Fighter Jets: Let’s Not Buy Any!

 

Let’s have some frank talk about fighter jets. Canada has a fleet of CF/18’s which are basically the American F/A18A. These aircraft date from the 1980’s (when they were a hot ride) and are reaching the end of their useful existence as wear and tear on their airframes is reaching the point where they will no longer be worth repairing or upgrading. Aircraft are designed with a certain number of flight hours in mind. The more these flight hours are surpassed or extended the more the cost of restoring the airframe to its original condition becomes prohibitive. The assumption of course is that they will, at that point, be replaced by a fleet of new combat jets. Canada is now in the position of needing to do this OR not have combat jets at all (like New Zealand). I am an aviation enthusiast and love airplanes of all sorts. Of all the airplanes there are the fighter jet is certainly the pinnacle so it pains me (ever so slightly) to say it may be time to simply not build anymore and it may be time for Canada to simply not buy anymore.  In fact, I have come to the conclusion that these budget eaters are now best admired in museums or maybe trotted out for airshows. I think the ends they serve are no longer defensible. In particular, I think the triple headed monster of national security, national sovereignty and the military force that underwrites them should be thanked for their service and sent packing. We need to deconstruct the concepts, co-ordinate concepts, of sovereignty and security for these are abstractions to which genuine human goods are being sacrificed. This is a vast enterprise so I will begin with one country (Canada) and one problem (airspace). I want to suggest that ‘airspace’ is something no longer worth the cost of defending (for us at least) if it ever was.      

There are few countries that can currently build a new fighter jet and several of these are potential opponents who will not be selling Canada fighter jets anytime soon. Canada will not be buying J10’s from China or any iteration of the ‘Flanker’ series (Su 35, 30, 33, 34) from Russia. This leaves the following options: the Lockheed F35 from the U.S., the Boeing F/A/18/E/F Super Hornet also from the U.S, the Dassault Rafale from France, the Anglo/German Eurofighter Typhoon and the SAAB JAS/39E Gripen from Sweden. All these aircraft are capable and NONE are cheap (though some of course are cheaper than others). To the point, ALL are a much bigger outlay of cash (both per unit up front cost and for service and upgrades) than the aircraft Canada purchased in the 1980’s. As fighter planes advance technologically they only get pricier and one reason for this is that aircraft companies have little incentive to build cheaper aircraft when they can sell governments on pricier ‘better’ ones. Anyone who thinks aircraft companies have an incentive to build ‘cheap but effective’ aircraft can google the words ‘F20 Tigershark’. What is more, for each individual design the company in question will produce many pricey upgrade packages so that to have the latest and best Typhoon or Gripen we will have to spend even more upgrading them to whatever the current ‘standard’ is.  

For political and commercial reasons Canada will be under enormous pressure to purchase the F35. Lockheed is a powerful corporation that can bribe or blackmail Canada if it wants. Moreover, Lockheed has proven track record of doing exactly this, breaking every ethical norm it could to sell its atrocious and dangerous F104 Starfighter to nations like Canada and West Germany. The U.S. government has made a huge investment in this aircraft. They are eager to recoup some of that in foreign sales (which will bring down unit cost) and will put the full court press on Canada to purchase the ‘right’ aircraft. What is more Lockheed has successfully lobbied the CPC AND the Post and Globe to label the F35 the world’s ‘best’ fighter. As our boys in the RCAF deserve only the ‘best’ supporting our troops means purchasing the F35. This is in spite of the fact that Lockheed has delivered the F35 over a decade late and miles over budget. What is more, while the plane has no doubt improved over its LONG development cycle (how could it not?), it is still far from clear that the glitch prone product Lockheed has delivered is really the wonder weapon it promised.[1] For the CPC and the National Post this does not factor: to consider any other aircraft is to show the limp wristed weakness that is sadly typical of Liberals. If you are a nationalist you support the armed forces and if you support the armed forces you support the F35 without question or any consideration of the aircraft’s actual abilities or the practical requirements of Canada’s armed forces.                

