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1269@SURTITRE = Quo Vadis?
The article by Rowan Scarborough in the 22 January issue of the Republican-leaning Washington Times stands as a beacon of clarity. With its first words, the key point is made: “Incoming Pentagon officials have already begun discussing options for killing or curtailing major weapons systems, with the Joint Strike Fighter mentioned as a possible casualty, defense officials say. The sources said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s transition team has sent 'feelers' to Capitol Hill to gauge political opposition to canceling systems that create jobs in a number of states.” Since President Bush’s arrival in town, the Washington of the Pentagon bureaucracy and of its symbiotic industry component has been paralyzed.
A European industry source in Washington observes that “no one knows what is going to happen, everyone is completely in the dark.” That comment by a non-American commentator coincides with those made by the most experienced American observers. Dale Eisman of the Virginia Pilot wrote, for example: “Grand plan for more aircraft carriers, accelerated production of stealthy new fighter planes and a mammoth piece of artillery have been quietly put away, and contractors are awaiting to see what happens next.” Everyone has in mind the “reform” of the national security structure (see our Analysis section).
The strategic review launched by DoD at the direction of the new president can be expected to have a substantial effect on the TACAIR program, the program for the modernization of American military aviation — with the Boeing A/F-18E/F, the Lockheed Martin (LM) F-22 Raptor (USAF) and the Joint Strike Fighter (Boeing and/or LM). As of the end of February 2001, it is impossible to say to what extent and in which way the strategic review will affect these programs, especially since the strategic review covers the entire gamut: structures, missions, etc. Therefore, the issue of procurement — the programs themselves — arises only as a function of the possible guidelines adopted. Every hypothesis is a possibility and none is a certainty; no one of them merits particular consideration, and all of them are too uncertain to be examined seriatim.
It is necessary to proceed differently, viz., in reverse order: to consider the programs under consideration themselves and the place they can fill in a “reformed” DoD. Their importance makes it possible to contemplate specific forecasts, even if the reform is not as fundamental as some anticipate, even if it is slower than planned, even if its direction is changed. All of which brings us right back to the JSF, since it is clearly — and by far — the most important program (at least $250 billion of the $350 billion that TACAIR is expected to cost according to current estimates). Which means that the JSF will be the program which will, depending on its own fate — good or bad — determine everything.
The evolution of TACAIR centers around the JSF, with the obvious idea that the general trend will of course be toward cutting back since the aim is to modify the structures in the direction of adaptation to the new conditions of the Post-Cold War world, entailing in particular a reduction in the Cold War structures which still endure. To that must be added the accounting factors: the need to control expenditures to the maximum, to increase effectiveness, competitiveness, etc. This orientation and the imperatives described here are leading to consideration of a simple alternative to the JSF: either the JSF passes into the background (abandoned, put on the back burner, reconfigured), or the JSF comes to the forefront (planning confirmed and even accelerated). The other TACAIR programs will evolve on the basis of the two alternative choices: privileges, expanded in the former case, weakened, in the latter case. Thus, we come to the first new observation compared to the Clinton situation: the JSF is the strategic key to the TACAIR situation in the strategic review, and the key in both directions, because it is destined either to be at the center of the new situation created by the strategic review or to become totally marginal (or even, to disappear, if it is abandoned).
The program’s importance in the analysis of the situation is nevertheless heightened compared to the situation as it existed previously. Today, the entire strategic situation of the American aerospace industry hangs on the fate of the JSF, and its direction will be quite different, depending upon what that fate is. It is from that standpoint that we shall examine the single major event to occur in the JSF program during this first part of the year — aside from its prospective fate under the strategic review: the British commitment to a supplementary phase of the program, formalized by an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) signed 17 January in Washington by Deputy Secretary of Defense Rudy de Leon and by UK Minister of State for Defence Procurement, The Right Honourable Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean — an agreement signed in extremis on 17 January, four days before the end of the Clinton Administration.
In fact, the date is important: why sign with an administration which is in its last days, for a program which everyone knows must be at the center of interest — if only of critical interest — of the new administration, and therefore a program whose fate is obviously uncertain? We are relegated to assumptions, and, depending upon which assumption one chooses, the British signature is perceived as either strategic or tactical. It is tactical if the British signed on for a program which they believe to be on its last legs in order to have a bargaining chip later. It is strategic if they believe that the JSF will ultimately be saved and want to obtain major advantages by confirming their participation. And what role is played by the UK pre-electoral domestic situation in which Blair has been strongly criticized by the Conservatives for turning his back on the special relationship with the US — a charge refuted by a commitment to the JSF? One thing seems certain: by signing with the outgoing administration, for a program which is, of all the American military programs, the “Clinton program” par excellence, the British very probably obtained unquestionable advantages. There are general reports of privileged UK access to JSF stealth technology.
