Belgium said it had chosen to buy US-made F-35 stealth warplanes over the Eurofighter Typhoon, which critics call a blow to the EU’s bid to build its own defences. Although Belgium is a key NATO ally, it is not a development partner in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat..
Belgium said it had chosen to buy US-made F-35 stealth warplanes over the Eurofighter Typhoon, which critics call a blow to the EU’s bid to build its own defences.
Although Belgium is a key NATO ally, it is not a development partner in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
Background
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole fighters. The fifth-generation combat aircraft is designed to perform a ground attack and air superiority missions. The fighter, first flown in 2006, was developed by Lockheed Martin as a versatile aircraft that could be used by the US Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy.
It has three variants: conventional take-off and landing (A); short take-off and vertical landing (B) and carrier-based catapult (C).
The F-35’s nine partner countries are the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Suppliers in each country are producing F-35 components for all aircraft, not just those for their country. The total cost of the F-35 program has increased from $233bn in 2001 to $391bn — making it the US Department of Defence’s “most costly and ambitious acquisition program”
According to Pentagon figures last month, 320 F-35s have been delivered globally, mainly to the U.S., Israel and Britain.
Analysis
Belgium said Thursday it had chosen to buy US-made F-35 stealth warplanes over the Eurofighter Typhoon, which critics call a blow to the EU’s bid to build its own defences.
In a multi-billion-euro deal with Lockheed Martin, the Belgian government said it would buy 34 radar-evading F-35s to replace its aging U.S.-made F-16s, from 2023.
Critics called the decision “very bad news” for a more autonomous EU defence strategy, which got a boost after Brexit and U.S. President Donald Trump’s election. Lockheed Martin said it looked forward to ties with “the Belgian government and industry for decades to come,” according to a statement on its Twitter feed.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel sought to head off his critics when he said Belgium was looking to both Europe and the United States to meet its defence needs.
Belgium is also buying drones, frigates, minesweepers and armoured vehicles “within the framework of NATO and European defence,” PM Michel told a news conference. “The planes and drones are American, the other equipment is European and Belgium will enjoy the economic benefits,” Michel added, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said the U.S. offer “was the best from the price and ope France was also likely to be unhappy with the decision.
The United States, acting on behalf of the F-35, and Britain, pushing for the Eurofighter, responded formally to the bidding process Belgium launched in March 2017.
However, the French government took a different tack in September last year by proposing “in-depth cooperation” with the Belgian air force in addition to supplying Rafale fighters, built by the French firm Dassault.”
The F-35 ran against a bid from the Eurofighter, developed by a European consortium that also comprises Italy’s Finmeccanica and Airbus.
Counterpoint
Critics highlight that purchasing the F-35 comes with an agreement to depend on the US for crucial maintenance and operations of the aircrafts. Additionally, as Belgium is not a development partner for the JSF program and it lacks technical resources to address basic operational issues.
Lockheed has guaranteed that though the per-unit price of the F-35 will fall below $110M within a year,the F-35 has not been tested in combat conditions. The F-35 has also a per-flight hour operational cost of $30,000. In comparison, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the competing aircraft in tender, has a per-unit cost of $100M and the per-flight hour operational cost is around $8,200.
Assessment
Our assessment is that Belgium’s decision is a setback for the EU’s plan to reduce dependence on US suppliers for military hardware. We believe that Belgium will purchase more armoured trucks, drones and frigates from European suppliers as an offset to its F-35 deal with the US.
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