EUR: Solving Europe’s air superiority deficiencies

BLUF: To maintain control of its skies and deter a Russian invasion without relying on the US, Europe needs to scale-up its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), electronic warfare (EW) and deep strike capabilities.

Switzerland has pared back its F-35 order, after Spain and Portugal abandoned their plans to buy the American fifth-generation jet. Despite the floundering of the Future Combat Air System, the French-German-Spanish next-generation aircraft project, the development of European systems will put American ones under pressure.

The European Commission published its 2026 work plan for the European Defence Fund, allocating €1 billion for R&D projects across 31 topics, including air combat systems, missile defense and drones.

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With US officials reportedly demanding that European countries take responsibility for most NATO capabilities by 2027, Europe needs to plug whatever gaps it can to maintain deterrence. The most glaring holes are in the chain of technologies and intelligence required for air superiority, which is key to keeping Russian aggression at bay.

The principal threat to European air superiority isn’t the Russian air force, Justin Bronk, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told The Arsenal; it’s Russia’s ground-based, long-range, mobile air defense systems, such as the S-400. 

But only the US has sufficient missile stockpiles, electronic attack weapons and aircrew training to reliably counter those Russian systems, he said. 

Russia is taking note of some EU countries getting serious about their deep strike capabilities, Keir Giles, the director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre, told The Arsenal. 

“We know that Russia is neuralgic about this because of the reaction when Denmark said it would be investing in long-range precision strike,” he said, noting the “hysterics” of the Russian ambassador in Copenhagen. The Russian ambassador, Vladimir Barbin, called the announcement “pure madness” and accused Denmark of threatening Moscow.

Still, Europe’s long-range strike capabilities rely on American satellites and signals intelligence for targeting and countermeasures.

The satellites under European control don’t provide the real-time intelligence needed to target mobile air defense systems, a source in the German defense industry told The Arsenal, requesting anonymity due to commercial concerns. Replicating American capabilities means launching a lot of new satellites. 

The US has the most sophisticated electronic intelligence (ELINT) aircraft, such as the Boeing RC-135/W Rivet Joint, Bronk told The Arsenal.

ELINT is vital for maintaining up-to-date libraries of Russian air defenses’ electronic signatures, he said, which change rapidly because they’re software-defined. Those threat libraries allow aircraft, whether an American F-35 or a French Rafale, to detect and counter air-defense systems.

Britain operates three Rivet Joints, while the French Navy uses the Breguet Atlantique 2. Sweden uses the new Saab GlobalEye, with its ELINT resources “heavily focused on the Russians, because Sweden has had few illusions about where its only real geopolitical threat comes from,” Bronk said.

Saab made a year-end announcement that France has placed an order for two GlobalEyes, worth €1.14 billion. They’re scheduled to be delivered between 2029 and 2032, according to Reuters.

Together, these assets provide Europe with some data collection capabilities of its own, but it’s still the US that processes and converts the data into threat libraries to be integrated into aircraft systems, Bronk said. Replacing that capability requires a lot of skilled personnel, not just equipment. 

Daniel Fiott, head of the Defence and Statecraft Programme at the Brussels School of Governance, told The Arsenal that the US will probably continue sharing “selected” intelligence with Europe because it serves American industrial interests.

That may be cold comfort, however, in light of the abrupt US decision to temporarily stop intelligence sharing with Ukraine last March.

“It is not just unwise, but criminally negligent, to have defensive capacity resting on commitments from the United States when the United States has made it plain that it is no longer interested in making those commitments,” Giles said.

Europe also lacks missiles suitable for disabling Russian air defenses, though an EU official pushed back on this assertion.

“You have Taurus missiles in Germany. You have SCALP, or Storm Shadows, from the French and the Brits,” the official said, referring to the French and British variants of the same missile produced by MBDA. 

While Taurus and Storm Shadow are effective at striking hardened stationary targets, Bronk said neither is particularly well-suited for attacking air defenses, such as the mobile S-400, which is typically deployed in groups across a wide area. 

