How to Kill the Joint Strike Fighter

There are now very few options for Gates or Congress. Anything done will result in greater costs in the long run. They have made their bed and now they are stuck with having to sleep with doo-doo between the sheets. —        US congressional staff member quoted in Colin Clark, “Hill Reacts to F-​​35 IOC Shift,” DoD Buzz, 22 February 2010. 

Back in February, we all got to watch Congressman Todd Akin of Missouri, who represents the area around the factory that makes the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, rather lecture US Defense Secretary Bob Gates about the difference between his favorite plane and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Akin was particularly miffed that the secretary wouldn’t commit to another multiyear contract for Super Hornets, which would lower the cost per aircraft (according to Gates) by roughly six percent. As the congressman’s press release put it, “the Super Hornet [has] an active production line, and is dramatically cheaper than the JSF, which may not deliver anywhere close to on time.” 

Indeed, as Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz acknowledged on 18 February, the JSF program is breaching its Nunn-McCurdy spending limit. Moreover, it’s now not just hugely over budget, but another thirteen months behind schedule. As Defense News reported, the plane's system design and development will now run through at least 2015, two years after the US Air Force had planned to begin operating its F-35As. 

Having doubled down on his bet, but without all the information he should have gotten, Gates is understandably torqued. The secretary does have a reputation for results through righteous indignation: just witness the MRAP phenomenon. Thus did Bill Sweetman of Aviation Week cite Voltaire’s Candide in describing the defense secretary’s firing the JSF’s program manager, Major General of Marines David Heinz: dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres. It is true, as Stephen Trimble of Flight Global pointed out, that Lockheed Martin’s program manager is still in place. But while “Dan Crowley doesn’t work for the secretary of defense,” as General Schwartz told him, “he’s short $600 million. That ain’t trivial.” 

Let’s take this a stage further. Would it be possible not just to shoot a general or a program manager, but rather, the whole program? The challenges appear overwhelmingly huge. In the United States, the leadership of the USAF and the USMC see no clear alternative to simply continuing to pour whatever money they must into the program. (The Navy is an exception, and I’ll get to that below.) But the US has a further problem: the airplane is not just joint, it’s international. Like the International Space Station, the JSF is still stumbling along in part because it’s too international to deorbit. 

Those partner countries that have signed up for the program do have alternatives, and that points to the list of parties with a commercial or political interest in termination. Even Lockheed Martin, though, should think long and hard about how its competitors might work this issue. Boeing could stand the most to gain, and has a particular interest in killing the F-35C, the tailhook version which competes for the Navy’s funding with the F/A-18E/F—an airplane for which the Navy has shown increased affection of late. Close behind though would stand Saab, Dassault, and EADS (as the one shareholder in Eurofighter GmbH with little interest in the JSF program). These three European companies have an interest in killing the F-35A, the conventional land-based version, as Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Canada, Turkey, and Australia would all open up as marketing targets (Belgium and even Portugal might eventually make that list as well). Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and Alenia are perhaps of split opinions, in that all are major subcontractors to Lockheed Martin for the F-35, but that each has interests in the X-47B or Eurofighter programs, which would stand to gain from the F-35’s loss. In short, most of the combat aircraft industry would arguably like to kill this thing, and the rest is at best dispassionate. 

So, whether as an ambition or a red-teaming exercise, just how would one go about trying to kill the JSF? There is a host of arguments to make to every government involved today, and there are two fronts on which to press:

1. Fracture international expectation
2. Skip that generation of weapons

These points cover what the JSF isn’t today, and won’t be in the future, so they’re worth considering in sequence. 

FRACTURING INTERNATIONAL EXPECTATION 

The first move, that is, may be best made overseas. If more than one participating state could be pulled off its commitment to JSF purchases, particularly before the JSF enters full-rate production, then the United States government’s commitment to see the program through for its partners could abate. The most tempting targets could be those countries with commitments both to recapitalize military equipment and for collective security activities overseas: money for troop carriers that certainly will be used is probably more emergent than that for fighter aircraft that probably won’t. And almost any alternative the the JSF—Eurofighter, Gripen, Rafale, Super Hornet, even Lockheed’s own F-16 Block 60—offers budgetary certainty that the JSF program cannot deliver. 

This gets to the first argument against the program, and in almost any country in the program (the possible exception is Australia). Today’s budgetary madness has to stop. It is almost amusing when Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s procurement chief, says that military spending will keep on rising for the foreseeable future. It is slightly more reassuring when Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale admits that Pentagon budgets will drop, but less so when he claims that spending for the F-35 will be effectively ring-fenced. More realistically, any bipartisan commission for balancing the federal budget, as announced just last month, will not be able to avoid recommending military spending cuts, and the JSF is simply the unavoidably biggest part of the investment accounts. Thus, the response to any Nunn-McCurdy breach shouldn’t be another reach for the rubber stamp. [1] 

In light of the aforementioned misfortunes with the program, some bet-hedging in the US is already under way. As Andrea Shalal-Esa of Reuters wrote back in January, the draft Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2011 requests another 12 EA-18Gs and 22 F/A-18E/Fs for not quite $3 billion. That would bring total orders of -18s, both Growlers and Super Hornets, to 304 aircraft, at an average cost of about $86 million each. 

