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| Japanese F-15's (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Paul Kallender-Umezu
TOKYO — Critics have raised concerns that Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) could find itself with only a modest number of fifth-generation aircraft backed by obsolescing fourth-generation planes, based around the F-2 and F-15s, that lack interoperability.
For example, at present funding levels, the ASDF can only procure 42 F-35s at a rate of a handful a year, meanwhile diverting scarce resources to update its legacy fleet. This year, the ASDF can only afford to buy six F-35s while upgrading 11 F-2s with modern digital communications systems.
The recent ballyhooed unveiling of the putative fifth-generation X-2 Shinshin stealth fighter demonstrator and the future availability of the short takeoff/vertical landing F-35B on Japan’s carrier-convertible DDH Izumo-class helicopter carrier seem to offer the ASDF some pathways to building a more effective force. But do they?
Richard Aboulafia, vice president, analysis, at the Teal Group suggested that given budget constraints, costs and the dead-end nature of the costly F-2 program, ASDF’s most likely scenario will be some additional F-35s and more F-15 upgrades. Japan might even consider buying more up-to-date F-15s, but given the funding priority of the first 42 F-35s, cash for more F-15s is unlikely to be provided, he said.
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