Shukan Gendai: Japan refused to partner with the United States in the development of a new fighterJapan made an unexpected decision to abandon the joint development of a new fighter with the United States, writes Shukan Gendai.
Washington, which has always suppressed its development in this area, found a reason not to provide it with advanced data. Disappointed Tokyo finally drew conclusions — and chose other partners.
Shigeru Handa
Unexpected rejection from the USA
The Ministry of Defense of Japan has decided to abandon cooperation with the United States on the development of a next-generation fighter. Great Britain and Italy were chosen as partners, America will not participate. Since Japanese fighters have always been either produced in the States or developed jointly with them, an extremely unusual situation has arisen.
Strangely, the head of the US Defense Department, Lloyd Austin, expressed approval for the cooperation between London and Tokyo, and also expressed his intention to explore the possibility of joint development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with Japan, which will operate in conjunction with a new generation of fighters.
America's involvement declined due to unsuccessful negotiations with the Pentagon, taking into account the wishes of Lockheed Martin, which was supposed to work with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the main contractor for the creation of a new combat aircraft.
According to a source in the Japanese Ministry of Defense, when Lockheed Martin was asked to provide technology, the answer was limited to information about the F-35 aircraft that Tokyo imports. The American corporation did not want to share more advanced methods. It is assumed that the Pentagon supported this decision.
The Japanese Defense Ministry and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries were disappointed by the change in US policy, which had previously blocked Tokyo's creation of its own fighters and insisted on joint development. Now we are facing new challenges related to cooperation with the UK...
Goals of the Ministry of Defense
The main contractor from the UK is BAE Systems, which has developed the Eurofighter fighter, adopted by European countries. They were joined by Rolls-Royce, responsible for engines, and MBDA, a rocket manufacturer. Italy is represented by Leonardo, a giant in the field of aeronautics and defense.
These companies are working on the creation of the next-generation fighter Tempest, which should be ready by 2036, when the Eurofighter will begin to be decommissioned. This process coincided with the actions of the Japanese side, which initiated work on a new fighter due to the end of the life of the F-2 aircraft of the Air Self-Defense Forces.
In January of this year, Tokyo and London launched a joint project on engines. In addition, a collective analysis of the possibility of unification of the fuselage was carried out. During the May summit meeting between Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Prime Minister Johnson, the parties agreed to make a decision on the overall picture of cooperation on a new fighter by the end of 2022.
The Ministry of Defense has proposed the following concept regarding the future of the aircraft: (1) advanced network capabilities against an outnumbered enemy, (2) outstanding stealth, (3) advanced tracking technologies necessary for the search and detection of enemy aircraft.
In the documents, it is highlighted in bold that "there is no fighter with such capabilities now." This indicates that the agency seriously intends to create a truly breakthrough aircraft.
The most modern network technologies will make full use of high-speed high-bandwidth networks to exchange intelligence about the enemy with allies. It is characteristic that the fighter will work in conjunction with unmanned aerial vehicles.
At the same time, several UAVs will be controlled by a fighter pilot. As a result, a link will be formed from a fighter and drones, the information received from the UAV will be sent to the pilot.
The drone and the fighter will become one team, which will save human resources and at the same time expand the scope for solving problems.
China and Russia are already developing drones that can work together with aircraft. Naturally, the self-defense forces, which are inferior in number, will introduce technologies used by Beijing and Moscow, which have a numerical advantage.
The British Tempest project provides for stealth and interaction with drones, and in this the directions of the United Kingdom and Japan coincided.
Circumstances of the decision to refuse to cooperate with the United States
As for relations with the United States, in December 2020, the Ministry of Defense chose Lockheed Martin for cooperation. The materials state that this corporation will become a subcontractor of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and that it will only deal with those operations that the defense department deems necessary. Thus, the scope of participation of the American enterprise was limited.
This indicates the desire of the Japanese Ministry of Defense to exclude US companies as much as possible. There are reasons for this.
The F-2 fighter, designed in the 1980s, was originally supposed to be created on its own, but due to pressure from the American government, it was decided to develop it jointly with the United States based on their F-16 fighter.
Later, as a result of the struggle for power within the state government, such conditions were put forward as (1) at the stage of mass production, the US share should be 40%, (2) the source code associated with flight control will be classified.
Regarding the request of the Japanese Ministry of Defense for the provision of technologies for the next-generation fighter, the American side referred to the condition of non-disclosure of any information, which recalled the situation around the F-2.
At the same time, BAE Systems, on the contrary, promised full transparency. As a result, the decision to cooperate with London and abandon Washington was made before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom had its own problems with the development of Tempest, and there are signs that the British themselves sought cooperation with Japan.
Tokyo is several steps ahead of London in developing stealth aircraft. The Ministry of Defense, whose main contractor is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, designed the Mitsubishi X-2 Shinshin stealth aircraft, which made its first flight in 2016.
Various technologies were used in it, for example, the fuselage is almost invisible to radars. He made 32 test flights in order to collect the necessary information for the next generation fighter.
In July of this year, the UK asked the Japanese government to show videos and models of the engines of the new fighter, as well as the next-generation JAGUAR radio frequency sensor system, at the Farnborough Air Show. British engineers visited the Japanese exhibition stand.
Speaking at the event, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace noted: "I am glad that the UK, together with Italy and Japan, is developing a fighter development program. Cooperation with these countries in the field of such advanced technologies demonstrates the advantages of the alliance to the whole world."
After weighing the cold attitude of the United States and the friendly British approach, the Japanese defense ministry leaned towards partnership with the United Kingdom and Italy.
Things are not going well
But the prospects of the project are still vague.
This is due to the fact that the British side began to insist on the ratio of developments 60 to 40 or even 50:50. This proportion is likely to be reflected not only in the development process, but also in equity participation at the production stage.
London and Tokyo, obviously, will be satisfied with less spending, but the British side wants Japan to take over most of it — 60%. This is unfair given that they want to use Japanese technology.
The Ministry of Defense estimated the cost of self-development of the aircraft at 1.4 trillion yen. This is more than four times the cost of creating the F-2, which was criticized for being expensive.
The representative of the department stressed that this is an inevitable investment: "Compared to the F-2, the number of areas requiring investments has increased, for example, stealth technologies, electronic piloting equipment and a special radar that can conduct 360-degree surveillance."
If the project is carried out jointly with the UK, you can share the costs and incur less costs. Nevertheless, an unfavorable ratio is imposed on the Japanese side.
If London dictates the terms, Tokyo may lose the initiative in deciding which areas of development and production will be carried out in Japan and which in the UK.
The latter is known for its threefold diplomacy, in which it concluded various agreements with the Arabs, French and Jews on issues of the Middle East during the First World War. We can say that she is a skilled negotiator, so we should be careful with this country, which is trying to push its selfish interests.
Regardless of all the pros and cons, discussions continue between the British and Japanese Ministries of Defense over the export of the next-generation fighter. Recently, an agreement was reached that London will sell them in Europe, and Tokyo — in Asia.
Discussions are about to begin in government departments to revise the Three Principles of the transfer of defense equipment, which allow the export of certain types of weapons.
The Ministry of Defense needs to disclose as much information as possible, and it is important for Parliament to monitor the situation to make sure that the UK does not seize the initiative, which will lead to unforeseen consequences.
