There have been a couple stories in the media lately about the possible sale of F-22s to Japan. The story goes something like this: “China has started developing more advanced fighter jets in a bid to match the state-of-the-art F-22 U.S. combat aircraft, sparking a regional arms race . . . Taiwan plans to acquire 60 F-16 C/Ds from the United States [those plans are currently “frozen“] while Japan is prepared to buy a number of F-22s . . . ” The F-22 is hands-down the most advanced fighter in the world, despite a few early problems the Air Force is still working out. But the plane is so expensive, and the technology so sensitive, that exporting it was never seriously considered. However, if they were to be sold, Japan, with its massive defense budget, its close proximity to China, Russia, and North Korea, and its cozy relationship with the United States, is, in the opinion of Loren Thompson, “the only plausible recipient.” Thompson said the sale was still “pure speculation,” but with the F-22 scheduled for it’s first overseas deployment to Japan’s Kadena Air Base in just a few days, the Japanese will have a chance to see the plane up-close for the first time. There are a number of reasons why the Japanese would be interested in purchasing the aircraft according to Thompson. Foremost among them, according to a Pentagon study Thompson had seen, it would cost the Chinese approximately $300 billion to build an air defense network capable of thwarting the stealthy, supersonic fighter. At that price, the F-22 would serve the Japanese as a very “significant deterrent.” Furthermore, Thompson said that while only Russia, and to a far lesser extent China, are capable of fielding a fighter that would be competitive with the F-22, the threat from North Korea might lead to a number of scenarios where a stealthy, supersonic aircraft would be of great value to the Japanese. As far as the risk of such sensitive technology falling into the wrong hands or being used against us, Thompson said it would be “almost unimaginable” for Japan to pose that kind of threat, now or in the future. The rumored sale would also seem, on the surface at least, to offer the the U.S. Air Force an opportunity to defray the enormous costs of the program by increasing the number of units produced–sort of a scaled-down JSF program. Alas, Thompson says the effect on the unit cost of the F-22 would be insignificant. Still, it would be a boon for Lockheed Martin, the lead-contractor on the project, and it would also have salutary effects on the balance of power in the Pacific–a “stabilizing influence” in the words of Thompson. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to hold out on selling the F-22 then, but one wonders if the threat of selling it couldn’t provide the Bush administration with an additional lever in dealings with both China and North Korea–perhaps that’s the reason for all the renewed speculation. (You can read a recent piece by Loren Thompson on the “death of U.S. air power” here.)
Tora? Tora? Tora?
