NATO eye in sky to get a revise

BRUSSELS — NATO and U.S. aircraft-maker Boeing agreed Wednesday on a $1 billion contract to refurbish the military alliance’s aging fleet of surveillance planes, ensuring that they can continue to serve as the organization’s eye in the sky until 2035.

The agreement, which was not actually signed Wednesday, was made public just days before U.S. President Donald Trump joins his NATO counterparts in London for a Dec. 4 summit marking the 70th anniversary of the world’s biggest security alliance.

Trump is expected to make fresh demands on his European and Canadian partners to significantly step up defense spending. Critics say he is intent on drumming up business for the U.S. defense industry.

NATO’s contract announcement provides a timely reminder that money is going to Boeing, although other European contractors will be involved in the refurbishment, which is expected to be completed by 2027.

Purchased in 1977 at the height of the Cold War, when Jimmy Carter became U.S. president and as a missile crisis with the then Soviet Union was beginning to fester in Europe, the 14 Boeing E-3 planes cost almost $8 billion.

“The modernization will ensure NATO remains at the leading edge of technology,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at a military airport outside Brussels, not far from the alliance’s new billiondollar headquarters.

He said the upgrade will provide the Airborne Warning and Control planes, known as AWACS, “with sophisticated new communications and networking capabilities so these aircraft can continue their vital mission and contribute to our security.”

The planes were deployed in U.S. skies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington to help protect cities and nuclear power plants. They were used during the Russia-Ukraine crisis, to assist Turkey during the war in Syria and to help the coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

Beyond their role as NATO’s eye in the sky, the planes can be used for airpolicing, support in counter-terrorism or evacuation operations, and provide help during natural disasters. They can stay aloft for eight hours at a time and watch over an area of more than 120,000 square miles.