Situational awareness of potential hostile targets and of friendly forces is considered to be a key component in obtaining and sustaining military superiority over adversaries. Airborne Early warning and control (AWACS) aircraft has been providing a real-time picture of friendly, neutral, and hostile air and maritime activity under all kinds of weather and above all kinds of terrain. The US E3 AWACS has proved to be a key to victory for the United States in the 1991, 2001, and 2003 campaigns.
China has also over 20 AWACS, including the new KJ-500 ones that can track over 60 aircraft at ranges up to 470 km. The PLAAF currently is thought to possess five KJ-2000 AEW&C aircraft. However the AWACS platforms are becoming increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated long range SAM systems and VLRAAM missiles, hence militaries are increasingly looking for more survivable platforms.
The increasing range and lethality of SAM systems and VLRAAM shall force them further outside the enemy border and thereby reduce their effectiveness in carrying out surveillance of adversary areas. Therefore militaries are considering new concepts and platforms to carry out AWACS missions. One of the platform that is being considered by militaries to replace AWACS are high altitude and Long endurance drones. These high altitude long endurance drones are not as high value platforms as AWACS and do not carry manned crew , hence do not need protection as AWACS. They can therefore operate quite near the A2/AD environment.
The Divine Eagle UAV expected to provide an early warning line to detect threats to China’s airspace, like cruise missiles and stealth bombers, as well as be able to take on such missions as hunting for aircraft carriers in the open waters of the Pacific. Divine Eagle would also carry airborne anti-stealth radar system that could be used to counter American F-22s, F-35s and B-2s. Divine Eagle prototype appears to be larger than the U.S Air Force’s Global Hawk long-range surveillance drone and consequently could be equipped to “carry large missiles for satellite launching, anti-satellite and anti-ship missions,” elaborates the Washington Free Beacon.
China published its latest defense white paper titled “China’s Military Strategy”, which detailed its national security issues like the U.S. rebalance to Asia; Japanese revisions to military and security policy; external countries meddling in Chinese territorial disputes in the South China Sea and elsewhere; instability and uncertainty on the Korean Peninsula; and independence movements simmering in both Taiwan and Tibet.
China calls its military strategy of “active defense,” a combination of strategic defense, self-defense, operational and tactical offense, and a willingness to counterattack. Chinese military’s primary aim is to prepare itself to fight “local wars under conditions of informationization”—in other words, regional conflicts in which command, control, communications, intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (C4ISR) would play major roles.
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