Once the war with Ukraine ends, Moscow will face an uncertain future in the surface-to-air missile (SAM) system market. Among the many lessons of the Russo-Ukrainian War is that governments spend money on projects that under other circumstances they would not. Case in point, the development of hybrid air defense systems using Russian and Western technologies, also known as FrankenSAMs.
The idea of integrating Russian and Western technologies to produce a hybrid system is not a new one. The constantly shifting alliance during the Cold War resulted in some new allies of the West being equipped with large numbers of Soviet-made weapons. Maintaining these weapons proved challenging.
Numerous proposals were submitted to integrate Western technologies with these Soviet systems. Western nations had no problem providing assistance to their new allies in maintaining these legacy systems, but upgrading them was a whole different issue. The main problem was the so-called “return on investment.”
Upgrading these air defense systems would benefit new allies. But then what? Would this upgrade be offered to other operators of Soviet air defense systems? Wasn’t this work creating new competitors to existing Western-built systems? Many Western governments simply wanted to see these legacy systems replaced by Western-built alternatives.
The Russo-Ukrainian War changed the game. Kyiv needed additional and more capable air defense systems. Upgrading its existing Russian-made systems made sense. Kyiv also needed more munitions for these systems. Even with the large inventories of Russian-made missiles still held by former Warsaw Pact nations since the end of the Cold War proved insufficient to meet the demands of this war. Therefore, the option of integrating Western missiles and other technologies with Russian-made air defense systems made a lot of sense. The cost of these projects was less of an issue. The goal was to meet the immediate needs of the Ukrainian Army.
Of course, the question remained: what about after the war ends? The post-World War II period saw a flood of surplus munitions hit the international market. These new hybrid air defense systems developed for Ukraine could generate interest among countries operating Russian-made missiles and those that want to distance themselves from Putin’s regime.
Moscow will try to regain its position within the international arms market once the war ends. The existence of these hybrid systems, perhaps along with marketing from Ukraine and its allies, could pose a serious problem for Moscow’s arms industry.
For more than 35 years, Larry has been involved in research and analytical work for various Forecast International projects. He has contributed to the Airborne Electronics Forecast and was chief editor on the World Aerospace Weekly newsletter. Larry was directly responsible for the creation of World Weapons Review, a biweekly industry market research publication specializing in weapon systems and related material. He was the creator of Unmanned Vehicles Forecast, launched to cover the growing market for civil and military drones, and was involved in the development of the Airborne Retrofit & Modernization Forecast service. He is currently responsible for the Missile Forecast and for FI's two Unmanned Vehicles Forecast services – Airborne Systems and Land & Sea Systems.
