Lockheed Martin has secured a nearly $148 million contract modification from the U.S. Department of Defense to certify Israel-specific weapons, deliver modification kits, and perform electronic warfare analysis for the F-35I Adir stealth fighter. The deal, tied to the jet’s 3F+ capability baseline, signals a deeper investment in tailoring the fifth-generation platform to Israel’s unique operational demands. At a time when the Israeli Air Force faces overlapping threats across multiple fronts, the contract points toward a broader effort to push the Adir’s sensor fusion and electronic warfare capabilities closer to predictive, AI-assisted combat operations.
What the $148 Million Contract Covers
The Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin a contract modification valued at $147,961,496 specifically for Israel’s variant of the F-35 Lightning II. The scope of work is broken into three distinct categories: weapons certification unique to Israel’s munitions inventory, physical modification kits for the airframe and its subsystems, and electronic warfare analysis designed to sharpen the jet’s ability to detect, classify, and counter hostile signals. Each element feeds into what the contract identifies as the 3F+ capability baseline, a software and hardware configuration that represents the most advanced operational standard for the F-35 program.
The 3F+ baseline is significant because it is the threshold at which the F-35 reaches full combat capability, including the ability to carry and deploy a complete range of weapons while running its most advanced sensor fusion software. For Israel, whose Adir variant already carries custom avionics and indigenous electronic warfare systems not found on any other F-35 model, the 3F+ designation means these national modifications must be tested, validated, and certified to work seamlessly alongside Lockheed Martin’s core architecture. The weapons certification component alone suggests that Israeli munitions, potentially including locally developed precision-guided bombs and standoff missiles, are being formally integrated into the jet’s fire control system.
Electronic Warfare Analysis and the AI Edge
The electronic warfare analysis line item in the contract is where the predictive dimension of the Adir’s evolution becomes most apparent. Modern electronic warfare is no longer a matter of jamming a known radar frequency. It requires real-time identification of emitter types, rapid correlation with threat libraries, and split-second recommendations to the pilot or, increasingly, to automated defensive systems. The F-35’s Distributed Aperture System and its AN/ASQ-239 electronic warfare suite already collect enormous volumes of signal data from every direction simultaneously. What distinguishes the Adir is Israel’s reported layering of proprietary algorithms on top of this architecture, algorithms designed to anticipate threat behavior rather than simply react to it.
The contract’s inclusion of electronic warfare analysis alongside modification kits suggests that hardware changes and software refinements are advancing in tandem. New processing units or antenna configurations in the modification kits could expand the jet’s ability to ingest and sort electromagnetic data at higher speeds. When paired with machine learning models trained on regional threat signatures, the result is an aircraft that can predict which surface-to-air missile system is about to activate, which radar is transitioning from search to track mode, and which electronic countermeasure will be most effective before the pilot even recognizes the threat. This is the core of what makes the Adir a predictive platform rather than a purely reactive one.
Why Israel’s Customization Strategy Differs
Israel is the only F-35 operator that has negotiated the right to install its own mission systems and electronic warfare software into the airframe. Every other international customer flies a version of the jet that relies entirely on Lockheed Martin’s standard software load. The Israeli approach creates both advantages and complications. On the advantage side, the Israeli Air Force can tailor the Adir’s threat library to the specific radar systems, missile batteries, and communications networks it expects to face across its borders, from Russian-built S-300 variants in Syria to Iranian air defense systems supplied to proxy forces. On the complication side, every upgrade to the baseline F-35 software requires Israel to verify compatibility with its own code, a process that demands exactly the kind of funded certification work described in the Defense Department contract.
This dual-track development model is expensive, but it gives the Israeli Air Force something no other air force possesses: a stealth fighter whose electronic brain is tuned specifically to the Middle Eastern threat environment. The modification kits referenced in the contract likely include hardware that supports this customization, whether upgraded mission computers, additional cooling systems for higher-powered processors, or revised wiring harnesses that accommodate Israeli-designed subsystems. The 3F+ baseline certification ensures that all of these changes meet the structural and software integrity standards required for the jet to remain safe and effective in combat.
Regional Consequences of Predictive Air Power
A stealth fighter that can predict and preempt threats changes the calculus for every adversary in the region. If the Adir can reliably identify and neutralize air defense systems before they engage, the survivability of Israeli strike packages increases dramatically, and the deterrent value of those defense systems drops accordingly. For countries that have invested heavily in layered air defense networks and supplied similar systems to allied non-state actors, the prospect of an AI-assisted F-35 that can map and defeat those networks in something close to real time represents a serious strategic problem. It raises doubts about whether expensive surface-to-air missile batteries can deliver the denial effects their operators expect.
The risk, however, is that predictive capabilities accelerate an arms race in electronic warfare countermeasures. If adversaries believe that their existing air defenses can be anticipated and defeated by Israeli AI systems, they have strong incentive to develop more unpredictable, frequency-hopping, or decoy-heavy systems designed to confuse machine learning models. The result could be a cycle in which each side’s AI-driven tools force the other to adopt more complex and potentially destabilizing technologies. This dynamic is not unique to the Middle East, but the density of overlapping conflicts and the proximity of hostile forces to Israeli borders make it especially acute, because miscalculations in such a compressed battlespace can escalate quickly.
Ethical and Operational Questions Ahead
Predictive targeting raises hard questions about the role of human judgment in lethal decisions. When an AI system aboard the Adir identifies a threat and recommends a countermeasure or a strike, the pilot still makes the final call. But as processing speeds increase and engagement windows shrink, the practical space for human deliberation narrows. The electronic warfare analysis funded by this contract will likely push the Adir’s automated recommendations deeper into the kill chain, raising questions about whether meaningful human oversight can keep pace with machine-speed warfare. Commanders and policymakers will have to decide how much autonomy to grant onboard systems, and what kinds of safeguards or audit trails are required to ensure accountability.
No declassified documents or official Israeli Air Force statements spell out precisely how far automation will go in the F-35I cockpit, but the trajectory is clear: more data, more rapid analysis, and more pressure on pilots to trust machine-generated assessments in the heat of combat. That trajectory forces a broader debate about proportionality and discrimination in targeting, especially in crowded airspaces where civilian air traffic, neutral forces, and hostile systems may operate in close proximity. As the Adir’s 3F+ upgrades move from contract language to operational reality, Israel and its partners will have to balance the tactical advantages of predictive air power against the strategic and ethical costs of delegating ever more battlefield cognition to software.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
