Shields Up: Russian Aggression Fuels European Air Defense Market.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

PARIS--Like many contractors at this year's Paris Air Show, Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. brought its latest air and missile defense concept to sell to potential customers.

The advanced interceptor Sky Sonic is intended to take down hypersonic missiles, which travel at speeds of more than Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable, making them difficult to defeat.

Russia claims to have fired multiple hypersonic Kinzhal missiles at Ukraine, but such weapons are still considered an "emerging technology," as are the systems being developed to defeat them.

Ori Eyal, marketing and business development manager at Rafael's lower-tier air and missile defense directorate, admitted that the picture in the company's booth had little to do with what the system might look like. It has a lot of development remaining, including the seeker and maneuvering technology.

"But some of these ideas are starting to get an audience because of the events in Ukraine," he said.

Israel is adept at developing air and missile defense technology because it faces threats daily, he noted in an interview on the sideline of the air show.

But European nations--with a couple of notable exceptions--had not prioritized deploying or upgrading their systems until the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed their thinking, he said.

Europe was "asleep," he said. "They knew that they were facing a problem, but they kept ignoring it. Now, they want it fast. They want it right away. But in this business when you order something, it's not that fast," he said. It can take two to five years to build and deliver an air defense system, he noted.

From systems designed to protect ground forces from small drones to high-altitude ballistic interceptors, the market for air and missile defense technologies in Europe is burgeoning, said Dan Darling, director of military and defense markets at the business intelligence company Forecast International.

Poland, as NATO's eastern vanguard, started the trend when it kicked off its Shield of Poland program in 2014. It has historical fears of Russia that played into its decision to bolster its air and missile defense. The Ukraine invasion has only served to stoke the market further, he said.

"Where you're going to see the next frontier is up in the Nordics, the Scandinavia Peninsula--Norway, Sweden, Finland," he said in an interview at the air show.

Russia can attack them from any angle, from the East and with its navy operating in the Arctic and the...