A more effective weapon would be the Lockheed Martin ATACMS missile system that carries warheads loaded with tungsten balls, he added. 

US-made anti-radiation missiles such as Northrop-Grumman’s AARGM-ER, which hone in on radar signals, force the enemy to either switch off their radar or try to shoot down the incoming missile, creating a window for other weapons.

The Boeing EA-18G Growler, a version of the F-18 jet operated by the US Navy, can escort other planes to interfere with enemy radar, making it harder for air defense systems to get a lock. Bronk said the plane is currently NATO’s only airborne electronic attack platform “of any significance at all.”

Europe also lacks production capacity for hypersonic missiles, which are especially difficult to intercept, the German defense industry source told The Arsenal. However, Bronk said that hypersonics’ unit cost is so high it may be impractical for Europe.

European missiles also lack sufficient range to defeat S-400s, the German defense industry source added, which have a range of about 500km (311 miles). Total range, the individual noted, is different from how deep a weapon can strike in enemy territory. 

For example, the Taurus tops out at 500 km, but it can lose roughly 100 km due to its irregular flight path, which helps it to avoid interception. Plus, it would usually be launched as far as 200 km from the frontline, further reducing its reach, the industry source said.

The Missile de Croisière Naval (MdCN), produced by MBDA for the French navy, can hit targets well over 1,000 km away, according to US Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). But as a sea-launched weapon, many inland targets lie beyond its reach. 

Stocks of it are limited: France has only ordered 200 since the missile’s introduction in the 2010s. 

Emil Archambault, a fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said the high cost of missiles is one reason why companies like MBDA are developing lower-cost alternatives, such as the One-Way Effector, a kamikaze drone that the company unveiled at the Paris Air Show in June. 

Instead of destroying the target with expensive missiles, the idea is to exhaust air defenses with more expendable hardware.

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With concerns about costs and US reliability as an ally, some European countries are cutting their orders of the Lockheed Martin F-35. At the same time, a Franco-German-Spanish effort to build a sixth-generation jet, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), appears to be on the brink of failure.

Switzerland cut its F-35 order in December, after learning that the six billion francs (€6.5 billion) allocated in 2021 would no longer cover the 36 jets it planned for, Reuters reports. 

Spain walked away from talks to buy the US jet in August and Portugal abandoned its purchase plans in March, citing the risks of relying on the US.

“The cost of the F-35 keeps on going up,” Archambault said. “There are questions about how much you want to rely on American technology.”

Nevertheless, some European countries—such as Germany and Romania—are pressing ahead with their F-35 orders.

An EU official told The Arsenal that Europe’s fourth-generation jets, though lacking the technology of the F-35, are still more advanced than most of Russia’s fleet. Russia’s fifth-generation jet, the Sukhoi Su-57, is believed to be in limited production. Russia has largely avoided risking its air force in Ukraine, the official noted.

FCAS, which has been waylaid by infighting, aims to develop a sixth-generation jet supported by networked drones. If the project survives, it may scrap the aircraft component and focus on the supporting systems, the Financial Times reported in November.

“There are so many other European companies that produce drones that could have similar performance or similar roles,” Archambault said. “If you don’t have that anchor of the common jet, what's the rationale for restricting the Future Combat Air System to these producers?”

The British-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is in good shape, he said, but it’s only an aircraft—the Tempest. The British Royal Air Force is working on its own concept for accompanying drone systems—confusingly, called FCAS.

The European Commission published its 2026 spending plan for defense R&D on 17 December. The €1 billion plan comprises 31 distinct topics. These include various air combat systems, such as automated air-to-air refueling, and air and missile defense technologies like onboard countermeasures and threat detection. There is also money for ‘smart’ modular systems for next-generation fighter jets. 

Giles of the UK’s Conflict Studies Research Centre highlighted air-to-air refueling as one of several military technologies where Europe relies on the United States.

None of the 2026 calls is open yet, but would-be participants will be able to apply through the EU’s Funding and Tenders portal. Applicants must form consortia from at least three participating countries.

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