F-22A Raptor Export Plans come under Scrutiny
Project On Government Oversight
Thu, 30 Mar 2006, 00:01
Letter from Project On Government Oversight to Sen. John McCain
Dear Senator McCain,
POGO appreciates that you are holding hearings on the F-22. We find it distressing that the U.S. appears to be at, or rapidly approaching, a point at which the only way we can afford tactical air superiority is to eventually undermine it by selling it abroad. It strikes us, that if we as a nation are going to continue to develop and upgrade F-15 and F-16 technology not just for our own forces but also for export, we must retain the F-22 exclusively for U.S. use; or, if the F-22 is cancelled, we must limit the upgrade technology available for foreign export.
As you may be aware, a handful of trade publications began to report last month that Lockheed Martin has asked the Air Force to back it in an effort to obtain permission to sell the F-22 to select overseas allies. According to a February 17 Inside the Air Force report, this proposal is “gaining strength and working its way through the Air Force bureaucracy.”
These reports, as well as POGO’s own sources, reveal that due to the exorbitantly high cost of the F-22, the most likely (if not only) buyer would be the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF). On February 21, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld tacitly confirmed this process was underway: he explain that while no proposal had yet reached him and that he was “not up to speed,” it was “a process that the entire government’s involved in,” with the Departments of State, Commerce, Treasury, Defense and White House all considering the advantages and disadvantages. Despite these reports, the issue of any foreign military sale of the F-22 has not been raised in recent Senate and House hearings that have touched on the F-22.
One of POGO’s primary concerns about this deal is security. As the 2000 National Counterintelligence Executive Annual Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage noted, the second-most sought after military aircraft technology secret by foreign governments is the F-22. While we acknowledge it is likely that Japan would honor U.S. secrecy arrangements regarding the technology, and do everything possible to protect the F-22 and its systems, we also see the presence of F-22s in Japan as a new opportunity for others interested in acquiring the F-22's secrets to steal them.
There is a significant risk that, once the F-22s are delivered to Japan, agents from nearby China (the F-22's oft-cited potential adversary) or other foreign governments could steal F-22 information, allowing China (or anyone else) to build its own version.
Though news reporting on the possible deal with Japan has been limited, some recent articles have been rife with trial-balloon arguments from F-22 advocates in favor of the deal. According to sale proponents, in selling F-22s to Japan:
--“The US would get world-class air superiority over the Pacific” in a “location where the planes are needed” against China, “the Asian giant ... viewed by many Pentagon officials and military scholars as the most likely nation that could take on the US military in a 20th century-style conventional war.”
--The U.S. would not need to worry about our most highly-classified, technologically-advanced weapons systems falling into the wrong hands because “Japan is completely trustworthy.”
--Concerns about security and compromising U.S. air superiority could easily be dealt with by selling Japan a “stripped-down, air to air version of the plane,” which would “differ from the tasks that have been prescribed for US F-22A fighters.”
We frankly find these arguments at best dubious, if not contradictory. The Air Force continues to justify the F-22's necessity by casting its “prescribed” tasks as increasingly amorphous in nature – everything from air-to-air combat to conventional bombing runs to potentially neutralizing ground-based improvised explosive devices.
Because the aircraft is primarily designed for air-to-air combat, we are intrigued by the notion that selling a highly-advanced plane for its original, central purpose would be considered “stripped down.” (Indeed, at least one press report included a candid comment from an unnamed Lockheed official who stated that what Lockheed wants to sell to Japan is “‘not that different’ from the war planes that will fly with US markings.”)
We are also intrigued by the notion that a “stripped down” air-to-air fighter bereft of the full range of combat capabilities – in the service of a nation whose constitution allows the military an exclusively “self-defense” role – can really be considered a contribution to “US world-class air superiority over the Pacific.” Given the array of U.S. air assets deployed throughout the Pacific, including in Japan, we believe the United States already has, and will maintain, that superiority.
Thank you for your ongoing oversight activities in these very important national security matters.
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