F-35 Stealth Jet Fighters and Canadian Interventionist Skepticisim
September 2, 2010 | 6 Comments
Impolitical does yeoman’s work in debunking the bind myth around what promises to be Canada’s most significant military expenditure ever,
Portraying us as having no choice, we’re in too deep, it’s too costly to get out. Except, not so much.
There is no deal right now, to purchase these F-35s, contrary to the CTV headline on its story. The PM’s presumptive spin doesn’t make it so. They’ve announced an intention to purchase, that’s all. No deal is to be signed until 2013. This is why there could indeed be a competition among manufacturers so that a process is competitive and we wouldn’t have to live in fear of any one contractor and supposed ramifications (“…by having a competition, Canadian firms potentially stand to reap more industrial benefits as aerospace firms jockey to win such a significant contract.“).
Further, it has to be pointed out that contrary to the major spin yesterday, any arrangements we’re presently entwined with Lockheed Martin for are structured with an exit and minimal penalty:
In 2006, the Conservative government signed an agreement that would commit Canada to contributing $551 million U.S. between now and 2051. That would cover Canada’s portion of equipment and development needed for its share of the JSF planes that it wants to purchase.
That memorandum allows for a country to pull out of the agreement, with aerospace industry officials noting the penalties at this point would be small as Canada has yet to order aircraft.
It’s not as clearly negative as the reporting yesterday would have you believe. And as for those allied nations we might anger, many of them are having doubts about their F-35 purchases too in an era of tightening military budgets and questions being raised there too about the need for combat fighter jets (Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain). It’s another red herring of fear for you.
I’m willing to bet that you can count the number of days before proponents of the F-35 expenditure start trotting out the, “Why do you hate the troops?” argument against opponents on one hand. Haranguing the Liberals for offering opposition to what has been a characteristically secretive process, Harper pointed out, “[i]t was the Liberal government that in 2002 committed Canada to the development of this aircraft.”
The program itself, and Canada’s involvement, stretches back to 1996.
What is worth noting, whether you choose to focus on 2002 or 1996 as your point of reference, is that there has been a real sea change in terms of public opinion about the effectiveness of military force in geo-political affairs and foreign policy. If 9-11 was a game changer as far as terrorism is concerned, then the 2003 US decision to invade Iraq and the protracted and largely ineffective war in which both Canada and the US have been engaged in Afghanistan have been game changers vis-a-vis the use of military might.
While it was a controversial decision, support for Canada’s decision to become involved in Afghanistan was quite high in 2002, declining over the course of the year and then plateauing until 2006 where it staggered up and down a bit before declining to majority opposition, where it stands today. According to the Angus Reid poll I’ve cited, 44% of Canadians “do not have a clear idea of what the Afghan war is all about,” and only 6% believe that the war will end with a decisive victory for US and NATO forces over the Taliban.
In the US, support for the war in Afghanistan has been much more resilient, but has recently started to follow a similar course with a full 43% of Americans calling the war a “mistake“. American resolve on the Afghan war shifted in approximately mid-2009 when perceptions about how the war was going tilted negative and continued worsening to today’s status of 62% saying things are going moderately or very badly.
Views on Iraq have been more erratic over time with a greater proportion of focus until recently. Positive perceptions about how US efforts were going topped out at 86% in 2003, but fell sharply towards the end of the year. Positive and negative perceptions horse raced from 2004 through to mid-2006, at which point negative perceptions took off to an all-time high of 71% at the beginning of 2007. Those numbers fell as quickly as their counterparts had in 2003 with the application of the US surge with positive perceptions regaining a foot hold in mid-2008. Right now Americans are basically divided in their opinions, but recent polling shows that 53% of Americans believe that the war in Iraq will be judged a failure.
All of which is to say that the geo-political landscape in which questions about the importance spending a record $9 billion on F-35 stealth fighter jets is vastly different today than it was just eight short years ago. Both Canadians and Americans have learned — and in some cases relearned — some pretty tough lessons about the role that powerful nations can and ought to play in affairs abroad, especially where those roles pertain to the use of force towards seemingly positive ends.
In short, we’re skeptical and I think that events of the past 7-8 years provide us with ample evidence to support that skepticism. So the Prime Minister might be correct in pointing out that it was a Liberal government in 2002 that got us involved in this program, but decisions in 2002 don’t necessarily justify expenditures in 2010 — and certainly not without some fairly substantial degree of scrutiny.
Tags: Afghanistan > Canada > F-35 stealth jet fighters > interventionist skepticism > Iraq > public opinion > US
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6 Responses to “F-35 Stealth Jet Fighters and Canadian Interventionist Skepticisim”
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September 2nd, 2010 @ 3:47 pm
The F-35, like any piece of military equipment, is intended to inflict violence and destruction. That’s its purpose.
On whom that violence and destruction is delivered is a subjective political decision.
The political legitimacy or strategic wisdom of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, whatever one’s take on them, does not negate the inherent qualities of the F-35.
The CF-18 requires a replacement. The F-35 will be a great fighter plane. It is expensive.
Whether the purchase of it in 2013 is worth the expense, or not, should have little to do with the public popularity of past wars.
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Scott H. Payne Reply:
September 3rd, 2010 at 3:38 pm
R., I have a response coming. I just decided to do a bit of digging first and I’m waiting on a response from someone before offering mine. Didn’t want you to think I was ignoring your comment.
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Scott H. Payne Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Okay, I don’t think I’m going to get the response for which I’m waiting, so here is my own response. Decisions about whether or not to spend a record amount of money on military hardware are inherently political decisions. Political decisions ought to be informed to some degree or another by the priorities of the electorate. Lacking any firm data on the spending priorities of the electorate, looking at where people stand on our latest military incursion that would have required said hardware seems like a reasonable place to look for some insight. The opposition speaks, by my lights, to a real sea change that has taken place in terms of Canadians feelings about the role of military intervention and the use of things like F-35 jet fighters. That sea change means that while this might have seemed like a good idea eight years ago, we are probably well advised to consider changes that have occurre3d in both our understanding of the factors surrounding such a purchase, as well as the feelings and priorities of those whose money we intend to spend. And so while that sea change and its attendant opposition doesn’t necessarily negate the decision to make the purpose, it certainly negates the Prime Minister’s apparent believe that opposition is merely political footballing and that everyone ought to just get in line.
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R. Mowat Reply:
September 8th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I see your point (although I could argue the existence of a ‘sea change’), and I agree that politics necessarily enters into the decision to purchase.
Nevertheless, our CF-18s will be nearly forty-years old by the time their service life expires at the end of this decade.
Equipment procurement of this magnitude requires at least a decade.
If we want to have the ability to project force in the airspace above Canada (or anywhere else) in 2020, then we need to come up with a solution very soon.
The Cons propose an expensive $9B+ solution, which nets us a top-of-the-line fighter.
And while I hear a lot of criticism about that specific deal, I haven’t heard anyone – especially the Opposition – suggesting a practical alternative.
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September 3rd, 2010 @ 7:32 pm
I read is that the F-35 is a lemon. But why do we need a jet fighter at all?
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September 3rd, 2010 @ 8:32 pm
You mean as opposed to a propeller fighter?
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