If we consider these for even a moment reality sets in.  What are the actual threats to Canada’s airspace? As far as I can see there are only two. The first is that a high-jacked airliner will threaten to crash in a major population center. If this is the reason we need fighter jets I can assure you that EVERY aircraft listed above represents a ridiculous level of overkill. An airliner is slow, easy to detect, and incapable of violent evasive maneuvers. Nor does it have the ECM capacity or chaff dispensers to counter missiles. It would be an easy gun kill even if it did. It can also be brought down by a battery of SAMS or, if we are willing to wait a few years on the technology, even a drone. A 5Gen ‘stealth’ fighter like the F35, for instance, is ludicrously overpriced and over engineered for such a scenario. This illustrates the fact that there is literally no such thing as the ‘best’ aircraft: the best aircraft is the aircraft that is the most cost effective solution to the needs of a given air force. Is the F22 the best plane for Romania? No because it is not for sale, Romania could not afford it if it was for sale, and if even they could afford it its capabilities would be far in excess of their needs.  

The second scenario I can conceive is Russian bombers attacking Canada from the Arctic Circle.  Does Canada need F35’s to defend against an attack from Russian bombers? Not in the least. F22 Raptors from Alaska will intercept such aircraft long before they get to Canadian airspace. That is not a favor to Canada either for it is just what would happen if Canada were empty space. This aircraft (not for sale because of ‘sensitive technology’ but also, I suspect, because Lockheed does not want to compete with its own F35) is actually designed for the role. If an interceptor is what you want the F35 has neither the range nor the speed.[2] Further, an interceptor has no need of costly 5Gen stealth: it is money lost for a bomber pilot is MORE likely to abort the mission if he detects enemy fighters in the area. In sum, there is no threat to Canada to which the F35 is an answer. This is particularly the case if the stand-off ability of Russian cruise missiles (which are poised to take a quantum leap in speed) develops to the point where they can launch them from Russian airspace (and, to be honest, I don’t know where they are on that). At that point there may be no call for interceptors whatsoever and Khrushchev’s position, that it was foolish to spend money on interceptors if they could not stop ballistic missiles, will be finally vindicated. At any rate, if the job of the F35 is to intercept cruise missiles (which to some extent it can do) I must ask again, why pay extra for stealth?  

For this reason you would think that the cheaper, dead reliable and vastly more versatile F18/E/F Super Hornet was the obvious choice for a mid-level power like Canada that faces no serious threat to its airspace.[3] We COULD buy the pricy F35 or Eurofighter Typhoon but what would be the point? What would they do after the Alaska Raptors shot down the bombers from Siberia? Fly around feeling angry? Would the Americans politely let a few through just to give the Canadian boys a couple of kills? Here we get to the truth of the matter. The F35 is an offensive weapon not a defensive one. It is designed to defeat the air defense systems of countries we are ATTACKING. THAT is what stealth is for.  Stealth is designed for the baleful HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONS that I have spent my whole adult life watching fail and fail abysmally. ‘Security’ for us means enhanced insecurity for second and third world others. At any rate in the 1950’s Canada designed the ‘ideal’ interceptor, the Avro Arrow, and could not justify building it. Lockheed did the same thing with its F104 Starfighter and had to use naked bribery and threats to sell it Canada, Japan and Germany. The Germans were forced to use this plane in the ground attack capacity with catastrophic results. The Americans themselves tested this aircraft in Vietnam and found it basically useless. But all these duties were fulfilled already by F106’s based in Alaska so that beyond that nothing was really needed. The F22 is now the F106 and there is no reason to pretend that North America is defended from the highly speculative threat of Russian bombers by anything else.[4]  The fact that the Arrow was never built speaks volumes about the need to ‘defend’ Canadian ‘airspace: after the Arrow Canada’s NORAD duty was fulfilled by helping the US Aerospace industry unload redundant product marginal in the USAF inventory: hence we flew a string of USAF castoffs, the F104, F101 and F5.       

