Last week, for the first time in Canada's federal election, a defense issue was actually addressed by candidates. Trudeau of the Liberal party said if elected he'd back away from the F-35 as a replacement for Canada's CF-18s. Harper said Canada needed the F-35 to remain military relevant. And Tom Mulclair used the opportunity to say Trudeau was inexperienced, and what was really needed was a fighter competition and some sort of assessment as to what the RCAF actually needs.
This is all politics as usual, though Harper's statement on the subject is interesting in a few ways - first, it seeks to deflect the discussion away from the Con's total incompetence in finding Canada a new fighter jet; second, it is actually the first time the Cons have stooped to justify their decision of procuring the F-35. Despite all the vitriol I'm going to be displaying toward the F-35 and the Conservatives, Harper's argument has some merit in the question of what fighter plane to get, which I'd like to table for now.
A Short Canadian Voter's Guide to the F-35 and Why it Matters
Canada needs new fighter aircraft?
Yes. Aircraft are like cars in that they have a useful service life. Canada's CF-18s were acquired in the early 1980s, and will be worn out by 2020. The RCAF needs fighter aircraft; in addition to protecting our airspace, the F-18s perform airstrikes and can do tactical reconnaissance as well. The latter two really can't be done by anything but aircraft.
The Conservatives, after the Auditor General's report, decided to lengthen the life of the CF-18 to 2025, essentially punting the issue to a future government. As a party rather than an official government position, they're still all for it.
Does Canada really need new fighter aircraft?
Yes. We're members of several alliances, like NATO and NORAD, that expect us to be able to hold up our end by being able to control our own airspace. Controlling your own airspace is p. important if you are a nation.
But New Zealand got rid of its fighter aircraft entirely!
Uh, not a question, and New Zealand is one of the world's remotest countries. If you want to compare commonwealth countries, Australia...
I don't, because New Zealand doesn't have any fighters-
...and Australia for very sensible historic and geopolitical reasons spends more on defense than we do. They are buying F-35s AND F-18E Super Hornets, for example. They just stopped flying F-111 bombers, for Christ's sake.
All I'm saying is -
I know what you're saying, we're going to be buying fighters, we are spending the money.
*Fine*. How much money are we spending?
Well, that depends on what we get, but the new fighter is shaping up to be the single biggest purchase in Canadian Government history. KPMG, an accounting firm contracted to redo the cost estimates for the F-35 put it in the ballpark of $45 billion dollars. This was found to be low. The Rideau Institute (an independent Canadian defense think tank) gave $56 billion as the best case scenario, with the worst cast being something like $156 billion. (Admittedly that later number really is the worst case, and as it is mostly covering financial risks to some extent these possible costs apply to all possible replacement fighters, not just the F-35. It should be a sobering data point regardless, since the number would be by itself a significant chunk of Canada's national debt.)
Jesus Christ! Can't we get like, drones or something?
Drone aircraft are not advanced enough to do the jobs a replacement fighter does.
So what's the problem with the F-35? It looks cool.
I will allow that it looks cool. And there are two problems: a bunch of political ones, and a series of technological and financial risks that mostly are found in the F-35, and not other contenders. The actual question of what airplane we should get is separate, so for this post I'm just going to focus on the first point, since evidently that is what Harper wants Canada to ignore.
You are about to bore me with politics, aren't you?
Yes. In 2010 the Cons briskly walked by us in the hallway and said in a very loud voice "WE'RE GETTING THE F-35 AND NO WE DON'T WANT TO DISCUSS IT." When people did try to discuss it (like, y'know, in Parliment, as per transparency in government) the Cons made sure to just repeat their initial press release to make sure everybody got the message that they were not discussing anything with anyone. About the only thing they did do publicly is show a one paragraph letter authored by the Department of Defense recommending the F-35. This letter managed to use the phrase '5 generation' about 12 times despite being a paragraph long. 5th Generation is a term copyrighted by the Lockheed- Martin (LockMart) corporation, makers of the F-35. The Cons also gave Parliament an estimation of costs for the F-35 which seemed to Parliament and even casual readers very optimistic. When questioned the Cons stuck to the original numbers and refused to say where they came from. These numbers were revealed to be lies - pure prolefeed - by a damning report by Canada's Auditor General ---
OK, wait. Why did Harper have such a boner for the F-35?
Well, that's a good question that I can't answer. I can only speculate, and frankly there could be a lot of reasons:
1. Harper believes that the F-35 Lightning really is the best replacement for the F-18, despite the cost, thanks to its stealth technology. As I said above there's an argument here, but if true then it demonstrates hilarious political incompetence. If it was true that the F-35 was the best, the Cons could have presented their argument in great detail, or have the F-35 prove itself in a open competition. The whole deciding and then totally stonewalling all questions not only makes them own the program in a way they didn't have to at all, it makes cynical people like me think that an ulterior motive is at work.
