F - 35 Double Insult
The procurement of 65 F-35 Lightning 2 aircraft from Lockheed Martin is degrading to Canada, exemplifying a larger situation. It reminds of Harper’s dubious purchase of mortgage securities to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars from the Canadian banks, another bankrupting expenditure that is defying the common sense and public language of Canada.
With interest have I read “The New Solitudes” in the March issue of the Walrus magazine, as I was already compiling some thoughts on a piece about Canada’s crisis of democracy. Erna Paris did steal some thunder of my thinking but there still is an untold story.
In the essay “The New Solitudes” Erna Paris describes the take over of Canada and descent into ideological polarization against the backdrop of a list of identity nurturing values such as humanist and social ones. They were shown as part of a broader, lateral display of traits that supposedly came into being after WW2. Not quite true, she brings up a popular misconception that has a bearing on major controversies like the one about the F-35. Perhaps these Canadian characteristics are rather an outflow of a pre-existing identity that emerged from the way of life in a very small population in Nouvelle France that had became expert in diplomatic, economic and military survival. Intermarriage and cultural exchange with aboriginal people had coalesced into a unique Western awakening from medieval European stupor.
Somewhat loosely following from there, the war of 1812, the Mackenzie Papineau rebellion and a few other things converged essentially into non violent foundations of community collaboration and statehood that were laid down by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine. Between 1840 - 1848 they formed Canadian governments, clearing the way for confederation. Unlike today’s elites they had inherited an older public language, as a common language as well as a scholarly language.
The particular Canadian historic groove surfaced in the coming about of a tradition of world class historians, science and political figures who shaped much of the positive action and positive possibilities of the world around us.
Margaret McMillan explained the origin of today’s world structures and conflicts in “Paris 1919, Six Months that changed the World”.
Karl Polanyi who wrote “The Great Transformation, The Political and Economic Origins of our Time” is widely credited as the man who put the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith back on his feet. It is immensely important in an age of neoliberal junk economics that had bastardized the honourable Adam Smith to their hearts content.
Harold Innis before Marshall McLuhan in “The Bias of Communication” foresaw an electronic communications revolution.
Long before Tommy Douglas became father of Medicare during Treaty 6 negotiations at Fort Carlton, Duck Lake and Fort Pitt in 1876 Cree chief Poundmaker together with other chiefs had insisted to make the first public Medicare provisions part of this Canadian legal document.
Lester Pearson as Prime Minister of two minority governments introduced Medicare on a national level, and had already been instrumental in the founding of the United Nations and in the establishment of the UN Security Council.
Half a century ago Avro Canada engineers designed and build a fighter interceptor aircraft, the Avro Arrow, that had a greater flight envelope than the F-35 ever will have.
There really is a memory component in the Canadian mind of which an element is military history and here we meet the F-35 fighter/bomber procurement again.
We backtrack for a moment and understand the whole idea of modern military capability is based on air superiority. There is no air superiority, no protective umbrella for peace keeping missions for example, without air superiority fighter aircraft capability. In this regard the governments of Australia and the Netherlands share growing international concerns over the capabilities of the F-35 joint strike fighter aircraft. It was vocalized in a leaked evaluation of the RAND corporation (originally founded by the US Airforce) following war games where the F-35 was outclassed by the Sukhoi Su-35 as well as a version of the Chinese Chengdu fighter series.
This capability study of the F-35 Lightning 2 aircraft was summarized by former US Air force officer and Rand researcher John Stillion with the following assessment: ”cant turn, can’t climb, can’t run”. The Australian government paid attention.
Its a not to be repeated lesson the US Air force learned in Vietnam where a small number of air superior MIG 21s flew circles around them and shot down US aircraft in unexpected numbers.
Exclusive reliance on fighting in The Beyond Visual Range Regime that supposedly allowed to give up quick maneuverability and close range cannon fire was eventually abandoned with the MIG21 reality asserting itself. As a consequence air superiority fighters like the F-15 were built, fighter pilots were retrained which inspired the “Top Gun” movie and the problem was fixed; for a while. Today more than ever air to air rocketry failure is never more than one cheap new electronic decoy or heat seeking, radar guidance deflecting gimmick away.
In a security outlook where the International Energy Agency expects nuclear weapons proliferation to 20 or even 30 countries by 2025 – 2030 focused conventional defence abilities to undercut almost inevitable nuclear antics, errors and reflexes matter.
One might ask what is the point, why employ ineffectual equipment limitations and tactics? Why want a fighter aircraft that on somebody’s paper has all kinds of multi purpose characteristics but is inferior in air to air combat?
For government lobbyists and financial speculators who look past the real estate bubble this is one more new opportunity. Following the F-35 cost overrun concerns of the US Air Force and the US Air Force Association that are shared by former US government official and defence analyst Winslow Wheeler, internationally the F-35 project is expected to take on a financing volume past the trillion dollar mark. It also means our government is dramatically low balling its cost estimates. Partly for the cost reason the US Navy is considering to buy F-18s instead.
Like with other over sophisticated so called stealth aircraft the mission capability rate of the F-35 will be about 55% only. Stretching our air defences so thin once the F-18 fleet is decommissioned means that asserting arctic sovereignty can become one more future liability of the F-35 which will likely result in even more aircraft purchases.
The response of the Canadian people is going to be particularly comprehensive because of our awareness that weapons and tactics play a role, are structural tools in military and civilian politics.
Therefore a costly lemon is not only unaffordable its outright dangerous.
Effective military operations that don’t stagnate and escalate into mass slaughter always required an element of democracy, a form of power sharing and communication between the ones that have rank and authority with the ones who carry out action in the field or in the air or on the water. In WW1 it was Arthur Currie who insisted to lead the Canadian army onto Vimy Ridge based on these principles. He had to overcome political resistance because priorities in favour of elitist award distribution regimes, a trend towards aristocratic ivory tower politics and power grabs don’t welcome the idea of field officers, pilots and artillery hands calling some of the shots. This is true then as now.
Political, economic and military elites tend to like mathematically abstract dimensions, exemplified in a puppy love for very vulnerable, fragile tools such as attack helicopters and other so called multi-purpose aircraft like the F-35 Lightning 2. These have a universal, quasi naive Swiss army knife like planning appeal for the technocrats who don’t want to ask questions, or listen to what fits where, or collaborate or share thoughts with just anybody.
For Stephen Harper who was inundated with underhanded class thinking and disrespect for our constitutional conventions by political science professor Tom Flanagan through years of mentorship in Calgary it makes sense to attack us in our military legacy; nobody would be suspicious. However, the military dimension in Canada is not a playground for bullies, its somewhat low key, deeply rooted in our minds but not talked about everyday in postmodern realities. Harper seems to over estimate the so so stealth capabilities of the F-35 and assume its attack on us will fly under the radar and will take out his longstanding list of Canadian targets topped by Medicare. Since his days with the Canadian Taxpayer Federation he had been searching for a clever way to cut out our hearts to which closely we keep Medicare. Not only does the F-35 procurement weaken the integrity of our military ethics it bankrupts Canada by giving free reign to the despot with toxic leadership. The insult of the useless F-35 to militarily expose us and economically impoverish us for a generation no Canadian will forgive.
