Pentagon Deploying F-35s to Middle East
Operational Mistakes Undermine US Air Power and Provide Clues for What Is to Come in Ukraine
The news on Monday included an announcement by the Pentagon that the United States will send additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, along with a warship to the Middle East. This is reportedly to posture against Iran. See: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-send-additional-jets-warship-middle-east-2023-07-17/ The deployment of the F-35s in particular could be big news, but is buried by the daily chaos happening so rapidly now even major actions get little attention. Perhaps counterintuitively, for once this should not be big news because we are deploying fighter jets to the Persian Gulf despite any military action demanding the attention of a responsible citizenry. The big news should be what effect this has had on US airpower and what announcing this really reveals regarding the war in Ukraine.
Let us start by addressing the impact on airpower and then circle back to what this being reported reveals. So, first, America’s entire air dominance strategy is pinned to the F-35 Lightning II, Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. As such, there is a serious error in judgment regarding military operational security to have ever deployed our 5th Generation aircraft to support low intensity conflicts in places like the Middle East. There are a number of reasons why this was done and many of those reasons were bad such as marketing US military hardware. Further, good or bad, it is important to note that it was never necessary to deploy this aircraft and it has had the effect of undermining the effectiveness of our most advanced production aircraft against our adversaries. Because of this, both Russia and China have had the opportunity to monitor the aircraft operationally. This includes flight profiles, signals emissions, radar and thermal signatures, and other capabilities making it much easier for both countries to develop effective counter measures for the aircraft. Even for someone unskilled in military science, this should just come across as dumb, especially when you consider it was not even necessary. You never tip your hand to an enemy and let them see your playbook before a game. Even worse, we provided Israel these jets, which have used them in full combat roles over Syria exposing the jets’ true capabilities against air defense systems even if we have flown them in a semi-restrained capacity for security. Remember, Russia is in Syria and has been very patiently gathering and exploiting that intelligence for years. There is no doubt that the result has been to the advantage of Russia, which can now tune its air defense systems, missiles, and fighter jets to mitigate the advanced technology in the F-35 that is supposed to keep it alive.
There is also the price tag. The F-35 Lightning II is an incredibly expensive jet with cutting edge technology. It costs roughly $78 million per plane with lifecycle unit costs north of $110 million per plane. This huge price tag is the result of “stealth” technologies integrated into the jet that are supposed to make it more survivable against air defense systems despite sacrificing some performance parameters. To offset the high cost, the aircraft’s advanced capabilities were supposed to allow it to replace older aircraft at a ratio better than 1:1. In other words, this aircraft was to be so advanced the military would not need as many jets. This of course is predicated on what I consider a very flawed assumption that the technology would stay well ahead of our adversaries’ capabilities to counter it. If it proves wrong, and I believe it already has, the US and its allies it duped into procuring it will be unable to afford this jet in the numbers necessary for any sustained operation against a peer level threat. The huge price the US taxpayer paid for “stealth” capabilities has been wasted.
Despite “Wunderwaffe” having a sexy appeal, they nearly never are able to be produced in numbers necessary to strategically change the outcome of a war. Mass matters in a war of attrition so if the “stealth” advantages are overcome, the US would need to produce this aircraft in numbers comparable to much simpler aircraft to replace losses. This alone makes me highly skeptical of the defense industry’s claims regarding the jet’s capabilities in order to justify its massive price tag. To me, it looks like a disaster in the making. Even a cursory look at the supply chain and logistics for this aircraft will tell you that it is not something that can be mass produced under wartime conditions. There are just too many places, to use a WW2 reference, where a ball bearing factory could be knocked out rendering the F-35 a hundred-million-dollar paperweight on the flight line of a production facility. Further, there is the maintenance side of the house. With very advanced and sophisticated systems comes the necessity for very technical support systems and highly trained maintenance technicians. To put this in context, the Marine Corps may only produce a few dozen qualified radar technicians every one and a half years based on the very long training pipeline and extremely high intellectual requirements to successfully complete the training. Then, it usually requires another 2-4 years of actual on-the-job experience and training to be fully competent with the systems. In addition, these technicians are drawn from only the highest scoring recruits on the entrance test administered to military candidates. This candidate pool represents perhaps 5% of the total number of recruits. Also, this is just for radar technicians for this one aircraft. There are hundreds of other jobs, many very technical, that are required to support this one aircraft from communications technicians to engine mechanics. All of this is the long way of explaining that one hypersonic missile strike on an airfield would all but end any ability to sustain this aircraft in a major war due to the attrition of trained maintenance technicians regardless of the aircraft’s capabilities.
Back to the aircraft’s capabilities. I hope I have made the point well enough about how much the Pentagon has pinned on the F-35’s capabilities. So, if they are wrong, and our adversaries find ways to counter those capabilities, the core of America’s air power for the next few decades is wiped out. Knowing that fact is why I have been very much against sharing this technology with any partner nations and certainly against using it operationally for all to see. Unfortunately, that is not the only problem. Chinese espionage obtained detailed aircraft information years ago allowing the Chinese to effectively reverse engineer an aircraft quite similar in look to the F-35. The result has been the Chinese J-20 5th Generation stealth aircraft being fielded and massed produced. When the J-20 was first revealed, it should have been seen as a catastrophic strategic failure on part of the US military to retain a quality edge over China, yet it was met with a dismissive attitude and many justifying the disaster as the J-20 being nothing more than a look-alike with none of the F-35’s capability. Since then, the Chinese have rapidly improved in areas such as the engine manufacturing processes and materials, which have led to a very capable threat to the F-35 that most likely can be produced cheaper and in far greater numbers than the F-35. It is also fair to assume that if the Chinese acquired the blueprints for the aircraft, it knows quite a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of the jet. This information has likely been shared with countries such as Russia and integrated into more advanced access denial and air defense systems, which will render any advantage the F-35 had moot. Make no mistake, this is a nightmare. The scoffers have been silenced, yet still, no one is talking about the fact America’s air power in any future war has not only been eroded, but potentially eliminated.
