The F-35 and 23 billion dollar questions

Would the UAE cancel a major US arms deal?

Although the think-tank circuit proclaiming seismic shifts in policy in West Asia is no rare thing, less common is a shift being anything like as monumental as its billing. The UAE decision to potentially pause in acquisition of fifty of the new US F-35 fighter jet, however, is consequential.

At the outset it is important to note that nothing has been cancelled outright; the UAE has simply voiced discontent that US terms about technology transfers are not to its liking. The UAE may simply be exercising its right as a leading US weapons client to make disgruntled noises about a purchase, but only so as to enact greater leverage over the final terms, and to stress its value to the US lest it be otherwise taken for granted. It is not impossible that this is all posturing, and it would be unlikely that in it was no posturing at all. The UAE - more comfortable under a Republican Trump presidency than a Democrat one - would likewise not be beyond seeking to deal the Biden administration a blow of delayed orders to cater to right-wing depictions of Biden’s incompetence.

Whatever motivations are beneath the surface, even choosing to voice these concerns in fulfilling its order of F-35s does two things. Firstly - particularly in the very public fashion in which it was done - it demonstrates the possibility of frays in the US-UAE relationship. Secondly, it demonstrates the extent to which the tail wags the dog; US client states do from time to time show their ability to contort their parent military power into positions that are embarrassing to it.

What has been publicly stated is that the UAE is stepping-back from F-35 orders over value-for-money concerns, but also because it describes as “too onerous” the technology constraints on the software, designed to safeguard US military and technology secrets being passed to either the UAE, or to China; with which the UAE also has and hopes to preserve close ties.

The UAE has stressed that this does nothing to its perception of itself as being foremost in the US military axis, and foremost a US client where weapons systems are concerned, but this is an example of where something being proclaimed out loud as a reassurance becomes noticeable in that reassurance is not normally deemed necessary.

The F-35 issue is useful because where military decisions lead, political ones follow. Below is an effort to take elements of the UAE statement on the F-35 order, and to use it to elucidate relations and considerations for different countries in and towards West Asia; not only the US and UAE, but also China, Israel, France, Turkey and others

For China

While the nature of UAE concerns about restrictions to keep-safe information from China might be unknown, the more significant ramification is a political one. It demonstrates a considerable confidence on the part of the UAE to publicly state not so much its refusal but its disinterest as a customer in accommodating US concerns over China and military secrets.

Alongside China’s regional influence as an enormous energy customer and trading partner, and the easy trading links it has been able to cultivate with Iran as a result of a self-harming US decision to restrict that country’s access to the world economy, this lays further ground for a Chinese role in West Asia, at the expense of the US, and with the UAE as a hub.

For France

Though the United States wants badly to disengage from its costly misadventures, reputational damage and responsibilities in West Asia, the same cannot be said of France. Delusions of colonial grandeur die incredibly hard in Paris, and whether in a general West Asia influence, or more specific visions of France helping Lebanon out of economic crisis (how Emmanuel Macron hopes to do this remains unknown), France clearly still sees itself in the region.

The F-35 pause from the UAE is also - crucially - to the good of France. Any unsold planes would doubtless be supplanted at least in part by French Rafale jets, which the UAE recently announced it would buy $19bn of, alongside other military hardware. With US-French relations at an all-time low, in part because of the underhand US and Australian decision to kill a deal for an Australian order of French nuclear submarines, it is not in the interests of either party to talk about this element of the F-35 decision, but its presence is obvious.

There is much more to be written about the current French view of West Asia, and how that relates to both its domestic politics and poor US relations, but I will return to this in a future post.

For the UAE and Turkey

The UAE and Turkey would, depending on the UAE’s final decision, find themselves in the common position of both being distanced from the F-35 programme; albeit with Turkey being distanced by ejection - it was removed from participation in purchase and manufacture of the F-35 - and the UAE by its own election.

One a NATO partner and one a principal US client state in West Asia, the absence or diminished presence of both in a flagship US aircraft project does indisputably represent a fraying of the totality in US military power in the region. The claim that Turkey was muscled-out of the F-35 programme to simplify who had what technology, rather than the purported explanation of its purchase of an S-400 Russian-made anti-missile system, would add further substance to this notion.

