With growing concerns about U.S. reliability, especially regarding sensitive technology like the F-35, European nations see GCAP as crucial for ensuring future defense autonomy, technological sovereignty, and regional stability in a rapidly evolving global landscape.
The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) initiative aims to field a viable sixth-generation platform by the end of this decade. The program is a joint initiative that brings together the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan, and it evolved from the merging of Japan’s F-X and the United Kingdom’s Tempest programs.
GCAP 6th Generation Fighter
The program is seen as an insurance measure against uncertainty concerning the availability of American kit. The project is ambitious and will require vast sums of money to achieve success. One potential financial windfall for the program? Saudi Arabia.
The initiative aims to field a highly advanced, sixth-generation fighter by combining the expertise of Italy’s Leonardo, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and the United Kingdom’s BAE Systems.
By any measure, the project is very ambitious. Although all three countries operate the F-35, a fifth-generation fighter jet, none of them has experience putting a domestic sixth-generation jet into production. Indeed, none of the countries has produced a fifth-generation design alone.
It is not only combined in-house expertise that the three countries seek to leverage, however. By spreading the costs across three countries, they hope to achieve something better than any one of them could achieve on their own.
Theirs will be a tall order to fill, but help may be waiting in the wings.
The Saudi Connection and GCAP
Saudi Arabia has previously expressed interest in joining the GCAP program. Though long reliant on American military technology for its defense, and broadly friendly to the United States, the Saudis have been locked out of access to the F-35 program thanks to the United States’ commitment to ensuring Israel retains a qualitative military advantage over its neighbors in the region.
Saudi Arabia is, therefore, very keen to join a stealth fighter program. And though the country has a deep reserve of engineers, it lacks the aerospace know-how to develop a domestic stealth aircraft alone. What the Saudis do have are deep pockets, and they would likely be able to contribute a significant amount of capital to fund a stealth fighter program like GCAP.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Riyadh in January to mark a significant aerospace deal between the Saudis and Italian defense firm Leonardo. During that visit, Meloni cracked open the door to Saudi participation in GCAP, saying, “We are in favor of the Saudis entering, but clearly this…will not be immediate.”
Though the deal was a boon for the Italian firm, the real impetus behind it was to boost Saudi aerospace know-how, improving their knowledge and, therefore, their potential contribution to GCAP, should they join.
Lorenzo Mariani, Leonardo’s co-director general, told Defense News, “For a rapid but not disruptive entry of another partner [into the GCAP] you need a path and that must take into account the industrial capacity of the partner,” Mariani.
Mariani added, “It is not only about money but about having work.”
American Unreliability?
Fresh motivation has been injected into the Global Combat Air Programme thanks to the uncertainty introduced by the current administration in the White House. Though the United States has been a reliable arms partner for Italy, the United Kingdom, and Japan for many decades, the recent blocking of aid and intelligence to Ukraine, questions about the ability of American shipbuilders to follow through with submarines for Australia as part of the AUKUS agreement, and the risk that the United States could, in theory, shut down the software side of platforms like the F-35 have caused a great deal of angst among friends and allies.
In response to doubts about the United States’ future reliability, European countries have already begun making moves to diversify their weapon sources away from the United States—to great chagrin from the White House.
In an ironic twist, European countries are finally and significantly increasing the amount of money they spend on defense. But they are not investing that money into American platforms, weapon systems, and ammunition—but rather in organic, homegrown options.
What Now for GCAP?
At a fundamental level, the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy—and certainly the United States—would like to retain full technological sovereignty over their fighter programs. And with the uncertain future of the United States as a reliable defense partner, to say nothing about the current precarious trade situation, the logic for securing a homegrown and completely sovereign sixth-generation fighter program is very sound.
Though it remains to be seen whether Tokyo, London, Rome, and potentially now Riyadh are able to achieve this, the expertise and potentially the money is there.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
