Shadows Lengthen for the F-22 Raptor

The debate in Washington over whether or not to continue funding the F-22 jet fighter has reached a culmination point. The Pentagon and the White House remain adamant that it is time to pull the plug on the expensive aircraft program despite the arguments made by some for the production line to remain open and for the U.S. to procure more of these air superiority fighters for the U.S. Air Force. President Obama has made it clear that any bill containing further funding for the F-22 will receive a veto, marking it dead upon arrival.

Congress finally seems to have pulled the plug on the F-22. On July 30th, the House of Representatives approved an amendment removing a line from the FY10 Defense spending bill calling for a $369 million down payment on an additional twelve F-22s that would fall in FY11. The vote follows one made by the Senate on July 21^st, hence sounding the death knell for a program that has increasingly served as a hot-button political issue.

The F-22 Raptor program extends back to the Cold War-era when the Air Force sought an advanced, air superiority fighter to counter future Soviet aircraft. The plan was for the F-22 to emerge as the successor to the F-15 Eagle; the other combat aircraft in the Pentagon pipeline, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, represents the eventual replacement for the multirole F-16 Falcon. Both of these new-generation fighters are designed with ‘stealth’, or low-observable, technology that allows the plane to remain undetected by radar and other methods of identification.

Today the F-22 is considered by many to be the most advanced combat aircraft in the world. Under the present budgetary plans the Air Force fleet is set to reach 187 Raptors, yet Air Force officials insist they need a minimum of 381. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates is determined to halt the program and shift the military procurement focus towards equipment needed for the wars being fought today. The Pentagon leadership is betting that a conventional air war remains a distant possibility and that the counter-insurgency efforts such as the one U.S. military is currently undertaking will be the mission-type for the near future. With this in mind they see a large fleet of pricey aerial dogfighters as an accessory that provides little added benefit to American forces facing improvised explosive devices and insurgent guerrillas with no air elements of their own.

The program’s proponents argue that while this is true, the nation can ill-afford not to take into account tomorrow’s threats and note that the high unit cost of the plane is partially due to so few having been ordered. But Pentagon officials are confronting the hard truth that hanging on to one expensive program cuts into the funding for others. In other words, more F-22s means less invested towards other requirements such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and transport aircraft. And while production for the F-22 will be drawn to a close under Pentagon plans, large orders of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters should ease the concerns of those who fret over relinquishing control of the skies to an as-yet unseen foe.

One noticeable aspect of the entire debate is the lack of protest by prime contractor Lockheed Martin at the cutting of funds for the F-22 Raptor program. The absence of a lobbying effort by the defense giant over the elimination of one of its larger programs exposes the most crucial element in the F-22 debate: politics. When the contract was first awarded Lockheed shrewdly sprinkled its subcontracts around the country, placing workshare in some 44 states. This, of course, ensured that any future vote on Capital Hill over whether to cut funding for the program would be politically delicate.

For those who want to see the F-22 program kept alive there is an alternative remaining: placing the aircraft on the export market. At present such an option is negated by the Obey Amendment, a provision placed in the 1998 defense amendment prohibiting the Air Force from selling the plane to another nation. The basis for the amendment concerned the potential for the planes advanced technologies to be passed into the hands of countries potentially hostile to U.S. interests. But sufficient Congressional pressure might be able to spur a reexamination of the export restriction.

U.S. allies such as Japan, Israel and Australia have each shown interest in purchasing the aircraft and asked Washington to drop the export barriers on a single-case basis to afford them the opportunity to buy the aircraft. Japan has been especially assertive in its lobbying efforts, while Israel has repeatedly expressed a desire to procure the F-22.

Yet exporting the F-22 may prove more trouble than its worth. Aside from the obvious necessity of lifting the export barrier in Congress, the sheer cost of preparing the aircraft for the export market (i.e., removing aspects of its sensitive technology before transferring the plane into the hands of the recipient nation) is often estimated at $1 billion.

As for the potential buyers, in the case of Japan such a sale would be seen by China as a direct threat and might result in a regional arms escalation with South Korea also requesting the opportunity to purchase the aircraft. Any acquisition by Israel would come via U.S.-provided Foreign Military Financing (FMF) – meaning out of the pockets of the American taxpayer. Meanwhile, Australia is opting for a purchase of around 70 Joint Strike Fighters making any buy of the Raptor an unlikelihood even if the option were afforded to Canberra. Many other U.S. allies with the financial strength to afford the aircraft have already moved forward with purchases of the Eurofighter Typhoon, thus reducing the scale of the F-22 export market.

The F-22s proponents will likely continue arguing that exporting the aircraft to American allies means the production line stays open, jobs are preserved and the aircraft remains a viable future procurement alternative for the Air Force. However, the benefits to exporting the F-22 would only be translatable to the Pentagon should they procure more of the aircraft in the future, otherwise only the industrials involved in the program would profit. Thus the Beltway battle to keep the F-22 production line seems to have reached a conclusion – though history shows that large domestic defense programs such as the Raptor often prove difficult to kill.