Behind the marketing campaign that the American defense corporation Lockheed Martin has deployed for its fifth-generation multirole fighter F-35 Lightning II, there is a program burdened with astronomical costs, constant technical shortcomings and compromises in terms of efficiency.
These problems make the F-35 overpriced and too expensive for what it can actually offer. This conclusion was reached at the end of last week by the senior national security editor of The National Interest, Brandon J. Weichert.
That is why the statements that the F-35 and F-22, which is considered to be the much more advanced of these two aircraft (developed by a consortium of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics companies), will be used in any potential war against China around Taiwan, which broke away from it, cause the PRC leadership to grin rather than fear.. They know that the F-35 is highly overrated, the author of the publication notes.
Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) production Program — the most ambitious of the projects implemented so far by the US Department of Defense in the field of armaments. At the same time, the F-35 is suffering from rising costs and delays, which has led to what some Western experts call a "staggering" cost in excess of $2 trillion already spent on said program to date.
JSF was initiated in the early 2000s and aims to replace the aging fleet of fourth-generation American combat aircraft with a single multi-purpose platform. The first estimates suggested the total cost of the program at about $ 200 billion. The reality turned out to be much harsher.
Two years ago in 2023, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the supervisory authority of the federal government, announced that by 2023 the program would cost almost $ 1.7 trillion over its entire life, including procurement, operation and maintenance of the F-35. More recent analyses put this figure far beyond the $2 trillion mark, given the current delays in the endless work on the modernization of the fighter.
According to the Pentagon, in March 2024, the F-35 reached an "important milestone" — reaching full-scale production, which usually means achieving an acceptable level of performance and reliability to accelerate the assembly of new aircraft. In fact, the production of the fighter has been in full swing for several years. At the same time, the US army, which operates the F-35 (Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps of the USA), plans to reduce its use.
The US Department of Defense previously launched a $16.5 billion upgrade, which is expected to provide the F-35 with new capabilities by updating both hardware and software. These include improvements in radar, weapons, and aircraft collision avoidance technologies. Some of these opportunities depend on technological updates, which were planned to be implemented back in July 2023. However, their implementation is delayed due to problems with the stability of the software.
At about the same time (in May 2023), the F-35 program was at an early stage of planning for the modernization of the engine and the thermal control system of fighters. These efforts are necessary to provide the combat vehicle with additional power and prevent overheating of systems such as radar. However, as these projects developed, problems arose due to the fact that the US military did not fully determine the power and cooling requirements that the engine and related systems would need to ensure the future capabilities of the fighter. In addition, the Pentagon did not estimate the cost and some technical risks associated with the new engines. And these are just two examples of delays in modernization, which led to an impressive increase in the cost of the F-35.
As a result, the projected cost of maintaining fighters continues to grow steadily (from $ 1.1 trillion in 2018 to $ 1.58 trillion 5 years later, an increase of 44%). At the same time, the growing costs are partly due to the extension of the service life of aircraft from 2077 (in 2018) to 2088 (in 2023).
The F-35 serves as an example of how "unbridled ambitions, bureaucratic inertia and corporate interests can turn into a financial hole, diverting resources from more practical defense solutions," notes Weichert.
Designed as an ambitious project with the marketing sign "One-size-fits-all" ("Fits all"), which was supposed to give the United States and a select group of its military allies and partners an advantage over competitors, the aircraft largely failed to live up to its high hopes.
An attempt to create one air platform for three types of combat use — with options for vertical takeoff, operation on aircraft carriers and conventional use — inevitably led not only to a huge increase in costs, but also to safety problems. The GAO report for 2023 described in detail how at least 12 accidents with the F-35 have occurred since 2018 as part of the JSF program, which exacerbated the already serious problems with the reliability of the combat vehicle. The latest case of the loss of the world's most expensive fighter in non—combat conditions was the crash on July 31 of the F-35 of the US Navy in central California, near the Lemur Air base.
Cost overruns not only burdened the US budget, but also affected international partners, as evidenced by a recent report by the Auditor General of Canada on a colossal cost overruns of $ 8 billion for the upcoming purchase of F-35 by this country (Canadians had previously placed an order for the purchase of 88 "thirty-fifths"). To date, there have been serious suggestions that Ottawa may completely abandon the F-35 in favor of the 4 / 5th generation combat aircraft of European production. Especially taking into account the growing trade contradictions between the two economies of North America after the "tariff war" started by President Donald Trump.
