Connect-4

The German-led European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) is aimed at enhancing the continent’s protection from the aerial threats. Nonetheless, questions remain regarding how this initiative will connect with other Europe-wide air defence initiatives.

The skies over western Europe have been free from hostile attack ever since the end of the Second World War. While the Cold War years were characterised by a genuine fear of nuclear and conventional bombardment should East-West tensions erupt into full-scale conflict, thankfully, this horror never materialised. Likewise, while the US endured aerial terror attacks during 9/11, no such attacks were repeated in Europe. However, just over two decades after the end of the Cold War, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by its second full-scale invasion of February 2022, has seen the use of large-scale conventional surface-to-surface, air-to-surface, ballistic and cruise missile attacks. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) delivered ordnance is a daily reality of the conflict, as are glide bomb and missile attacks from combat aircraft. Meanwhile, long-range rockets continue to be a menace, not just to military targets, but are also inflicting civilian casualties countrywide. Nations across Europe face the stark reality that war with Russia would bring a level of air-delivered destruction not seen for 80 years.

Mindful of the threat, on 13 October 2022, Germany, along with 13 other European NATO countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and the United Kingdom), plus Finland (which was not a NATO member at the time) banded together to launch the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI). According to NATO, ESSI “aims to create a European air and missile defence system through the common acquisition of air defence equipment and missiles by European nations”. Between then and early 2025, ESSI membership expanded to include Albania, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Türkiye, bringing the number of members to 24. The inclusion of Austria and Switzerland is noteworthy as both are neutral. Their participation underlines the fact that their central location means both countries risk being adversely affected by any major air war over the continent.

ESSI is due to form part of NATO’s wider Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) posture. In the Alliance’s own words, IAMD “is an essential and continuous mission in peacetime, crisis and conflict”. IAMD protects and safeguards the Alliance’s “territory, populations and forces against any air or missile threat or attack”. The IAMD posture achieves these goals by networking sensors, command and control (C2) and kinetic effectors across NATO’s European member states. Domestic integrated air defence systems (IADS) are connected to provide a ‘Super Recognised Air Picture’ (Super RAP) of the airspace above NATO’s European members. The Super RAP also allows air defenders to monitor air approaches to the continent. The logic is that any air threat can be identified in a timely manner, tracked and, if necessary, engaged. This interconnected IAMD posture is implemented through the NATO Integrated Air and Missile Defence System (NATINAMDS), which is the responsibility of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) the continent’s most senior Alliance military official.

Several constituent parts comprise the IAMD posture and include the NATO air policing mission in the Baltic and northern Europe. Their missions are intended to deter Russian aggression against these parts of the Alliance. Joining the air policing initiative is NATO’s Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) capability, which includes the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA). EPAA sees the permanent deployment of US Navy Arleigh Burke class destroyers to the port of Rota in southern Spain. These ships are furnished with Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Combat Management System (CMS). The CMS receives target information from the ships’ Lockheed Martin AN/SPY-1 series X-band (8.5–10.68 GHz) naval surveillance radar. The interception of ballistic missile targets is performed by the vessels’ Raytheon RIM-161 Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) series surface-to-air Missiles (SAMs). This US Navy Aegis/SM-3 architecture is replicated at land-based Aegis Ashore facilities at Deveselu, in southern Romania, and Redzikowo, in northern Poland. The Aegis Ashore sites also form part of the EPAA.

NATO ground-based air defence (GBAD) assets, such as SAM systems, are also regularly rotated through nations on the Alliance’s eastern flank. As with the air policing mission, GBAD assets are intended to deter further Russian aggression. NATO’s Air Command and Control System (ACCS) should also be mentioned since it federates national IADS across European NATO members to provide a Super RAP of Alliance airspace over the continent and its approaches. Two Combined Air Operations Centres, one at Uedem airbase, in western Germany, and another at Torrejon airbase, in central Spain, protect NATO’s airspace North and South of the Alps. The European Super RAP is also shared with NATO’s Allied Air Command headquarters at Ramstein airbase, in south-western Germany.

