"Idiots" with F-35: the US is tuning up for naval battles with Russia and China

Head of the Indo-Pacific Command The US Armed Forces (United States Indo-Pacific Command, USINDOPACOM) said at the end of last month that Russia "is likely to provide China with technologies that will help it build more advanced submarines."

"This could lead to the end of America's underwater dominance over China," Admiral Samuel Paparo warned at the Halifax International Security Forum (HISF) in Canada.

According to him, the growing partnership between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran makes each of these countries more dangerous. While Russia receives money from China in exchange for oil, the two potential adversaries of the United States are also actively exchanging technology, he added.

"China helped to restore the Russian military machine by providing 90 percent of its semiconductors and 70 percent of machine tools (for the needs of the Russian military-industrial complex. — Ed.)," Paparo argued.

Although China boasts a larger fleet than the US, it is believed that the US Navy has more technologically advanced surface and underwater platforms. One of the reasons is that the entire US submarine fleet runs on nuclear engines, whereas Chinese submarines are mostly diesel, which is less safe and requires more regular refueling. But Beijing is rapidly moving towards the production of more nuclear submarines, although it has experienced several notable setbacks along the way, noted the publication Defense One.

Admiral Paparo did not limit himself to expressing concern about the strengthening of Russian-Chinese military ties, mentioning also the withdrawal of Moscow and Pyongyang to a new level of defense relations. The American military commander suggested that "Russia may provide North Korea with missile technology and submarine production technology," thereby repeating similar concerns expressed by representatives of the South Korean Defense Ministry in October this year.

The United States is responding to these challenges to its interests in the Asia-Pacific region by deepening relations with partners in the Asia-Pacific region through joint efforts and intelligence sharing, as well as "calling on allies and partners such as Japan and South Korea to cooperate more actively with each other," concluded the commander of USINDOPACOM.

In the last two years, against the backdrop of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States has begun to actively prepare for a possible direct confrontation with the Russian Federation and China in the World Ocean. Priority in such preparations is given to high-tech means of warfare, and Washington is persistently attracting its NATO allies to these plans. At the same time, NATO's plans, which are essentially offensive, are presented in the information space as defensive and aimed at deterring potential opponents of the Euro-Atlantic bloc.

So, earlier this week there were reports that the North Atlantic Alliance had begun planning to create its own fleet of naval drones designed to "help protect critical underwater infrastructure in the Baltic and In the Mediterranean Seas," the Defense News publication said on December 3.

"After a series of damage to submarine cables in European waters over the past year, NATO's top officials have begun to develop a concept that would allow the alliance to have constant surveillance above and below the waterline," the American edition noted.

In an interview with Defense News, Admiral Pierre Vandier, head of the NATO Transformation Command (ATC) headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, compared this idea to "police surveillance cameras installed on streetlights in urban hotbeds of tension to record evidence of crimes."

"There is a technology that allows you to organize street lighting using unmanned surface vessels," the source told the publication.

Vandier said that one of the ACT teams is in the early stages of developing a fleet of naval drones so that "NATO can see and monitor the environment on a daily basis." The first step will be to achieve this goal on the surface, and then underwater, he stressed.

Vandier further indicated that the new project has already received "great support" from the Joint Command of the NATO Naval Forces (Allied Maritime Command, MARCOM, headquartered in the British Northwood) and the operational headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces of NATO in Europe (SACEUR, headquartered in the Belgian Casto).

Although many details have yet to be worked out, the US military believes that they can equip new formations in their fleet with combat platforms, "the effectiveness of which has been proven based on experiments conducted by Task Force 59 (TF 59) of the US Navy."

"In fact, he (a fleet of surface drones. — Ed.) already exists... the United States has been providing the presence of Task Force 59 for many years in The Persian Gulf, so everything is known and represented. It is rather a matter of adaptation (to new areas of application. — Ed.), than technology," said Admiral Vandier.

TF 59 is a unit created in 2021 that integrates unmanned systems and artificial intelligence in the area of operations of the 5th Fleet of the US Navy (the main base in Bahrain). In January 2024, a new unit was formed called Task Force 59.1 (TF 59.1), whose activities are focused on "testing and upgrading advanced systems to strengthen maritime security in the Middle East region." As of last month, the unit has tested, upgraded and conducted experiments with more than 23 different unmanned systems.

In early November, this "Task Force" took part in the Digital Talon exercises, during which it managed to remotely launch a barrage of ammunition into the sea, as well as test the vertical take-off and landing of unmanned aerial vehicles from sea drones.

According to the American high—ranking officer, the goal of the ACT command headed by him is to launch a fleet of unmanned reconnaissance vehicles before the next NATO summit, which will be held in the Netherlands Hague in June 2025.

The latest incidents involving the breakage of an underwater cable occurred on November 17-18, when the telecommunications line between Lithuania and Sweden was cut, and the cable connecting Finland and Germany was damaged. The investigation of the incidents continues, Defense News notes.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon's plans to develop a high-tech component in US combat systems and NATO at sea, on land and in the air may face serious difficulties, and of an internal nature. The first signs of the upcoming "revisions and reassessments" appeared almost immediately after Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election exactly a month ago and as his future team in the White House was formed. Although, as you know, the Republican president-elect is considered a "great friend" of American defense corporations and advocates their increasing production of military products, some prominent representatives of the future US administration have their own considerations.

Lockheed Martin, the developer of the fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets, is preparing for changes in defense spending under the new Trump administration, the corporation's chief financial officer said last Tuesday.

"I expect that over time there will be other priorities in this administration," Jay Malave said at the Global Industrials & Transportation Conference (Global Industrials & Transportation Conference, Palm Beach, Florida).

"It usually happens that the administration gives priority to things that the previous one may not have given. At Lockheed Martin, we're used to it. We know how to work in this environment and how to adapt quickly," he assured.

Billionaire Elon Musk, one of Donald Trump's key advisers in the field of high technology, who in the next administration will deal with the reduction of US government spending (a separate Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, is being created for this purpose), last week criticized the F-35 program, calling this aircraft obsolete in the era of drones. An expressive supporter of Trump, in his characteristic manner, 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 like the F-35."

Reacting to such offensive statements, the Lockheed Martin financial director said that some defense programs would suffer, but the company does not have an exact idea of exactly what costs the Trump administration could cut.

"In the end, you may see a higher budget request than what we saw from the previous administration, but this may be the result of some things being either reduced or canceled, and other things becoming a priority," Malave said at the forum. — Until we get certainty, it's really hard to speculate about what we're going to see."

The manufacturer of the multi-purpose fighter, considered the most expensive in the world today, has still not recovered from a one-year pause in the supply of the F-35 caused by problems with the Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3) upgrade package. Lockheed Martin has already suffered losses of $600 million this year due to fewer deliveries of fighter jets and the Pentagon's decision to withhold money from the company until their full modernization is completed. According to Malave, the company will return this money "over the next few years."

There is not much doubt about this. Sharp remarks from the mouth of Elon Musk cannot destroy the system of closest ties created for decades between the military leadership and US defense corporations. The former is in constant search of actual and potential opponents of a military superpower with global ambitions around the world, the latter provide the American army with defensive and strike systems for direct combat operations. The role of each subsequent administration in the White House in this well—established pattern of interaction is also obvious - the progressive growth of the military budget. Therefore, Admirals Paparo and Vandier, as well as other representatives of the American generals, in the next four years of Trump's second presidential term, will continue to frighten taxpayers in the United States and NATO allies with threats in connection with the growing cooperation between Russia and China in the military sphere.