That the UAE announcement included not only a suspension of F-35 purchases but also of US Reaper drones was conspicuous not least of all because Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu was in the UAE at the time. Turkish drones have taken on a status of near-mythical proportions in recent years, known for battlefield successes in Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, while carrying a far more affordable price tag than US equivalents. Saudi Arabia - for the most part a close UAE ally - had previously been rebuffed by Turkey in its enquiries about drone purchases, but given the thaw in relations currently underway between Turkey and the Gulf states, a drone sale to the UAE is less unthinkable than it might have been recently.

This is, at this stage, only speculation, but for Turkey and the UAE to begin a closer knitting-in of a regionally-manufactured military systems would - alongside recent economic investments - be a historic instance of regional integration, especially if it came in any way at the expense of US orders.

For Iran

There is at the outset a reasonable assumption that anything that disadvantages the US is to the good of Iran, and that certainly applies here. While the UAE and Iran nominally make up different axises in West Asia, even before the F-35 announcement, a recent US reiteration of its illegal sanctions policy against the Iranian population already gave cause for pause. The US statement included a warning, specifically directed at the UAE, against helping Iran continuing to trade its resources in violation of sanctions, and in order to sustain basic public needs (such as purchasing vaccines in a pandemic).

While the actual and shared material interests of ostensibly opposing sides in West Asia is nothing new, this public acknowledgement of it by the US is a rare one, and so perhaps also in its own way a sign of changing times in which Iran and the UAE aim to cool hostilities that as - protector and guarantor - serve US interests more than regional ones.

For Israel

Though now sharing full diplomatic relations, the announcement from the UAE marks some contrast with Israel in its ability to tread its own China policy. Whereas Israel accepting Chinese investment in key infrastructure such as its port in the Palestinian city of Haifa has provoked US concerns, as has selling military hardware such as “Kamikaze” drones, the UAE - without the heavy US bankrolling enjoyed by Israel - perhaps has more latitude for an autonomous China position.

It is also, however, worth noting in the F-35 decision the familiar and repeat US assurances to maintain Israel’s “qualitative advantage” militarily in the region. This statement, made most recently by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is valuable in its honesty, and while designed mostly to satisfy the Israel lobby in the US, it does reveal more than is perhaps intended.

If the UAE and Israel are now formal allies with full relations, why wouldn’t they enjoy (especially at a cost to the UAE of $23bn) equal military power? Following from this, if the US doesn’t fully believe in the deals of the grandly-titled but hastily arranged Abraham Accords, then why should the UAE? To what extent can the UAE satisfy its ambitions for regional influence while viewed by the US in such a publicly second-rung role?

At the heart of this lack of faith, exposed by the essentially binary natures of military decision making (which direction are the bullets coming from? who do I sell my weapon to?), is the confession that - for all the gloss and staged photo shoots of the UAE and Israel normalising ties, this normalisation, alongside the Israeli brutalisation of Palestinians, remain regionally unpopular - an unpopularity that can only be contained through the repression of despots that even the US does not trust completely.

For the United States and the F-35

In as much as the F-35 is regarded as prestigious at all, it is a success - as with a great deal of the arms trade - of marketing. In an age where drones launched in partnership with the Houthis in Yemen can destroy some of the world’s largest oil facilities, and where Saudi Arabia has to plead for more $1million interceptors to counter missiles fired from Yemen that cost mere thousands of dollars, the F-35 is clearly designed for an outdated version of warfare. It still carries prestige, which isn’t nothing in the world of weapons and foreign policy, but its suitability for the age in which it will operate remains uncertain. Critics of the F-35 project include such well-known peaceniks as former-President Donald Trump, who once cited the “tremendous cost and cost overruns” of an “out of control” programme for the F-35.

In assessing China as its principal strategic competitor, and Russia as a significant challenge, the US now obviously understands the need to take steps out of West Asia and its “forever wars” in the region. Undergirded by the World Trade Centre attacks of 2001, prevailing domestic Islamophobia, and baby-boomer fascinations with events such as the US embassy siege in Tehran, US fixation with the region has only harmed millions, as well as distracting from its own interests and efforts to create a sense of global legitimacy.

The US will be aware of the inevitability in which its withdrawal from West Asia means a situation of moving parts in which other states and actors take-up the vacated and differing positions. The UAE statement on its concerns and ideas about the F-35 is a significant early example of this, but more will follow.