 This gets to the second argument against the program, and one which Boeing has been cautiously advancing so far. The JSF is just not militarily vital. Several years ago, I asked the head of strategy at a European aircraft manufacturer why his company had no obvious plans for a fighter beyond the current model. “All our customers,” he said, “have enough fighters for chasing Cessnas for the next fifty years.” The next generation of unmanned strike aircraft is alluring, but the air sovereignty mission is just not so compelling today. For frankly, there’s just no threat anywhere that calls for such a huge fleet of land-based fighter aircraft. 

 Consider the United States, just to start. The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps together have not just the most powerful air fleet in the world, but also the largest in number of jet-powered combat aircraft. The next largest armadas is probably Russia’s, with almost 2200 aircraft. Even if Russia were a plausible opponent, the rest of NATO has its air force outnumbered even without the US on board. And given Russia’s long-term finances and demographics, that number will be shrinking. China’s air fleet is of comparable size—read, smaller than America’s—but it’s also remarkably unimpressive. China’s most numerous jet fighter is a copy of the MiG-21. Then again, one doesn’t fight the Chinese without necessarily having either the Japanese or the Taiwanese—and their significant air forces—on board. After that, the ranks thin out fast. Sidestepping India (another implausible opponent), the next largest air force is North Korea’s: more than 600 aircraft on paper, but not so many that are flyable or fueled. Besides, South Korea has over 500 aircraft, and of far better quality in men and materiel. Iran? Not half that many flyable machines. 

Worst of all, the F-35 definitely fails to address the biggest deficiency in combat aviation today: electronic warfare. There’s no plan yet for an EF-35, and the idea of mating jamming pods to a stealthy airframe could be a little strange. Besides, as Shalal-Esa of Reuters noted, the FY11 budget has more EF-18G Growlers because “military commanders considered them an urgent need.” The JSF? Not so much. 

It’s notable that this anxiousness over flight line numbers doesn’t quite get called a gap. Not so with naval fighters, for naval aviation is far more important than land-based aviation. Go back, for the moment, to the point about China. If one does fight the Chinese, comparatively short-ranged land-based fighters like the F-35A won’t be of much help. Where would they fly from? Taiwan is over 1400 nautical miles from Guam. Worse, as a group of researchers at RAND noted in 2001,

         the current USAF base at Kadena [on Okinawa] is nearly 500 nautical miles away from the Strait. As a result, F-15 or F-16 fighters operating from that base would probably need to maintain combat air patrol (CAP) orbits near Taiwan, since they could not launch and transit in response to warnings of a Chinese air attack headed for Taiwan. This is in contrast to, say, a carrier stationed 50 nautical miles off Taiwan’s east coast, whose aircraft would need to fly only about 175 nm to get to the centerline and could therefore be more responsive to incoming raids.

         Kadena may also suffer from limitations in its ability to support high-tempo operations by a large force of combat aircraft. The base currently hosts two squadrons totaling 48 F-15C fighters, a special operations group, an air refueling squadron, a reconnaissance squadron, an AWACS squadron, and a search-and-rescue squadron. In addition, it is an important transit point for airlift activity in the Western Pacific. Kadena is, in other words, a busy place even day to day, and it is not clear how many more aircraft could be operated out of the base under combat conditions. [2] 

Change the phase to “two squadrons totaling 48 F-22 fighters,” and the result isn’t much different vis-à-vis the F-35A. That airfield is also an easy target for a SCUD-type missile, as the nearest Chinese territory is only 450 nautical miles away. So, until the American government develops the intestinal fortitude needed to actually offer the Taiwanese a USAF fighter wing on its home soil, there’s no point in talking about the utility of the F-35A against China. 

Of course, the F-35C—the tailhook shipboard version—could be very helpful, but that aircraft is said to have significant structural problems at this late stage in the game. Still, as the Royal Navy and the US Marines know, there is more than one way to send fighter aircraft to sea. It may be useful for Lockheed’s opponents to concede the value of the F-35B as a short takeoff, vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft. If crassly, it’s the one variant that directly offends neither the American (Boeing) nor European (Saab, Dassault, EADS) branches of any anti-Lockheed coalition. Indeed, as an Anglo-Italian-American airplane, it provides plenty of work to BAE Systems and Alenia. Encouraging the DoD and the MoD to pour their money into that corner could lessen enthusiasm for the F-35A, which is the least essential airplane for the Americans, and the only one that anyone outside those three countries wants. 

What everyone wants, though, is not just aircraft, but that which the JSF program explicitly denies. The F-35 offers no operational sovereignty to overseas customers. All three European alternatives the JSF—Eurofighter, Rafale, and Gripen—come with access to software codes that the US government steadfastly refuses to provide. Without those, the F-35 is not locally upgradeable.Worse, the JSF program expects everyone’s aircraft to fly to Texas for servicing, which means that it’s not locally maintainable either.

