Lockheed Martin executive says F-35s will deter 'potential adversary countries' Russia, China

PARLIAMENT HILL—A top Lockheed Martin official has for the first time publicly named China and Russia as “potential adversary countries” that pose the kind of threat the controversial F-35 stealth fighter jet is being designed and built to meet.

In a Sun News TV interview about opposition to the Conservative government’s decision to acquire a fleet of 65 F-35s for the Canadian Air Force, Lockheed Martin executive Steve O’Bryan defended the aircraft and, in response to a question from interviewer Lorne Gunther, explained why the U.S. and other members of an F-35 consortium feel the sophisticated and costly new warplane is required.

“I really can’t speak for Canada, but I can tell you what the other international countries are looking at,” said Mr. O’Bryan, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot who is now vice-president of business development and customer engagement with Texas-based Lockheed Martin, the largest defence supplier to the U.S. military. “This is a 40-year plus lifespan that you’re buying a fighter jet, and we’re seeing other potential adversary countries that we would not likely face, like Russia and China, but if you look at the history of the last 40 years, we have faced off against their equipment and they are investing fifth-generation technologies. They are investing in this advanced equipment."

Mr. Bryan said that buying the F-35s would allow Canada to leverage the U.S.' armed services but other countries' investments to reduce ownership cost. "It allows you to out-pace the threat and it allows you the security of a deterrent threat no matter what the future capabilities or uncertainty may be,” he said.

NDP MP Malcom Allen (Welland, Ont.) said Mr. Bryan’s comments, aired over the weekend by Sun TV and posted on the Canadian version of the Lockheed Martin website, are the first from any senior U.S. military or defence industry official to link Russia and China as potential adversaries the stealth F-35 is being developed to meet, even if it is to attack or defend against equally sophisticated warplanes the two countries may sell to other nations or entities.

“I haven’t heard anyone definitely say who the threats are,” Mr. Allen told The Hill Times. The NDP MP, along with other New Democrat MPs, is taking part in a roundtable presentation of views from experts on the F-35 on Tuesday in a House of Commons committee room. He recalled that the head of Canada’s air force, Lieutenant General André Deschamps, avoided specifically identifying potential threats last May when he testified during a series of Commons Public Accounts Committee hearings into the F-35 acquisition and a scathing report on the project from Auditor General Michael Ferguson.

“He said there were threats out there, but he talked mainly in the sense of the equipment threat that’s out there, that could see you, or those things. He didn’t talk about ‘well, it’s this group versus that group,'” Mr. Allen said.

In recent past conflicts from the Vietnam War to the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Kosovo and Yugoslavia, UN, NATO and U.S. forces have faced weapons or old warplanes produced by Russia or China, but despite exclusive joint naval and other military exercises by the U.S. and its allies, Russia has taken part in air force exercises in the North along with the Canada-U.S NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command, to counter possible terrorist attacks against airliners. China is becoming more and more industrially and economically involved with Canada and other western countries.

With the prospect of further global-warming retraction of the polar ice cap, and vast oil and gas reserves estimated under the remaining ice cover, several of the partners in the F-35 consortium—Canada, the U.S., Norway and Denmark, as well as outsider Russia—are circumpolar countries all staking claims for the far Arctic resources. China, not a circumpolar country, has the largest conventional ice breaker in the world.

Mr. O’Bryan cited his 20 years of experience as a former fighter pilot to explain during the Sun TV interview why the stealth qualities of the F-35 are an advantage in air combat.

“For me, stealth means that the adversary cannot see you. It gives you that first look, first shot, first kill if you will, before an adversary even knows that you’re out there,” Mr. Bryan said. “Stealth means that your fighter pilots come back every single time; that your pilots are allowed to face the most advanced threats and have an unfair advantage, if you will, over any potential adversary.”

 At Public Accounts committee hearings last May 3, Gen. Deschamps cited potential missile attacks against Canada when he was asked about threats the F-35 could meet.

“In an unclassified way, there are very advanced surface-to-air missile systems currently being fielded by countries,” Gen. Deschamps said in response to questions from NDP MP Mathieu Ravignat (Pontiac, Que.). "That will proliferate. We see them now proliferating. We expect them to continue proliferating. The technology challenges the airplanes available today. It's very deadly. It's very accurate, and it has very long ranges."

Asked if the missiles present a “clear and present” threat to Canada’s national security, Gen. Deschamps replied: “I don't define national security, sir. What I do, though, is present government with options should it need to exercise those options 30 years from now. ... The challenge with cruise missile technology is it is accessible now to many nations, and people are working on building those things to be fired off ships or off airplanes.”

Mr. Allen, meanwhile, criticized the government's decision to hand control over a contract for an independent audit of the $25-billioin F-35 project to the Public Works Department.

The department confirmed in an email to The Hill Times on Mondayh that Public Works—even though Mr. Ferguson criticized it for its earlier role in the government’s decision to procure the F-35 without allowing competitive bids from other fighter jet manufacturers—will administer the contract and Treasury Board Secretariat will be the technical authority.

In an earlier request for bids, the government gave the Treasury Board Secretariat, not involved in earlier F-35 decisions, control over the contract. Changes to the request for bids has delayed the outside audit by a month and now will be tabled in Parliament in either late November or earlier December.

“You’ve got the fox watching the chicken coop,” Mr. Allen told The Hill Times.

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author:  TIM NAUMETZ