REDONDO BEACH, Calif. - The Japanese Ministry of Defense has selected two Northrop Grumman systems - the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft and the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) - as preferred solutions for optimizing the Japan Air Self-Defense Force' (ASDF) intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. The MoD decision was reached by a process known as type selection, in which capabilities and systems specific to military requirements are identified with a formal government-to-government foreign military sale (FMS) request to follow.
The Japanese ASDF currently operates four Boeing E-767s as its fixed-wing AEW platform. These were brought into service between 1998 and 1999.
The Defense Ministry has long considered a Global Hawk purchase with a procurement of three of the high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) surveillance UAVs to operate over the country's southwestern islands under consideration since 2010. Momentum towards such a purchase gathered in 2014, when the government earmarked JPY200 million within the country's defense budget towards the study of a Global Hawk acquisition.
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