For this reason, let me raise the option few seem prepared to consider: let’s not buy air combat jets AT ALL! Consider this an experiment in how far the logic of disarmament can be pushed. Let me begin by admitting that this may be a non-starter politically: the CPC attack ads would write themselves if the Liberals looked ‘weak on defense’ and hence ‘unpatriotic’ or perhaps even ‘treasonous’. Plus, we have certain ‘obligations’ as members of NORAD and NATO that it might be politically awkward to withdraw from. That aside does the idea itself actually have merit? Does Canada need an air force equipped with fighter jets? After all these are a major investment and when 6 Gen designs like the British Tempest come on the market we will have to support our troops by buying the new ‘best aircraft in the world’ which will (in spite of the usual promises of economy) cost even MORE. I suggest that if we CAN get off this escalator the time is now when our current CF/18’s are aging out.  

The main issue is that fighter jets are prestige items for the modern nation state. Indeed, they are an essential part of the way the idea of sovereignty is constructed. Why does a country like Zimbabwe keep a small force of Soviet era MIGS (the Chinese J7 to be exact)? They are of little to no combat value and Zimbabwe can scarcely afford to fuel or maintain them. The reason is that like every country there is Zimbabwe has an ‘airspace’ over which it is ‘sovereign’. The nation state as traditionally conceived is founded on a notion of sovereignty that is based on the force you can exert to defend a given territory. For some nations this involves water and so they invest in ships. All nations have land and so invest in armies and all nations have air so that most of them need some version of an air force. This is true even if this air force is tiny, obsolete, and mostly sits on the ground. A nation with an airspace has to put something, ANYTHING in it to assert its claim to sovereign authority.  Where Canada is concerned the function of ‘putting things in our airspace to assert our sovereignty over it’ could be performed by unarmed patrol aircraft such as we have long possessed. Of course, someone might try to interfere with the operation of such aircraft in which case I suppose they need to be escorted. A claim of sovereignty, then, is only as good as the force with which I can back it up. Of course even this task scarcely requires 5Gen stealth as again we WANT intruders to know our aircraft are there which would cross the F35 off the list at least. Still, one might argue it requires at least something threatening and indeed threatening in a way comparable to what the other guy has. Of course, since the other guy is constantly tweaking and improving what he has so must we and we are right back into the cost spiral we are trying to see our way out of.  

What this means of course is that vast sums of money are being spent on what is essentially a symbolic value. Russia is not going to bolster any legal case it has for Arctic sovereignty by running Canadian patrol craft out of their own territory. Then too the ‘security’ in which voters invest, and which big ticket items like fighter jets ‘secure’ is also largely symbolic. Hardly any voters can specify what threats our boys in the air force are ACTUALLY supposed to ward off but whatever they are they are dark, nebulous and threatening and the absence of combat jets will instantly expose us to them. In spite of the last 30 years they do not seem to associate Canadian aircraft with ATTACKING people though that is all the plane favored by ‘patriots’, the F35, really does. 

I recall speaking with a CPC gentleman who insisted to me that ‘security’ had no price. If the F35 cost a thousand times more than it did we would still be obligated to buy it because our “troops deserve etc. etc.” I had to disagree with this good gentleman: all things have a price security included. Let’s consider the financial price first. Security for the nation state costs a bundle all told and this of course costs whatever else can be purchased for that money including, if you are Conservative, potential tax cuts! Moreover, many of the things foregone to purchase ‘national security’ would enhance the REAL day to day security of a good many people. Water and food safety may stand as just ONE example of ordinary security that may go begging to pay for ‘national’ security. Another cost is to the globe itself: every investment we make in ‘security’ helps a global arms industry that means insecurity for vast numbers of people. We create a wealthy lobby that has a vested interest in the idea that more weapons equal more security, whether those weapons are really needed to protect vital and immediate interests or simply serve the abstract notion of ‘sovereignty’ asserted against purely speculative threats. We even create a lobby that has a vested interest in waging wars. 

