs Tuinman said at the time that European members were moving forward on their own accord, referencing the situation as further impetus for European nations to “invest as much as possible in European industry.”
A Procurement Shock Wave That Never Happened
A retired NATO general officer who spoke to Military.com on the condition of anonymity said the air defense news emanating out of the NATO ministerial “should have sent a shock wave through every air defense planning cell across the alliance.”
“Instead, they were met with the familiar, polished press releases that Brussels reliably produces,” the official said, citing how 11 nations including Canada, Germany and Sweden declared support for Saab’s GlobalEye.
“On paper, it looks like a triumph of European defense cooperation,” the official added. “In reality, it is a dangerous procurement ‘easy button,’ a political shortcut where industrial interests overwhelm operational logic at the most consequential moment for NATO air power since the Cold War, with the largest land war in Europe now in its fifth year.”
That land war, of course, references Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Eastern Ukraine that has dredged on essentially as a stalemate that has led to tens of thousands of dead military personnel on both sides of the equation.
Military.com previously reached out in February to NATO and Saab when speculation arose about GlobalEye, with both at the time providing very little detail about the thought pattern held by member nations and their head officials.
A NATO official told Military.com on Wednesday that the decision to select GlobalEye was based on capability, affordability and timely delivery, adding, “It is the solution that best meets NATO’s requirements.”
The official pointed to support not just from Canada, Germany and Sweden but also eight other allies: Belgium, Denmark, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Romania and Lithuania.
“NATO’s Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) supports the procurement process, and we remain committed to transparency while ensuring we adhere to the necessary procedural steps,” they added. “Deliveries are planned between 2031 and 2035.”
Saab publicly remarked on the process in a July 7 press release, following NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s announcement that NATO would begin formal negotiations with Saab on AWACS—clarifying that Saab had not signed a contract or received an order related to the announcement.
“We are honored and proud to support NATO in its next-generation AEW&C capability,” Saab President and CEO Micael Johansson said in a statement. “We are confident that GlobalEye is the right choice for the Alliance, delivering proven capability, adaptability and long-term operational advantage.
“Today’s announcement clearly positions GlobalEye as the world-leading solution for advanced airborne early warning and control. We look forward to the next steps in the negotiations.”
The company added that GlobalEye “will enable the Alliance to monitor vast areas of land, sea and air, significantly enhancing NATO’s ability to detect and respond to a wide range of threats.”
They point to how GlobalEye combines Saab’s Erieye Extended Range radar with an advanced suite of sensors and a multi-domain Command and Control (C2) system, on a Bombardier Global 6500 aircraft—providing long-range detection capable of identifying low-observable and stealthy threats including drones and ballistic and hypersonic missiles, “even in complex environments characterized by heavy clutter and electronic jamming.”
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson referred to July 7 as a “great day for Sweden’s defense industry and the result of many years’ cooperation between Swedish government agencies and Saab.”
The Warfighter’s Compromise
While NATO and Saad pontificate about the positive impact that GlobalEye will have, the ex-U.S. official heeded extreme caution.
“For the operators who will depend on this aircraft to survive a peer fight, the GlobalEye selection is a profound compromise,” the official said. “The modern benchmark for AEW remains the Boeing E‑7 Wedgetail, whose MESA radar delivers a true 360-degree long-range track and the ability to dynamically concentrate radar energy on high‑priority sectors.
“That ‘stare’ capability is essential for detecting low‑RCS stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, and drone swarms.”
In comparison, the official—citing GlobalEye’s own 2023 product description—said the system’s dorsal plank radar mounted on a Bombardier business jet “inevitably suffers blind spots off the nose and tail.”
The official also cited “The Military Balance 2024,” a report issued by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which states that maintaining full coverage requires rigid, predictable figure‑eight orbits—a tactical liability in contested airspace.
“The business jet airframe also lacks the power, cooling and physical volume required for a full battle management team,” the official added. “In large scale war fighting, a small crew will be forced to offload processing to vulnerable ground nodes via satellite links, creating a single point of failure in an environment saturated with electronic warfare.”
Additional GlobalEye Concerns
Other concerns expressed by the official include how the decision was reached in the first place.
Financial and political assets are claimed to have circumvented the traditional procurement process, skirted by traditional avenues of agreement made as a collective by Allied Command Operations, Allied Command Transformation, the Military Committee, and the North Atlantic Council.
Instead, the official said, “a handful of wealthy nations have presented the rest of the Alliance with a fait accompli.”
Other fears veer into Article 5 territory and the issues of long-term sustainment, per the official, citing NATO’s Alliance Ground Surveillance program and how the entire alliance is legally obligated to find the RQ‑4D Global Hawk, for example, even though a select number of nations pushed the framework in the first place.
“The GlobalEye consortium is poised to replicate this dynamic, forcing smaller nations to subsidize a platform they neither selected nor endorsed,” they said. “Worse, tying a critical AEW fleet to a specific European consortium introduces political risk to Article 5 itself.
“If a major member state objects to a deployment, there are many [political risks], [and] given fierce protection of strategic autonomy, the entire fleet could be frozen. Billions of euros in joint investment could become unusable at the moment NATO needs them most.”
The final argument lies in whether GlobalEye satisfied political and financial appetites more so in comparison to defending airspace from adversarial lethality. Essentially, countries get their piece in the form of domestic or regional assembly lines and contracts.
Whether that will help the alliance in the long term is very risky, according to the official.
“The Ankara announcement may look impressive on a PowerPoint slide celebrating European integration, but to the operators who will fight under its radar umbrella, it is cosmetic progress masking a dangerous retreat from lethality and protection,” they said. “It is, in the end, lipstick on a pig.
“When the average Russian attack on Ukraine every three days includes more than 500 drones, dozens of cruise missiles, and hypersonic weapons, this is the war NATO must be prepared to defend against, and it demands the best AEW capability available—not the most politically convenient one.”
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