The so-called “Alliance Ground Surveillance” program (AGS) of NATO is to build up the capability for “battlefield reconnaissance and surveillance” with unmanned aerial vehicles, the RQ-4D Global Hawks.
This means Russia, stressed the European political spokesman for the parliamentary group on the Linke party in the Bundestag, Andrej Hunko, and warned of the consequences of increased tensions with Russia and the risk of falling also over Germany.
In November, the first drone from Northrop Grumman landed at the Italian military air base in Sigonella, a month later the second, and three more are to follow. The programme should be operational in 2020.
While NATO says that all allies have access to the data collected by the AGS and should benefit from the knowledge, Hunko looked at the consequences, including for the population:
“The NATO AGS program is primarily directed against Russia, the ‘Global Hawk’ are supposed to spy on Russian borders. The Department of Defense confirms this by stating that the NATO drones use the corridor established by the US Air Force through Italy, France and Germany. Flights over the Baltic Sea will further fuel tensions with the government in Moscow. The hawks have literally been let loose by NATO.”
The corridor in Germany runs through the Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
This poses dangers to the population, because drones crash significantly more often than manned aircraft, says Hunko.
“The ‘Global Hawk’ flies without an avoidance or assistance system to avoid collisions. Such a technology has not yet been developed or licensed. The NATO drones will also crash sooner or later. The Ministry of Defense is therefore not allowed to authorize flights over Germany.”
In diesen Bundesländern könnte euch bald eine große NATO-Drohne auf den Kopf fallen. Der Korridor für die #GlobalHawk führt übrigens auch an #Aachen vorbei. https://t.co/1GViJAOjk0 pic.twitter.com/nvvdYi1kY8
— Andrej Hunko (@AndrejHunko) December 23, 2019
In 2009, NATO announced that it expected to have a fleet of up to eight Global Hawks by 2012 to be equipped with MP-RTIP radar systems. NATO had budgeted €1 billion for the project, and a letter of intent was signed.
NATO signed a contract for five Block 40 Global Hawks in May 2012 and 12 NATO members participated in the purchase. On 10 January 2014, Estonia revealed it wanted to participate in NATO Global Hawk usage. In July 2017, the USAF assigned the Mission Designation Series (MDS) of RQ-4D to the NATO AGS air vehicle.
The first RQ-4D aircraft arrived at Sigonella Air Base on 21 November 2019 and all five aircraft were undergoing developmental test flights. Initial operational capability is expected in the first half of 2020.
In October 2018, Italy certified five of the drones for use in Sigonella, Sicily in 2020. However by 23 December 2019, there were regulatory issues for the Global Hawks concerning shared space between Germany and Italy. German government officials have criticized the new drones for their lack of technology to avoid collisions with other aircraft.