“Future combat employment is about kill chains and kill webs, it’s about systems of systems warfare,” and pilot training has to reflect that, Col. Matt Ryan told Breaking Defense.

“What they want to have is a regional standard air-to-air capability that will allow them to deter Israeli air-to-air capability. Right now the only threat Israel has in air operations from Iran is from ground-to-air,” analyst David Des Roches told Breaking Defense.

Once Brussels joins the program, details about the role it will play at both a funding and an industrial level are expected to be shared.

The sale could help L3Harris pay down debt and focus as a defense supplier.

The Arrow 3, the top layer of Israel’s air defense net, recently made its first ever operational interception amid the conflict in Gaza.

“What we found is that systems that are heavily reliant on contractor support, that have a minimum of government-owned intellectual property or access to the intellectual property, that the flexibility to make changes in accordance with a new national security environment is limited,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Lowman told Breaking Defense.