Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
The adage says to “be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.” That may be especially true in a war setting, where each action can have an unexpected consequence.
Consider the ongoing fighting in Ukraine. To roll back the Russian invasion that started almost two years ago, Ukraine’s government is asking the West in general and the United States in particular to supply it with weapons and ammunition. But perhaps it shouldn’t want all the weapons it is told to ask for. “President Volodymyr Zelensky should ask not just for F-16s but, by a date certain, F-35s,” Wall Street Journal Columnist Holman Jenkins wrote in November of this year. “Biden should supply them.”
Well, perhaps not if Biden wants Ukraine to prevail.
Obviously, Biden certainly wants Ukraine to prevail and has said so many times. However, the point is that the F-35 probably isn’t the way to deliver victory. The F-35 program is now older than many military recruits, and it does not deliver value for the money invested in it.
That seems odd. The F-35 sounds as if it would be a formidable weapon. It was certainly designed to be one. “The F-35 was billed as a fighter jet that could do almost everything the U.S. military desired, serving the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy – and even Britain’s Royal Air Force and Royal Navy – all in one aircraft design,” writes Professor Michael Hughes. “It’s supposed to replace and improve upon several current – and aging – aircraft types with widely different missions.”
Yet instead of replacing older systems, the failures of the F-35 are forcing the military to extend the lifespan of many older weapons. “As the F-35 program has encountered challenges and delays, the military services have reacted by developing and implementing contingency plans to modernize and extend the lives of some older tactical aircraft,” a GAO report last year found. “For example, over the last decade, the Air Force and Navy have funded service life extension programs for F-16s and F/A-18 A-Ds—both originally expected to be replaced by F-35—to address fatigue of structural components and keep the aircraft capable and in operation.”
The F-35 also falls short of another plane it was supposed to replace, the A-10, which is primarily used to support ground troops. The Project on Government Oversight obtained a heavily redacted version of an Air Force report comparing the two planes. “From what can be read in the report, a picture emerges of the F-35A’s shortcomings in the attack role,” POGO reported. “It’s clear from the context of the report that it takes more F-35 sorties than A-10 sorties to attack the same number of targets.” That is to say, the F-35 isn’t good enough at close air troop support, the type of mission it would be expected to undertake in Ukraine.
It would also be difficult for the Ukrainians to keep the F-35 in the air. In fact, even the U.S. military struggles to do so.
A GAO report last year cites many problems, including a lack of spare parts, a lack of maintenance equipment, and ground crews that don’t have the skills and knowledge they need to maintain the aircraft. That is why there aren’t as many F-35s as there are supposed to be at this point. “The F-35 — which costs about $100 million apiece — still hasn’t been approved for full-rate production and remains in limited procurement,” as Business Insider explains.
If they hope to win, the Ukrainians should probably ask for older, more effective weapons rather than F-35s. Meanwhile, our military should move on from this failed program. A recent GAO report says the “DOD and the Military Services Need to Reassess the Future Sustainment Strategy” of the F-35. Assess, by all means, but also be prepared to replace: If the F-35 cannot be fixed, it should be replaced with more effective weapons.
It is finally the time to either fix the F-35 program or ground it. Grounding would save taxpayers billions and that should be on the table if the program can’t become more effective. The U.S. government is constantly debating appropriations measures and maybe it is time to study the F-35 program to see if grounding it provides some savings to overstretched taxpayers.
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