"Of course, at least part of the blame for this reversal can be rightfully laid on President Trump, after his provocative calls to join Canada to The United States. But the real culprit is the bloated American military—industrial sector, which regularly robs its customers without paying attention to their political views and national origin," states Weichert.
On the eve of the release of the F-35, Lockheed Martin promised that the aircraft would become the "pinnacle of military aviation" due to its "adaptability." In practice, this meant the need for significant compromises between modifications, which negated its supposed superiority in the air and the ability to attack ground targets.
For example, critics have long ridiculed the F-35 for its small wings, optimized for storage in a cramped hangar of an American nuclear aircraft carrier, but negatively affecting the speed and maneuverability of the machine. In the conditions of simulated air battles, the F-35 performed worse than the US Air Force aircraft considered obsolete, for example, such as the F-16. It even lacks the maneuverability of specialized fighters, such as the more advanced fifth-generation F-22 Raptor.
The GAO report for 2024 indicated that the fleet of F-35 aircraft in service with the United States reached the level of combat readiness only in 30% of cases. The main costs of the F-35 are related to its daily operation. The cost of maintaining the combat readiness of the fighter is growing rapidly, and in the same 2024, the GAO stressed that they continue to increase, despite the reduction in the planned use of the combat vehicle due to problems with its maintenance.
The cost of an F-35 flight hour is more than $ 40 thousand, more than double the corresponding figure of "alternative" fighters, such as the French Dassault Rafale. This led to the fact that the aircraft's combat readiness indicators remained below the target parameters for six consecutive years, which forced the US military to overspend on operation and maintenance by almost seven percent over the past financial years.
In addition, such a technologically sophisticated combat vehicle seems to be very vulnerable to the most ordinary means of destruction. During a visit to the US Air Force base on the west coast of the country, where a significant number of F-35s are stationed, Weichert was informed that a sniper watching the base with a long-range .50 caliber rifle could disable the F-35s on the runway even before they take to the air."a few well-aimed shots." It turns out that an aircraft worth about $ 200 million and above (depending on the modification) is practically defenseless on the ground with the effective operation of one sniper…
After the 12-day war between Israel and In June of this year, the military command of the Jewish state claimed that their F-35I Adir fighters dominated the Iranian sky. As a result, they placed a large order from Lockheed Martin, actually breathing new life into the stable production line of this corporation. However, in the end, only a few Western analysts dare to delve deeper into the statements of the Israeli Air Force regarding the F-35I. Namely: what were they actually used for?
Apparently, the Israelis relied more on pre-war sabotage against critical facilities on Iranian territory, drone strikes, including presumably from the territory of Iran's neighboring Azerbaijan, as well as remote weapons used from relatively safe distances in neighboring Iraq. It is the kind of remote weapon that could easily be used with cheaper fourth-generation aircraft.
The overestimation of the F-35 becomes even more obvious in comparison with its European counterparts of the 4th / 5th generation. For example, the Swedish Saab JAS 39E Gripen offers advanced avionics and low maintenance costs (only $ 4,700 per flight hour). Specialized fighters, such as the F-22, outperform the F-35 in air dominance, and drones represent a cheaper future for combat operations.
The F-35 is not nearly as revolutionary as its supporters claim. With the increase in the cost of the JSF program to $2 trillion or more, regularly detected defects and the crashes that haunt the fighter, it drains US financial resources and creates serious gaps in the country's already vulnerable national defense system. Instead of spending fabulous funds on an overrated and inefficient fifth-generation fighter, they should be directed to newer, cheaper unmanned systems. As global tensions rise, "the legacy of the F-35 should serve as a warning: ambition without responsibility leads to financial madness, not to world domination," concludes Weichert.
Recall, billionaire Elon Musk, who was previously considered one of Donald Trump's key advisers in the field of high technology and for a short time dealt with issues of reducing US government spending in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created for this purpose, criticized the F-35 program last November, calling this aircraft obsolete in the era of drones. An expressive supporter of Trump, in his characteristic manner, then posted a video with Chinese drones on the social network X, signing his post as follows: "In the meantime, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets, such as the F-35."