 

NATO IAMD is governed by the Integrated Air and Missile Defence Policy Committee which the Alliance states “is responsible for all policy and political-military aspects of Alliance European air defence. The committee is answerable to the North Atlantic Council which is NATO’s senior political decision-making organisation. Reviewing, advising and articulating recommendations on Alliance air defence to NATO’s Military Council, the most senior military body in NATO, is the responsibility of the Military Committee Working Group for Air and Missile Defence”, according to the Alliance’s official literature.

ESSI

ESSI will add further layers to the continent’s protective shield. Specifically, the initiative aims to build a continent-wide kinetic air defence capability. A crucial element of the European Sky Shield is that it provides for the joint procurement of GBAD systems, meaning the cost of procuring these systems will be shared across the ESSI membership. Several threats have been concentrating European minds, not least the Russian 9K720 Iskander (NATO reporting name: SS-26 Stone) short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) system, and its derivative the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (NATO reporting name: AS-24 Killjoy) air-launched SRBM. Iskanders are known to be deployed to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave in the Baltic, putting potential targets in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden within their range.

ESSI employs a layered approach with four kinetic capabilities: Rheinmetall’s Skyranger-30, a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun and missile (SPAAGM) system, was selected for the very short range air defence (VSHORAD) segment, to prosecute threats of up to 3 km with its 30 mm automatic cannon or roughly 5 km with missiles (depending on which is selected by the user). The medium-range Diehl IRIS-T SLM system covers the medium-range air defence (MRAD) band, engaging threats up to 40 km range or 20 km altitude with its IRIS-T SL missiles. Covering the long-range air defence (LRAD) side of the equation will be Raytheon’s MIM-104F PATRIOT – when equipped with PAC-3 MSE missiles, which are understood to have been selected as the standard, PATRIOT can engage aerial threats out to ranges of around 100 km. Beyond this, for the ballistic missile defence (BMD) role against exoatmospheric (approximately altitudes of >100 km) threats, such as incoming medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), IAI’s Arrow 3 system was selected. A contract was signed by Germany for the acquisition of Arrow 3 acquisition in 2023, though it is only expected to become fully operational by 2030, according to reports.

Commentators have noted that the logic behind ESSI is not to protect the entirety of Europe’s airspace against air threats; rather, capabilities acquired under ESSI will be employed to protect critical infrastructure across participating countries. In much the same vein, Prussian monarch Frederick the Great famously said, “He who defends everything, defends nothing.”

Although the programme includes numerous European nations, it is not without criticism. In June 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed concern over buying non-European systems, with two of the four aforementioned kinetic effectors, PATRIOT (from the US), and Arrow-3 (from Israel) hailing from non-European suppliers. Macron said: “What comes to us from non-European third parties is obviously less manageable, subject to timetables, queues, priorities, sometimes third-country authorisations and too dependent on the outside world.” With the re-election of US President Donald Trump in the United States in 2024, and the confrontational path he and his administration have chosen to follow regarding relations with EU members, this shows that Macron’s concerns were prescient. Having said that, it is also true that no European company yet offers a product in Arrow 3’s class – while both MBDA and Diehl are developing such systems, they are not yet ready for mass production. Alongside this, France, Italy, and Spain have notably not joined; this is understood to be in large part due to the fact that ESSI completely excludes European missile giant MBDA from the scheme.

 

Nonetheless, Europe needs the kinds of capabilities ESSI promises, and fast. Several European nations have supplied Ukraine with air defence assets, depleting their own stocks in the process. Moreover, the threat-scape, dominated as it is by fears of Russian air attack, shows no signs of changing.

Knitting the network

The German Ministry of Defence (MoD) is keen to emphasise that ESSI is primarily a procurement initiative as opposed to a specific capability as with ACCS or EPAA. Its primary goal “is to strengthen the European ground-based air defence pillar within NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence. Its focus is to enable joint procurement of weapons systems and the cooperation in the fields of training and logistics, based on common technical standards and interoperability”. Furthermore, “ESSI is not an operational initiative or mission, and it does not provide network or command and control capabilities,” a spokesperson for Germany’s Defence Ministry told ESD. ESSI is also “not deploying or operating systems in an operational sense. Instead … members can (for example) open (their) own procurements contracts to offer systems for cooperative procurement which aims at improving interoperability and interchangeability within a ‘user community’”.

