NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte presented a comprehensive plan to strengthen the alliance's air power for the coming decades at the Defense Industry Forum in Ankara. Rutte announced that allies will purchase 12 Airbus A400M aircraft to increase air transport capacity.
Rutte stated that this new multinational project will provide strategic air transport capability worldwide, and also announced that the 10th Airbus A330 MRTT aircraft has joined the Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport Fleet. With this development, it was emphasized that a full MRTT fleet of 12 aircraft is being approached.
GlobalEye to replace old AWACS fleet
Rutte announced that approximately 10 Saab GlobalEye aircraft will be procured to replace the Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS early warning aircraft that NATO has used for years. He stated that GlobalEye can perform simultaneous surveillance in air, sea and land domains and detect complex threats including ballistic missiles.
Over $40 billion investment in UAV defense
Rutte, noting that NATO is increasing its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capacity with unmanned aerial vehicles, announced that under the "NATO Drone Edge" initiative, allies will invest over $40 billion in defense systems against UAVs over the next five years. He added that allies have committed to increasing the number of existing UAV operators in their armed forces fivefold by 2027.
Rutte noted that with the participation of Finland, France and Sweden in the NATO Flight Training Europe project, the number of participants has reached 20, and there are 16 training centers in 8 countries.
New platforms to accelerate industrial cooperation
The NATO Secretary General announced that they have launched the "NATO Front Door for Industry" platform to facilitate interaction with the industrial sector, and the "NATO Engine" initiative aimed at accelerating large-scale production. He also reported that allies have established a new procurement coalition to address capacity shortfalls by combining demand and procurement approaches, and that a multinational project has been launched for the stable supply of critical materials.
Rutte, referring to the commitment made at the summit in The Hague to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, said that considerable progress has been made and that billions of dollars of agreements to be signed today will reinforce this determination. Emphasizing that the alliance defends one billion people and every inch of its territory, Rutte stated that the most concrete examples of transatlantic cooperation are on display in Ankara.
