“Billions of Dollars Wasted”: Trump’s team hates F-35, Pentagon loves it

Friday, December 20, Lockheed Martin announced that it had signed an agreement with the US Department of Defense (DoD) for full-rate production of lot 18 of the Air Force’s F-35A, the Marine Corps’ F-35B and the Navy’s F-35C variants of the F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation warplane.

In addition to the American order, thirty-nine F-35As and seven F-35Bs will be sent to US allies, thanks to concurrent foreign military sales agreements. Interestingly, The Defense Post reports that “Fully disclosed program partners will receive 15 F-35As and one F-35B aircraft.” Production of batch 18 is expected to end in June 2027.

This is an interesting development considering how much Lockheed’s F-35 program has fallen into controversy since it was first revealed in 2006 (the program had been under development since at least 1995).

Three key points about the F-35 program

First, the F-35 has struggled to meet its agreed timelines, and throughout the program’s twenty-year run, Lockheed has rarely delivered the amount of F-35 without going beyond its allocated budget.

Second, the rapid development and deployment of cheaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has called into question the effectiveness of paying for the infamous F-35. And this second point is central since the incoming president, Donald J. Trump, is one month away from taking office. Trump takes advice from tech leaders such as Elon Musk and the biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamyboth of whom have expressed deep skepticism about the utility of this manned, fifth-generation warplane.

Those around Trump believe that unmanned systems are superior and will only become more essential to the modern battlefield, especially in light of advances in things like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and quantum computing. When all is said and done, the F-35 program is expected cost American taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars during their lifetime. Could that money have been better spent on unmanned autonomous or semi-autonomous systems?

Oh, and Trump himself has long been a critic of the F-35 program.

On December 12, 2016, when he moved to become president for the first time, Trump was famous tweeted that “the F-35 program and costs are out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) procurement after January 20.”

So the Pentagon is clearly pushing through what could end up being its final tranche of purchases for the F-35 (at least until Trump and his team of advisers get a good look under the hood of the program, which many believe is to be triggered control).

Third, there is still some debate in the US defense aviation community as to whether the F-35 or the F-22A Raptor was the right aircraft for the US government to favor. Sure the F-35 is a multi-role warplane (meaning it does both air-to-air combat as well as air-to-ground attack and surveillance missions) whereas the F-22 is just an air superiority fighter .

Still, in an era of renewed great power competition, the F-22 may be more important than the F-35 (at least for the Air Force). Further, the F-22 is clear more advanced than the F-35.

Is the F-35 itself the best fifth generation bird?

Key allies, such as Britain and Israel, are prevented from buying the F-22 not only because the production line was canceled prematurely, but because the F-22 contains such supposedly advanced technologies that if shared even with US allies it would weaken United States national security.

If there were no real differences technologically, why does the Pentagon and Congress still refuse to make the F-22 a exportable program whereas the F-35 is an exportable system?

Nevertheless, the Pentagon will get 48 F-35As for the Air Force, sixteen F-35Bs and five F-35Cs for the Marines, and the Navy will get fourteen F-35Cs. Most of the work for Lockheed will take place in California and Texas. After this tranche, however, Trump and his team may push to cancel the program.

Losing the F-35 but getting a sixth-generation aircraft?

What’s more, the Air Force seems dead set on getting its sixth generation Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program to replace the fifth generation birds they have. The navy is also keen on getting its sixth generation F/A-XX aircraft.

Both services are understandably facing stiff opposition from a Congress increasingly skeptical of investing piles of tax dollars on sixth-generation warplanes that will only marginally improve the capabilities of the current fleet of fifth-generation warplanes in service to both navies and the Air Force.

But should the incoming twenty-seventh president follow through on his threats to cancel or seriously slow future production of the F-35, it could free up the Air Force and/or Navy to reinvest in their respective sixth-generation aircraft. One thing is clear, however, this could be the last tranche of the F-35 until the incoming Trump administration can figure out what exactly it is looking to do.

Brandon J. Weicherta Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, regularly consults with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in several publications, including the Washington Times, The American Spectator, and the National Interest. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His latest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

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