The right debate: airpower, the future of war, Canadian strategic interests, and the JSF decision

Abstract

The public debate on the government's decision to purchase the F-35 joint strike fighter (JSF) has been dominated by process and cost considerations. Secondary in this debate has been the utility of the F-35 for Canadian sovereignty missions and the F-35's capabilities relative to a range of alternatives, which include unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Explicitly missing is any analysis of the strategic-political considerations that underpin the decision to maintain a multi-role fighter capability. Such considerations, in turn, are driven by assessments of the relationship between airpower and future warfare, and Canadian strategic interests on the world stage, which combined to lead to the F-35 decision. Beneath the surface of the public debate are fundamentally different views about the roles Canada should undertake internationally and in cooperation with its allies. In effect, critics of the F-35 decision are seeking to limit Canadian capabilities in order to limit Canadian options overseas.

Keywords:

• F-35
• Defence Procurement
• Canadian Defence Policy

Notes

In addition to the Gripen, alternative fourth generation fighters referenced in the debate, and in internal DND evaluations were the F-18 Super Hornet, the Typhoon Eurofighter, and the French Rafale.

This is also evident in the angst created by General Hillier's repeated public comments about the purpose of the forces to kill the enemy “murders and scumbags” in Afghanistan (Globe and Mail 2005).

This excludes the re-rolling of the Griffon helicopter into an armed platform to defend supply helicopters in Afghanistan.

The specific targets of the CF-18s over Libya have not been specified, but are known to include strikes against Libyan airfields, arms depots and ground forces (Brewster 2011).

NATO ground forces were deployed as peacekeepers into Kosovo, but this occurred after the war had concluded.

At least for the time being, the age of naval battles appears to have ended, and the recent emphasis on littoral operations places the navy largely in a support role as well.

During Desert Storm, the bulk of air-dropped munitions were still dumb bombs. Precision weapons were limited to key strategic targets largely in Baghdad. In Desert Storm, only seven to eight percent were precision, whereas in Afghanistan it was 56 per cent (Cordesman 2002).

John Boyd never published his work and references point to his written briefings (Coram 2002).

See, for example, Kissinger (1957).

It remains an open debate whether the threat to employ NATO ground forces after several months bombing was key to the capitulation of the Serbs.

In reality, the capability to deliver precision violence through space already exists with advanced ballistic missile guidance systems. In the future, this may also include the deployment of weapons' platforms in orbit, and space planes capable of moving through sub-orbital space.

This also holds for some interdiction and strategic offensive targets. For example, interdicting a supply column requires some degree of flexibility, although destroying a bridge to block such a column from moving forward does not. Similarly, a strategic political target to decapitate the adversary's leadership may entail striking at a moving target.

There is much more to the concept of netcentric warfare. See Mitchell (2006).

UAVs, such as the United States Predator, are optimized or more accurately originally designed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, with a ground-attack missile added on. UCAVs are specifically designed for strike missions.

It estimated that the per unit costs of a UCAV is less than one third of a F-35, with total life cycle costs 50 to 80 percent less than a tactical fighter squadron (Global Security 2010).

Despite the tendency to blur armed UAVs and UCAVs together as relatively mature technology, their utility in a strategic strike role remains more in the development stage. For example, the United States navy has only recently begun to experiment with carrier-based UCAVs (Erhard and Work 2007).

This will also affect the utility of cruise missiles. In addition, the spread of ballistic missile defences will also alter the strategic landscape relative to the use of ballistic missiles in a conventional role.

FOLs today provide the same function for any limited range fighter capability, including the F-35.

According to one critic, the future strategic threat is largely nuclear tipped ballistic missiles, which assumes that air, sea, or ground launched cruise missiles are obsolete, and implies that the government should consider ballistic missile defences as an edge against an uncertain future: “an actual attack would be different, but that would imply nuclear war between Russia and the United States, during which attempts at air defence would be irrelevant in any case since the primary delivery vehicle would be intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles” (Staples 2011).

With regard to the politics of threat identification and response, both would be highly contested. Among the arguments, drawing from the Cold War security dilemma/arms race literature, would be too early and rapid a response will generate a more hostile environment as the adversary responds in kind. This is reflected in the Byers argument that the F-35 acquisition would cause Russia to expand its air capabilities (O'Neill 2010).

This is one of the unspoken problems of acquiring the F-18 E/F Super Hornet. Its production line will likely be shut down by the time Canada needs to replace the CF-18, and thus its costs are likely to escalate as a function of the investments needed to re-open the production line, or the added costs of keeping the production line amortized over a very small production run.

Naval forces were committed as well, but played only an indirect role.

This was implied by critics of Canada's failure to obtain a seat on the Security Council.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Fergusson

James Fergusson is the director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies and a professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba. 351 University College University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2M8