Over the last few paragraphs, I hope you can surmise that we royally screwed up by revealing our front-line fighter technology to the world prematurely. Of course, there are those they will say it did not matter because we already have better technology, and our adversaries have the F-35 technology anyhow so we might as well use it. They are wrong, but I do not have the space in this letter to dress those idiots down. This brings me to my next point. By moving a finite military asset to the Middle East, what does that do in a zero-sum game? In game theory that involves two sides, the result of one gaining equals the equivalent loss for the other. In plain language, if you send F-35s to the Middle East, there are less F-35s for any potential war in Europe. Does anyone think this benefits Russia? I do. If we are serious about Ukraine and fear a war with Russia, why in the heck would be sending our best jets to the Middle East? There are a few ways to read this. The simplest read is that our military is led by morons that the Russians just played as fools. The facts on the surface support this. Both Russia and Iran have been coordinating operations in the Middle East for some time now and there can be no doubt Russia is seeking to pull pressure away from the war with Ukraine. To support this theory there have been numerous reports of more aggressive intercepts of our aircraft by Russian aircraft in Syria, transfers of fighter jets and air defense systems to Iran, and provocative Iranian actions in the Persian Gulf such as seizing ships. In addition, the US has gone as far as to flat out say these actions are why they are sending the jets to the region. This appears to add up quite well but looks can be deceiving.
This brings me to my last point in dissecting the implications of this deployment being announced. Did anyone mention that F-35s have been deployed to the Middle East for years in the news? I alluded to this earlier in the letter discussing why it was foolish from an operational security perspective, but I want to highlight why this omission in the current reporting by MSM is important. Those of you that have been reading my letters are well aware of what I see as the only two outcomes in Ukraine if NATO does not admit defeat. The first is escalation, which leads to WW3. The other is the “Kabul Option,” which is tuck tail and run, forget Ukraine exists, and start a new war. If we were moving towards option one, I doubt we would be spreading our forces thinner in Europe. However, if we were moving towards option two, which I have repeatedly said I believe would come as a war with Iran, it suddenly makes very good sense. Taking what amounts to routine military mischief in the Middle East and amplifying it to prep the public conscience for a new war while using it to camouflage the purpose of pre-positioning deep strike aircraft is most likely a more accurate read on what is occurring. Knowing this, NATO and the CIA are hedging their bets. They know Ukraine is losing and something has got to give soon. If for no other reason, the NATO summit in Vilnius left little doubt the Europeans had no appetite for escalating the war and getting nuked so if they cannot provoke an incident that triggers Article 5 before Ukraine collapses, they need Iran lined up.
What you can expect to see if this theory plays out to be accurate is what I detailed in prior letters. The US will begin a dedicated information campaign against Syria and Iran. They will gradually turn down the dial on the war in Ukraine while simultaneously increasing the volume for war with Iran. All manner of events will be created or manipulated to paint Iran as an existential threat and menace to the civilized world while lumping in Syria for the convenience of justifying the continued illegal US occupation of that nation. This will be matched with covert provocative actions to spur Iran into retaliation, which can be used to justify further the necessity of military intervention. You should know this is already well under way. Our still highly active CIA outposts in Afghanistan are working feverishly to organize Taliban cross-border attacks against Iran for just this purpose. Iran knows exactly what is going on, but the mainstream media is dead silent regarding this because advertising the truth would undermine the narrative that Iran is the next bad guy that must be destroyed. Israeli is also doing all it can to force escalation and has continued to bomb Syria, attack Palestinians, and is still carrying out a terrorist campaign of sabotage and assassination inside Iran and abroad against Iranian interests. You will know things are getting serious when social media suddenly starts removing Ukrainian flags and replacing them with something even more mentally offensive like, “Stop Iranian terror.”
Again folks, I want to lean on you to be prepared. The world is spinning out of control and there is a palpable quickening. Get as self-sufficient as possible while you can, develop plans to live abroad, diversify your assets into liquid assets that can cross borders and not be trapped in the US financial system, and stay on top of the issues. It is so easy today to just stick your head in the sand and say screw it. Please don’t. Those that do have been defeated by the information war being waged against them that seeks to demoralize them to the point where they give up without a shot being fired. At least put up some resistance and the best way to do that is still to get the word out. By sensitizing people to what is happening you can complicate if not foil many of their ugliest plans. For example, exposing this deployment by embarrassing the corrupt traitors in our government would be a good start. Simply start asking why our jets are going to the Middle East if the threat is Russia. It is not a defendable position for the government if they are forced to justify how Iran is somehow a bigger threat than Russia, which we are told is about to overrun all of Europe. If that were true, we could not spare a single jet for a non-threat like Iran. Also, start asking why the CIA is still in Afghanistan providing them money and conducting offensive operations against Iran. Did we declare war on Iran? Are the Taliban good guys now…again? Maybe ask about what is going on in Afghanistan and point out how the Taliban are using social media to track down and execute anyone that posted anything pro-Western or supported women’s rights. Those poor souls are all dead or in hiding thanks to the US and the Biden regime. Demand our leaders are held accountable, refuse to join the military, withdrawal your consent to all aspects of this insanity before it is too late. Till next time…