Selling combat aircraft against US competition has never been easy. Pentagon research budgets tend to push US fighters to the front of the technological pack, and Washington’s political clout slants the playing field even further.

But tell that to France’s Dassault. Its Rafale fighter has a future that looks so bright it’s gotta wear shades. The closest non-US competitor, the Eurofighter consortium with the Typhoon, isn’t doing so well, yet it has hopes, and Saab is signing up more customers for its Gripen JAS 39E/F design.

The volatility of policies of President Donald Trump can only help these companies in future competitions. If some customer countries are a little less confident in relying on US political support, they must be a little more inclined to buy European. Maybe the playing field is beginning to slant away from Washington.

That may become an advantage for the next two European fighter programs, GCAP and SCAF.

After a two-decade slog of slow production, team Rafale has a path to being the most complete non-US air combat offering for the 2030s. The latest big export customer is Indonesia, expected to announce an order for 24 more Rafales to bring its total to 66, with deliveries starting in 2026. Among other customers over the past few years has been the United Arab Emirates, which ordered 80.

Rafales are being delivered to the F4.1 standard, with the Thales Scorpion helmet-mounted display and improvements to the Spectra electronic warfare system. F4.1 incorporates a partitioned avionics architecture (as pioneered by the Saab JAS 39E Gripen) which makes releases of the forthcoming F4.2 and F4.3 standards easier. The goal is to make the Rafale network-ready.

New weapons cleared in F4.1 include a 1000-kilogram version of the Sagem Hammer rocket-aided bomb. It can be equipped with a hard-target warhead and is the first such weapon in the West outside the US.

Development of the Rafale F5, the deepest upgrade yet, was authorised in October. It will include the uprated Safran M88 T-Rex engine, which provides 20 percent more thrust without changing the diameter, so the engine should be retrofittable: so far, a unique feature of the Rafale program is that all production aircraft have been or will be brought up to F4.

Alongside the Rafale F5, Dassault is developing a stealthy unmanned combat aircraft based on the Neuron demonstrator, which first flew in 2012 and, according to the company, has flown more than 170 times and is still active at Istres flight-test centre. This is a full-size, non-attritable, very-low-observable aircraft, with a non-afterburning M88, much bigger than the US Collaborative Combat Aircraft ^[1] designs.

Dassault’s production line is sold out through to the early 2030s. The company delivered 21 aircraft last year, is moving to a three-per-month rate and has struck a first-time deal ^[2] with Tata Advanced Systems to build full sets of fuselage modules in India. Dassault and Tata will collaborate to deliver 26 newly ordered Rafale Ms for the navy and secure 110 more for the air force.

India aspires to buy F-35s, and its state-owned industry dreams of an indigenous stealth fighter, but Dassault and Tata are betting that neither will happen for a while. And who knows? They may be right.

Rafale’s improved prospects explain Dassault’s renewed ambitions for a higher share of work in the Franco-German-Spanish future combat air system (SCAF, in French) project. France wants to simplify requirements and move towards allocating development work on a best-athlete standard—which, for the French, means that Rafale contractors, above all Dassault, would lead.

But here’s a question for the other national partners to consider: how fast does France want to push SCAF when the Rafale F5, T-Rex and the UCAV demand resources?

The Rafale’s progress contrasts with the much quieter business of the Eurofighter Typhoon. Orders from three of the partner nations, Germany, Spain and Italy, have kept the doors open in those countries, but the British assembly line comes to an end with the completion of an order from Qatar (It will resume if the newly announced deal with Turkey ^[3] goes through.)

Eurofighter is shipping 14 aircraft per year, and campaigns in Austria, Poland, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could support a 30-per-year rate in 2028. But one problem is that the partners’ upgrade programs have diverged. After trailing behind Dassault or Saab to offer an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, Typhoon now has three alternative designs for such sensors: one developed initially for Qatar; a German-Spanish version for those nations’ new Typhoons; and Britain’s advanced but expensive ECRS Mk 2.

For Britain, Italy and Japan, it may be a better bet to focus on the Global Combat Aircraft Program ^[4] (GCAP), a competitor to SCAF. Managed by the newly named Edgewing joint venture (BAE Systems, Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Corp, itself a joint venture led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) seems to be free of the SCAF rancour, and Germany is clearly feeling buyer’s remorse in choosing to work with France and Spain.

Saab has broken its JAS 39E/F sales drought this year, winning competitions in Thailand (for 12 aircraft), Peru (24) and Colombia (16) announced since April. The Gripen and Typhoon are the leading contenders in Canada if the country backtracks again on its F-35 buy. (Dassault is presumably not a contender, since it submitted no bid in Canada’s previous contest.)

Canada signed for 88 F-35s in June 2023 and has put down money for the first 16. Prime Minister Mark Carney indicated the deal would be reviewed, and a recommendation is expected by the end of September. The new defence procurement minister, Stephen Fuhr, is a former CF-18 pilot and a long-time F-35 sceptic.

But Saab is looking at a massive opportunity as a result of US policy, as the FY26 defense budget junks the USAF’s procurement of E-7 Wedgetail air-surveillance aircraft. Congress is being pressured ^[5] to preserve the program, but such efforts are hard for a prospective export customer to count on.

This leaves Saab’s GlobalEye and IAI-Elta’s Conformal AEW as the most solid programs for Western large-cabin AESA-based airborne air-surveillance systems. And this is happening just as combat experience from Ukraine and Pakistan is pointing to the tactical utility of such systems, and just as the war in Gaza makes IAI politically radioactive for many intending buyers.

So that leaves Saab.

France announced its intention to buy two GlobalEyes ^[6], with an option for two more, at the Paris air show. Other NATO prospects include Finland, Denmark and Canada, the latter two unhappy with Trump’s territorial ambitions. The consortium of NATO members that operates old Boeing E-3A air-surveillance aircraft decided in November 2023 to buy an initial six E-7s, but a contract was expected during 2024, and none has been signed yet.

Saab is competing with a bid by IAI-Elta and L3Harris for South Korea’s E-X Phase II requirement, which calls for the acquisition of four aircraft by 2028 with a $2.6 billion budget. Boeing did not bid in the latest round, but says that its offer of E-7s, to add to South Korea’s current fleet of four, still stands.

Beyond the boost to Saab’s revenue, success in this segment would make GlobalEye, and Sweden’s expertise with datalinks, compatible with multiple fighter types, from France’s Rafale F5 and uncrewed combat aircraft to Korea’s Boramae.

All this is further strengthening the non-US industry.