NATO to replace AWACS fleet with Sweden’s Saab GlobalEye planes

NATO planned to replace its ageing fleet of AWACS aircraft with GlobalEye surveillance planes from Sweden’s Saab, four sources familiar with the matter said. The move would end the long run of the Boeing E-3A Sentry fleet, which has been NATO’s airborne command-and-control backbone since 1982 and is based at NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen in Germany.

The alliance’s current force includes 14 aircraft under Allied Air Command, and NATO says the planes provide immediately available air and maritime surveillance, battle-space management, communications and airborne command and control. NATO’s own planning already pointed to a transition: allies agreed at the 2016 Warsaw Summit that the alliance needed a follow-on capability to the E-3 AWACS by 2035, and NATO has used a Final Lifetime Extension Programme to keep the fleet operational until then.

Choosing Saab would carry significance far beyond the flight line. It would hand a major win to a European defense manufacturer at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump has pressed allies to buy American weapons and has accused European governments of free-riding on U.S. security guarantees. A Saab selection would also underline how far NATO members, especially in Europe, are pushing to build more of their own defense capacity instead of relying only on U.S. suppliers.

Saab describes GlobalEye as a multi-domain airborne early warning and control system with active and passive sensors, designed to detect and identify objects in the air, at sea and over land from a single aircraft. The company said it responded to a NATO Request for Information in 2023 for new surveillance and control capabilities. GlobalEye is already in operational service with the United Arab Emirates, and France signed a contract with Saab in June 2025 for two aircraft worth about SEK 12.3 billion, with deliveries planned for 2029 to 2032.

The proposed shift would also test the alliance’s internal politics. A European-built surveillance platform would signal that NATO procurement can still be shaped by European industrial priorities even as Washington pushes harder on burden-sharing and transatlantic loyalty. For NATO, the question is no longer only how to replace ageing aircraft, but how to distribute surveillance capacity across the alliance in a way that matches its next generation of threats.