Alongside the kinetic effectors, the Ministry spokesperson said that ESSI will include procurement of a passive radar in the form of ERA’s Vera-NG system. Passive radars detect, identify and track air targets based on the radio navigation, communication and radar emissions they make. These radars can also detect aerial targets by detecting the disturbances they make to local, residual radio frequency signals. We are continually surrounded by broadcasting and cell phone signals, particularly in urban and populated areas and aircraft disturb these signals as they fly through them. By detecting these disturbances, it is possible to detect and track air targets. The spokesperson continued that the management of ESSI sees “decisions … generally made by consensus among the member states. As agreed by member nations, coordination and cooperation with other initiatives and programmes, particularly those of NATO and the EU, are deliberately supported.”

Nonetheless, ESSI’s kinetic and radar assets will need to be networked with Europe’s IADS and GBAD structures. NATO has a myriad of communications systems that can be employed to share RAPs, track data and other tactically-relevant information among the continent’s air defenders. Several European nations already have dedicated, military fibre optic networks which can carry such data. The wired nature of fibre optic cables makes them difficult, if not impossible, to jam. Several European nations, notably France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Türkiye and the United Kingdom have sovereign, dedicated military communications satellites. These spacecraft can carry air defence data across secure, robust X-band (7.9–8.4 GHz uplink/7.25–7.75 GHz downlink) and Ka-band (26.5–40 GHz uplink/18–20 GHz downlink) channels. NATO provides pooled satellite communications (SATCOM) bandwidth to Alliance members lacking such dedicated links via NATO’s SATCOM Services Sixth Generation (NSS6G) initiative. SATCOM can move rich data across wideband X-band and Ka-band links over beyond-line-of-sight ranges. Capabilities such as these are especially important given that continent-wide air defence involves Alliance members across Europe. For example, a Thales GM-400 S-band (2.3–2.5 GHz/2.7–3.7 GHz) ground-based air surveillance radar in Estonia could be the first NATO sensor to detect an incoming brace of Kinzhal missiles. Yet it may also be MIM-104E batteries in Germany which are tasked with the interception. NATO nations can also use high frequency (HF; 3–30 MHz) radio to support continent-wide air defence. Nonetheless, HF does have some considerable bandwidth limitations compared to X-band and Ka-band SATCOM.

 

Line-of-sight very/ultra-high frequency (V/UHF: 30 MHz to 3 GHz) links are important for surface-to-surface and air-to-surface/surface-to-air communications. V/UHF and HF radio can carry Link-16 (960 MHz to 1.215 GHz) and Link-11/22 (2–29.9 MHz; 225–399.975 MHz; and 2–30 MHz, 225–400 MHz) tactical data link traffic. Both Link-16, which mainly supports air operations, and Link-11/22, which chiefly assists maritime combat, are integral to air defence. Tactical datalinks can be used to share track and other tactical information between sensors, effectors and command and control facilities. Link-16 and Link-11/22 traffic can also be sent across fibre optic and SATCOM networks. Some reports had voiced concern that integrating a non-NATO system such as Arrow-3 into Europe’s air defence posture could be tricky. However, difficulties in networking this SAM system with other air defence assets could probably be overcome using link translation capabilities such as Curtiss-Wright’s TCG HUNTR (Tactical Communications Group Hub and Network Translator).

Much work still needs to be done before all the constituent parts of the Sky Shield initiative are procured and in service. Nonetheless, the programme is showing promise and, despite misgivings over the procurement of Arrow-3 by the French government, does appear to be a step in the right direction. These capabilities will need to be networked to provide the protection they promise. Fortunately, NATO has a myriad of secure, redundant networking tools ready for use. Defending Europe from Russian air threats is not just about having the right sensors and weapons, it is about knitting them together in a robust, redundant fashion.

 

Thomas Withington