Foreign Policy Series

FOREIGN POLICY SERIES October 2010 Pilot Error Why the F-35 stealth fighter is wrong for Canada By Steven Staples Main findings On July 16, 2010, the Harper government announced that it intends to purchase 65 F-35 aircraft to replace 1. Canada does not need the F-35 stealth fighter either Canada’s CF-18 fleet, beginning in 2016.1 This decision for North American/domestic roles or for expeditionary is fundamentally flawed. roles. The F-35 is a “fifth generation,” multi-role fighter- 2. The Canadian government should not proceed with bomber equipped with “stealth” technology that is the planned procurement of the F-35. being designed and built by the U.S. arms industry giant Lockheed Martin. The United States will be the 3. Instead, Canada should— major buyer of the F-35, with versions of the aircraft acquired by the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine a) curtail the expeditionary role for Canadian fighter Corps. It is expected that the United Kingdom, aircraft; Australia, Israel, and a number of other U.S. allies will b) stretch the life of Canada’s existing CF-18 fleet also purchase the aircraft. by restricting the aircraft to the North American/ domestic air surveillance and control role; The Canadian government intends to award a sole- source contract (i.e., without a competition among c) investigate the acquisition of the next generation possible alternative aircraft) to Lockheed Martin for the of unarmed long-range, long-endurance pilotless purchase of the aircraft. According to the government, aircraft; and this approach will have the benefit of locking in the d) use the money saved by the above measures to purchase price of the aircraft at about $9 billion, contribute to Canadian and global security in more avoiding the possibility of future price increases. effective ways. Contracts for support/maintenance work, however, which could cost another $7 billion, would remain to be negotiated later.2 The total cost of the acquisition is thus estimated to be approximately $16 billion, not including the actual costs of operating the fleet. In fact, the cost could run even higher. Other estimates suggest that total life-cycle maintenance costs could run as high as $21 billion, for a total cost of some $30 billion.3 By committing Canada to the F-35, the government has put Lockheed Martin in an extremely strong bargaining 2. Participation in expeditionary operations, potentially position in future negotiations over maintenance costs. including air-to-air combat, precision guided munition/ Canada will need support for the aircraft, and it will bomb delivery, and close air support of forces on the have no option as to the source of this support. It will ground. have to contract with Lockheed Martin regardless of the ultimate cost of that support. It may well have been Canadian/North American roles Lockheed Martin’s strategy to offer an apparently “low” purchase price to Canada with the intent of recouping The surveillance and control of Canadian and North the difference through higher support costs once American airspace entails the identification and control Canada had committed itself to the aircraft. of both civilian and military aircraft in or approaching North America. The civilian air traffic control system is The sole-source nature of the contract and its expected sufficient to handle routine aircraft identification and cost have been widely — and appropriately —criticized. control, but that system relies on the co-operation of One of the most prominent critics has been the the aircraft being monitored (communication with air Liberal Party, which has stated that it intends to put traffic control, operation of transponders, etc.). Fighter the purchase on hold pending a review of military aircraft are required to visually identify and if necessary procurement if it wins the next election.4 use force against unknown or unco-operative, potentially hostile aircraft such as bombers, hijacked Several other aircraft have been suggested as civilian aircraft, and smuggler aircraft. possible contenders for the contract if it is opened to competition. Such aircraft include the Super Hornet, Prior to the 9/11 attacks, civilian aircraft were not an enlarged and modernized version of the F-18 considered to be a high priority for air defence fighter that Canada currently operates (the CF-18); the operations. Indeed, some experts claimed that NORAD Strike Eagle, a modernized F-15 fighter; the Gripen, operations were no longer important to the United a Swedish fighter; the Rafale, a French fighter; the States and that the organization would be disbanded Eurofighter Typhoon, which is being produced by a unless Canada agreed to participate in joint ballistic European consortium and currently being procured missile defence operations. This proved to be a by several NATO allies; and even Russian and Chinese short-sighted view. The identification and control of aircraft. Some of