Does any of this increase the overall amount of ‘safety’ for the most citizens of the globe? Let’s take an example that is not airplane related: the LAV III’s Canada is so eager to sell to Saudi Arabia. Who sleeps safer at night knowing that the government of Saudi Arabia has these vehicles? Indeed, what are these vehicles for given that nobody (not even Iran) is making any imminent plans to invade Saudi Arabia? If they are for ‘internal security’ one wonders about a government that fears its own citizens so much that it is prepared to spray them with high explosive incendiary rounds from a 25mm auto-cannon. Further, the Saudi LAVS come with the option of mounting a 105 mm gun that can destroy armored vehicles or fortifications. There is no form of crowd control that needs or indeed wants such a weapon. Clearly, this crucial piece of Saudi ‘security’ is concerned with causing insecurity for the unfortunate residents of Yemen. It is designed to blast buildings with ‘terrorists’ in them or to knock out some rusty Soviet era tank a Houthi rebel has managed to get up and running. 

What I argue then is that ‘sovereignty’ and ‘security’ are largely abstract concepts to which real world ‘power’ and ‘safety’ are being sacrificed. There is no separating these concepts from the militarism that underwrites them. This is particularly true today.  Even a neutral country like Sweden, devoted only to its own defense, cannot defend itself without creating threat to others. This is because SAAB can’t sell enough Gripens to the Swedish defense forces to recoup the costs of developing such a machine. It must sell them to the Fascist government of Brazil or to the Arab Gulf states. It may even sell some to Canada where, yet again, it will be used in whatever the next ‘humanitarian intervention’ is. The Gripen is designed to defend a country the size of Sweden not the size of Canada: again, like the F35, it would be used offensively not defensively. At any rate, in the context of a globalized arms market there is really no such thing as ‘self -defense forces’.

This essay has, admittedly, only been a thought experiment in disarmament. Fighter jets would be an easy and obvious place to begin disarming a country like Canada but the author is under no delusion that this will happen this procurement cycle or even the next one. When the F35’s begin to show their age we will be considering the over-budget and years late Tempest or whatever aircraft the US enters into the 6Gen competition. Still, small to middle powers seem the easiest place to begin this process as disarming the U.S., Russia or China would be a far more protracted task involving negotiated agreements. Still, if comprehensive disarmament is ever to be an achieved fact, and this is becoming a simple fiscal imperative as well as a moral one, I suspect it is countries like Canada which will begin by setting the example for others to follow. Is this pie in the sky? Actually it is not. From the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego we have two continents worth of countries which do not threaten each other militarily in any serious way (excepting rare border skirmishes). The same holds for the European Union. Can this state of basic peace not be extended if everyone sees it is in their best interest? Stay tuned.                 

[1] The USAF is already fast tracking a new ‘6Gen’ jet perhaps in response to the fact that the F22 is a hanger queen (almost half are unavailable at any given time) and the F35 may not be everything it was cracked up to be either. 

[2] Classic designs for interceptors like the F106 or Canadian Arrow emphasize factors like speed and climb at high altitude over raw agility. The F106 had excellent kinematic properties, I’m told, because of its high wing loading and generous amount of thrust. That, however, was strictly bonus. The Arrow was NEVER going to be a dogfighter. The U.S. had to retire its early fleet of F102’s when it was found Russian aircraft could enter and leave Alaskan airspace before the F102 could get to the scene. The F35 is not fleet. It has none of the profile of an interceptor. It might be that it could fulfill this role adequately in the absence of anything else but with the F35 one is NOT paying for something ‘adequate’.    

[3] The per unit cost of the Super Hornet is fairly high but maintenance costs on such a robust aircraft would be much lower. Moreover, the Super Hornet is very competitive on the crucial metric of operational availability making it that much more cost effective.     

[4] Canada, naturally, compromised by politely relieving the USAF of its redundant F101 Voodoos which could, at least, perform the not very taxing duty of slinging a nuclear warhead in the general vicinity of approaching hostiles (in the unlikely event that was necessary). Canada, predictably, did not deploy nuclear missiles with the Voodoo rendering an already unimpressive (though relatively cheap) aircraft even less capable. Of course, as many noted at the time, neutralizing the bomber threat was strictly secondary. No interceptor can stop ballistic missiles which were then, and remain, the threat that swallows all the others.