SKIPPING THAT GENERATION OF WEAPONS 

The whole situation is just plain crazy for customers, and particularly in the long run. Lockheed’s unflinching acceptance of the government’s withholding of funds is quite telling here. The JSF, after all, was supposed to put everyone but Lockheed and Sukhoi out of the fighter aircraft business. Six hundred million dollars is a small price to pay for that. This gets to the possibility, as presidential candidate George W. Bush spoke in September 1999, of skipping the generation of weapons of which the F-35 is a part. That time may seem a world away now, but as noted above, what hasn’t increased is potential enemies fighter aircraft fleets. If there are near-peer challengers out there, they lie over a decade away. There’s some safety, for now at least, in another ten year rule. 

In this context, the case against the JSF rests not just with its high costs, faltering schedule, and centralized control, but with what would be possible if a fraction of the money freed up. If the F-35A won’t be greatly helpful against the Chinese, then the Pentagon ought to get working on what would be. As they have gotten squeezed out of manned combat jet purchases around the world, Northrop and Boeing have turned towards pushing the envelope in the unmanned field. From here, striving for breakthrough performance with modest technical risk, but grounded in the existing asset base, assails the investment of so much money in Lockheed’s plane. Could an F-18F be equipped to control a wingman X-47B? Boeing and Northrop may find common ground to pursue such a demonstration. The Navy Department would have its own reasons for supporting such a project, as it would point to a future beyond the Super Hornet, but cost-effectively bridged by it. 

Northrop Grumman may not be the only partner in this enterprise. Specifically, we should ask whether Boeing ought to cooperate in this matter with Saab. Boeing, for the immediate future, doesn’t have a stake in anything but the -18 program. The Gripen and the Super Hornet could be reasonable cousins in respect of marketing, in that they are both pitched as affordable aircraft, well down the learning curve of production, that have proven upgradeable over time. Further, both companies have big problems with the F-35. Saab is competing against a single-engine machine whose program has been holding forth vast promises of (yet mostly unrealized) offset business for years. Boeing is competing for the future of its whole combat aircraft franchise. Perhaps critically, Saab and Boeing are arguably, on the international market, the least rivalrous of all the possible pairs. It’s a single engine versus multi-engine thing. 

For companies like Boeing, there is a political angle here as well. Todd Akin may merely be doing his Missourian duty in boosting Boeing, but it’s important to note that he’s also a Republican. Now that Barack Obama has permanently sundered the Democratic party’s illusions of being more fiscally responsible than the GOP, it’s worth wondering how Republican candidates might approach the question of military spending in not just 2010, but 2012. They can repeat the usual mantras, or they can actually argue for across the board cuts in all federal spending, including that for entitlements and the armed forces. Like the Tories today in the UK, preparing for the general election late this year, they can browbeat the government of the day on its management of military more than its commitment to it. They can argue for spending less money, but spending it smarter. And that’s a case that any politician can make with a straight face. 

 NOTES 

1.        See Jim Cooper and Russell Rumbaugh, “Real Acquisition Reform,” Joint Forces Quarterly, 4th quarter 2009. 

2.        Zalmay Khalilzad et al., The United States and Asia: Toward a New U.S. Strategy and Force Posture, RAND, 2001, pp. 70–71.

Comments

[John S]

Very well written argument, James, but I have one very minor nit to pick. You wrote:

"Boeing, for the immediate future, doesn’t have a stake in anything but the -18 program."

Lest we forget about the F-15E, it's international flavors such as the F-15K and F-15SG, and Boeing's dabbling in "stealth-lite" with the F-15 Silent Eagle.

[James Hasik]

John S.,

Thanks. This is a very good point, and one that I simply overlooked. In the balance, I think that the effect is reinforcing: whatever Boeing is selling, -15s or -18s, the sales would be hugely facilitated by the absence of the -35.

[Michael]

If not F-35, what are you going to have to replace all those hundreds of F-16's coming off-line within the next decade? They have been in heavy use through the current wars, which is one of the reasons they are accumulating all those hours. You need a replacement. A UCAV is not going to be available in this role within such a short period of time.

[James Hasik]

MIchael, I think that a company like Boeing, abetted by outfits like GA, could assert that the numbers will be made up with those hundreds of Reapers that are programmed. As Bob Gates put it recently, the MQ-9 flies three times as far as the F-16 and stays on station five times as long. It's not remotely the same sort of airplane, but that would be the point for what's not remotely the same kind of war. But that's just the pitch they'd make.

More generally, I think that we should be careful not to assume what we're trying to prove. As I suggest with the tract on combat aircraft numbers around the world, and the remoteness of China and Taiwan from US-controlled airfields, one can argue that all those F-16s are not so useful right now.

[Michael J]

In regards to the argument concerning the distance to Taiwan and China one could argue that it would make sense to greatly increase the number of the B-1b bomber maybe in a new stealthy fixed wing version at no more than 500 million dollar/plane replacing aircraft carrier groups, hundreds of F-35s and Japanese airbases. For 100 billion dollars we would be able to add 200 such airplanes to the already existing 68 old B-1bs. The net savings would be huge without any loss of strategic advantage. As the B-1b could release its missiles 500 miles away from its targets, it would be difficult to defeat even by T-50s.