these aircraft could be worth civilian aircraft has now assumed great importance in investigating for Canada as it is likely that a number Canadian and U.S. defence planning. of them would be able to perform the roles currently performed by the CF-18 at lower cost than the F-35. The immediate reaction of defence planners was to adapt the air defence organization originally However, there is a broader question that needs to be established to deal with Russian bombers to deal asked about the F-35 procurement. Does Canada really with civilian aircraft threats. The requirements of the need an aircraft with such capabilities? Do the roles two kinds of operation are similar, but they are not currently assigned to the CF-18 reflect Canada’s true identical. Bomber training flights are normally detected security requirements? These questions have received many hours or even days (through their staging much less attention. operations at forward bases) before their approach to North American airspace; and if a training flight is not Current CF-18 roles intercepted through some failure in the system, the consequences are minimal as no actual hostile action The CF-18 is currently assigned two major roles in is intended during these flights (an actual attack would Canadian defence planning: be different, but that would imply nuclear war between Russia and the United States, during which attempts 1. The surveillance and control of Canadian and North at air defence would be irrelevant in any case since the American airspace, in co-operation with U.S. forces primary delivery vehicle would be intercontinental and through the North American Aerospace Defence submarine-launched ballistic missiles). In the case of a Command (NORAD); and hijacked civilian flight, by contrast, little or no advance warning can be expected, and, while the likelihood of such attacks may well be lower than feared, the 2 consequences of failing to make an intercept could be generation of bomber, but nuclear force procurement very high. announcements are frequently made in Russia and rarely acted on; it remains to be seen when or even If interceptor aircraft are to play a role in responding whether such an aircraft will be built.5 A number of to such attacks, however, it is important that they be maritime reconnaissance variants of the Bear are also in the right place at the right time. Large numbers of still in service; these aircraft are sometimes detected aircraft are not needed in one place at any one time off the East Coast, but they pose no more threat to for this purpose, but the ability to be at multiple, for Canada than an Aurora maritime patrol aircraft would the most part unpredictable, locations in Canada or pose to Russia. the surrounding airspace at very short notice would be highly desirable. This implies an aircraft based near Russia continues to conduct occasional bomber cities or that can be routinely operated away from its training and reconnaissance flights near North main bases, that can fly long ranges at high speeds, American airspace. Some of these flights enter the and that can also fly at low speed in order to perform Canadian Air Defence Identification Zone (CADIZ) near intercept and escort procedures on potentially very the Beaufort Sea in the North and near Newfoundland slow-flying aircraft. and Labrador,6 but none enter Canadian sovereign airspace.7 During the Cold War, it was considered Neither current nor future fighter aircraft such as the desirable that Canadian aircraft demonstrate the ability F-35 are especially well suited to these requirements. to intercept these bombers, not because it was feared Such aircraft are highly capable in air-to-air combat that they might attempt to enter Canadian airspace in against other advanced fighters; they can drop normal peacetime, and not because air defence would precision-guided weapons from high altitude, and, be useful during an all-out nuclear war, but because it if they have “stealth” capabilities, they are difficult was feared that the Soviets might attempt to pressure to detect on radar, but none of these capabilities is Canada (and the United States) by flying bombers into required to intercept and if necessary shoot down an North American airspace during a major global crisis airliner. Furthermore, it is too expensive to procure or conventional war if there were no air defence forces large numbers of them, and it is costly to routinely to stop them. Presumably this far-fetched scenario, operate them away from their main bases. dubbed “Bears over Winnipeg,” or some modern variant involving bombers or reconnaissance aircraft Aircraft can be pre-positioned to deal with situations flying into Canadian airspace with impunity if we aren’t where a higher risk is anticipated (such as during there to stop them, is still the major justification for the recent G8/G20 summits), but for the most part conducting the intercepts.

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