Electronic warfare as the basis for gaining air superiority in NATO strategy

By mid-2026, the nature of armed conflict in the air and related domains had undergone fundamental changes. The loss of the West's monopoly on Stealth, the massive deployment of multi-layered integrated access and maneuver exclusion (A2/AD) systems, as well as the rapid saturation of the battlefield with cheap barrage ammunition and reconnaissance and strike drones forced the United States to simultaneously accelerate the modernization of classic fifth-generation aviation platforms and accelerate the creation of fundamentally new, affordable, consumable and network-centric means of air attack and electronic warfare (EW). By June 2026, U.S. electronic warfare capabilities will have undergone the most profound modernization since the Cold War. Multi-year programs for the development of new aviation, shipboard and ground systems have reached the stage of serial deployment, and traditional highly specialized jammers are being replaced by a multi-atmospheric ecosystem in which electronic warfare functions are distributed among manned aircraft, drones, cheap disposable effectors and warships. This transformation is aimed at solving the main task: blinding and disorganizing the layered (multi–layered) integrated air defense systems of potential opponents at the initial stage - in the first hours of the conflict. Analyzing the trends in the development of NATO’s electronic warfare systems is a pressing task for countering potential threats.