In addition, the UK commitment to the JSF does not prevent a prudent assessment by them of the prospects for the JSF. At the press conference accompanying the signing ceremony, certain language employed by Baroness Symons confirmed this attitude: “Of course, we recognize that a number of key decisions remain to be taken about the JSF program. Signature of the MoU today allows the United Kingdom to take part in the selection of the prime contractor for the next phase. We also recognize, of course, that the incoming administration will wish to look at the program in parallel with many other United States programs... We are saying that at the moment, it [the JSF] has the best potential. We haven’t signed a contract, a final contract. It’s obviously the United States with an incoming administration that is going to have to consider its own position on JSF.”
The British remain skeptical. Two weeks after the inauguration of the Bush Administration, after several articles in the press (including that of Rowan Scarborough, of course) reported the launch of a DoD reform process, with a revision of program commitments in which the chances are very high that the JSF will undergo serious cutbacks, both in terms of its rhythm of development and in terms of its very existence, the British sent the Americans a letter firmly pointing out their commitment to cooperate in the JSF and their concerns over the rumors of possible abandonment of the program.
But fundamentally, the situation is well understood: the British are, like the others (the three military services participating in the program; Boeing and LM, on the industry side, etc.); they are waiting for the final verdict of the strategic review ordered by Rumsfeld in the Pentagon.
Continuing our reasoning, let us consider the only assumption under which the JSF program maintains its current importance (in the converse case, the situation defies analysis, given the multitude of possibilities). The assumption to be considered then becomes exploring the consequences of the British position in the current strategic review context, maintaining the JSF in its entirety, and at the planned production rhythm (or perhaps even accelerated). This means that the JSF program becomes the Pentagon’s central strategic program. Is that outcome — the most favorable the British can hope for — really such a boon for them? We think not.
With the strategic review — and if the JSF comes out of it relatively intact (a big if) — the program will nevertheless emerge fundamentally transformed. This advanced technology program will have acquired a substantial political dimension. It is around that axis that the entire military policy of the United States will be structured for this type of weapon system, i.e. the organization of industrial and politico-military policy concerning military programs; beyond that, because of the aircraft’s export prospects, the program will become a means of exerting influence and pressure for asserting the power of the US in its worldwide politico-military relations. The role of the JSF will be far more important than that played by the F-16, for example. According to Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, writing in January 2000: “It could be said that JSF is as much a national industrial strategy as it is a fighter program.” In the event that the JSF program is rescued by the strategic review, things can be expected to go even further, and the JSF would become a national politico-military strategy — the only acceptable one. In the event that the strategic review affirms the role of the JSF, that program will become the most powerful weapon in the Pentagon arsenal for exerting pressure on all of the Pentagon’s actual and potential customer countries throughout the world. The Americans can be expected to exercise great pains to insure that control of the program, from start to finish, is kept tightly in Pentagon hands. Regardless of any highly-touted international cooperation, regardless of any British involvement, the JSF will be — more than it was ever envisaged that it would be — 100% American. That is a significant change compared to what the Clinton Administration had in mind for it — in any event, officially.
It is obviously in this regard that the validity of the British choice must be examined, even under the best-case scenario for the JSF program. Such a strategic-review outcome for the JSF, with that giant program — having become 100% American — crowned the victor, will serve only American strategy. For the British, that has great significance. It means that instead of being European partners of an international program developed by the United States, the British will be a mere European appendage, with no real importance (150 aircraft out of a planned production of 6,000 units), in a program that is 100% American.
By its very nature, once this program becomes America’s sole politico-military strategy, it will seek the systematic destruction of every competitor. In order to achieve this, we can expect American pressures to be unrelenting, since for the first time they will serve a sole and consistent purpose (there will be but a single fighter aircraft in the US itself). The British will be unable to do otherwise than to submit. And one of the main pressures will, of course, be to “kill” the Eurofighter as a competitor for export markets. Even if the two aircraft differ operationally, the vastness of the field encompassed by the JSF will very quickly dispose of that objection. Representatives of Lockheed Martin in Greece have already suggested to the Greek government that its planned Eurofighter order at $80 million a copy should be dropped in favor of an order for the JSF at $30-$35 million a copy. So much for the competition. In other words, the British, once they are fully on board the JSF program, will have to join in destroying the chances of the Eurofighter, their own fighter aircraft, on export markets. So just how sound a policy is the choice of the JSF?
According to the same Aboulafia article quoted earlier: “The JSF could simply do to the European military industry what the F-16 almost did: destroy it.” The destruction of European military industry by the JSF under the assumption of that program’s surviving the strategic review victoriously is in fact a possibility; but that possibility will have been preceded by a certainty: the destruction of Britain’s military industry by the same JSF. Is that not a bit of a high price for the British to pay in order to have privileged access to JSF stealth technology?
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