2. Harper thought that standing fast on the F-35 would get him something from the USA in a quid pro quo; the Keystone XL pipeline springs immediately to mind. Considering Harper wrecked a whole class of environmental laws in Canada just to make life easier for his friends in Canada's Oil industry, it seems scarcely a stretch he would do this.
3. LockMart brought lots of backsheeh to the table. For a long time now, most of the interest of the Federal Government in military procurement, regardless of party, has been to turn defense dollars into political capital of one sort or another - propping up rotten boroughs, lining the pockets of friends, etc. In the Committee that took over for the DnD in the F-35 procurement (evidently to create cover for the Cons), the only thing they were permitted to ask companies interested in selling fighter aircraft was what kind of "industrial benefits" (IE backsheeh to the Fed) they were offering. In addition to this, (adopting a highly successful innovation from the American Military-Industrial complex) LockMart could no doubt offer cushy jobs to senior Government and Military officials after retirement from public service. (One of the members of the committee selected for it, a retired Canadian General, had to recuse himself from it as he just accepted the job of CEO of LockMart Canada.) And this stuff is in the end legal; the previous conservative government entertained rather more, ah, direct incentives when buying aircraft.
It should be added that Harper has claimed that not buying the F-35 would "crater" (his words) the Canadian aerospace industry. The Canadian Baloney Meter deemed Harper full of baloney on this claim, which means he is not telling the truth (not that he is delicious.) TL;DR all of LockMart's money is theoretical, and there's no reason why buying another airplane would not accrue similar benefits. (And if you say "but that hypothetical airplane wouldn't be *Fifth Generation*," then you are beginning to understand the insidious power of marketing.)
4. Harper hoped the F-35 would be ruinously expensive. The Modern Conservative loves "structural change", IE policies that are almost impossible to reverse once enacted. If the F-35 really was a financial black hole, passing on the hole to future governments would ensure conservative policies even if they were not in power. After all the money to pay for it would have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere would be obviously be from the poors. Basically, the Cons create a financial strain as a pretext for implementing policies they wanted to anyway, classic shock doctrine. In the short term, lots of money is funneled to friends and supporters, and in the long term, government becomes smaller. Everybody wins!
5. Harper hoped to redeem the Conservatives from the shame of the Avro Arrow. The Conservative government of John D. Diefenbaker famously cancelled the Arrow one Friday, killing a incredibly promising aerospace project and ending supersonic aviation projects in Canada. This shame has haunted Canada ever since. This ends with Harper at a podium with a white and red painted F-35 announcing that the Canadian name for the F-35. "I dub thee ARROW," Harper would say with an insane and megalomaniacal look on his face. If that sounds far-fetched, know that Canada's democracy often breeds megalomania and crazy arrogance in long-serving Prime Ministers. Being the PM who got (a) fighter aircraft named Arrow into the RCAF would be a capstone on his reign.
Of course, none of these are mutually exclusive. It could be any mixture of these possibilities.
OK, I wish I told you to move on.
I told you it was complecated.
I mean, where the hell were we?
The Auditor General released a report demonstrating the Cons had lied about the costs of the F-35. A later report released by the Rieldeu Institute showed that even the later cost estimate commissioned by the government didn't consider basic aspects of the F-35 purchase, and didn't consider if the F-35 could in fact replace the CF-18 operating in Canada. In short, the Conservatives were going to make the biggest purchase in Canadian history without asking as many questions as somebody buying a new smartphone.
OK, I get it. They blew it enormously, and are sticking to their guns because Prime Ministers never have to admit any mistakes.
Right. They also show no sigh that they have learned, well, anything.
So as a voter, what are my options?
Well, the Liberals are saying they are going to get something else. Politically speaking, this is a deft move on the part of Trudeau. There seems to be a sentiment among some voters considering the Liberals or NDP - rightly or wrongly - that the F-35 would allow us to get in on the ground floor of the next American imperial adventure. Just saying "NO F-35" would be a plus to those people. There's also people on the border of Liberal or Conservative territory that might feel the F-35 is too expensive, or too many unknowns, or both. The NDP meanwhile have been leading the pack in popularity, and has been striving to be moderate. Their proposial for actual assessment of what fighter is best for the RCAF is, in my opinion, the most sensible position. Even if you were for the F-35 for sensible reasons, the F-35 could still come out on top in the assessment. Another advantage of this approach is that even by saying "we have options" on the new fighter might give us a better deal on the F-35s - if you think there's only one option, then the dealer is going to give you a shitty deal (as LockMart is giving Canada right now.) Weirdly this is a competitive market approach to procurement, IE a classically Conservative approach, making it even weirder that it has to be proposed by rival parties of the Cons.
So what aircraft should we get?
That's another post.
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