As Europe ramps up its rearmament drive, US aerospace giant Boeing is seeking a foothold in the emerging market for autonomous fighter aircraft, showcasing its capabilities at the Farnborough airshow this week. Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat is an uncrewed aircraft, developed with the Royal Australian Air Force, to fly alongside crewed fighter jets carrying out electronic warfare and surveillance and to help multiply forces. JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. It belongs to a category of AI-enabled Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) which have risen to prominence as a new type of drone, as unmanned systems dominate the battlefield in Ukraine. Boeing hopes to win over the European market by partnering with local defense companies. In Germany, defense group Rheinmetall has teamed up with Boeing to integrate the MQ-28 into the German Air Force, with the capability expected to be available by 2029. Such partnerships, however, have revived questions about the limits of Europe’s push for greater defense sovereignty. “The key objective is to deliver capabilities quickly,” Pascal Fabre, a partner at advisory firm AlixPartners, told AFP. “If you want to field new capabilities rapidly, you either develop the system yourself – which takes time – or you partner with someone who already has a mature platform, even if that company is not European,” he added. The trade-off lies at the heart of Europe’s rearmament push, driven by growing security concerns and unease over relying on an increasingly unpredictable ally in US President Donald Trump.