President Donald Trump has agreed to go ahead with the sale of the United States’ most advanced fighter jet, the F-35, to Saudi Arabia, despite major concerns that China could gain access to the plane’s vaunted American technology.
The agreement was reaffirmed during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent visit to Washington.
There are also concerns within the Republican administration that supplying the F-35 to Saudi Arabia could undermine Israel’s crucial qualitative military advantage over its neighbors. This concern is especially salient as Trump seeks Israeli support for his proposed Gaza peace plan.
Israel, which used the F-35 during its 12-day conflict with Iran in June, is one of 19 countries worldwide that own the advanced jet or have signed deals to acquire it.
It’s been nearly two decades since the first F-35 Lightning attack fighter rolled off the assembly line in Fort Worth, Texas, hailed as a technological leap and lamented as a military money pit.
Since then, more than 1,200 stealth jets have been created, creating nearly 300,000 supply chain-related jobs in 49 states and Puerto Rico, according to Lockheed Martin. The aircraft have been delivered to the US Air Force, Navy and Marines.
Here are things you need to know about the F-35:
The fighter jet is coveted by many
Marines used the F-35 to carry out strikes on enemy targets in Afghanistan, while Italian F-35s were part of a NATO response to Russian aircraft in Estonian airspace in September.
But the snub-nosed aircraft with twin tailfins has been criticized from the start, in part because it was designed to meet the varying needs of three different military branches. The Navy, for example, launches them from aircraft carriers, while the Marine Corps’ version can take off and land like a helicopter.
They are the Pentagon’s most expensive spending program ever — costing up to $77 million each by 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service — while they are known for cost overruns and delays.
Meanwhile, China may already have some intelligence, albeit several years old, on its planes. The Defense Science Board, which advises the Pentagon, released a report in 2013 claiming that Chinese cyberattacks had accessed data from dozens of Pentagon programs, including the joint strike fighter.
The most advanced American fighter jet
The F-35 is “widely recognized as America’s best and most advanced fighter jet,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Bowman noted that U.S. military systems are constantly being updated and improved, countering possible stolen secrets from years ago.
“That’s why you already have 19 partner countries and why countries like Saudi Arabia want this,” Bowman said. “If the plane was so compromised by theft by the Chinese, the Saudis wouldn’t want it.”
The F-35 was first proposed in the 1990s and was intended to replace several aging fighter aircraft, including the Air Force’s workhorse, the F-16. The aircraft is designed so that pilots can easily switch from bombing to dogfights during the same mission.
Described as a fifth-generation fighter, the technologies include stealth coatings and advanced radar and sensors, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“What makes the F-35 particularly formidable is the greater difficulty our adversaries have in detecting it,” Bowman said. “So if you can’t see it, you can’t kill it.”
Bowman said the aircraft also has advanced sensors to better detect enemies, as well as networking capabilities to communicate with allied aircraft and ground forces during combat.
Each aircraft had to be relatively cheap to build, with each variant built on the same assembly line. But as the first F-35 prepared for its maiden flight in 2006, the cost of the program had increased significantly.
High costs for the plane
According to a September report from the Government Accountability Office, a Department of Defense estimate that maintaining, operating and modernizing the planned 2,470 aircraft over a 77-year life cycle will cost more than $2 trillion.
The report also shows that Lockheed delivered 110 aircraft last year, all of which were “an average of 238 days late, compared to 61 days in 2023.”
Meanwhile, there are concerns about readiness. By 2023, the speed at which the aircraft can perform any of its assigned missions was about 55%, well below program goals, the Government Accountability Office found. Part of the problem was delays in setting up maintenance facilities, inadequate equipment and supply problems.
Dan Grazier, a senior fellow and director of the Stimson Center’s National Security Reform Program, said the F-35 program was ultimately a failure.
He pointed to the plane’s stealth coating to evade radar detection, which he said requires a lot of maintenance, while a camera system that provides situational awareness has also had problems.
“It doesn’t matter what transformative capability an aircraft has if it can’t be relied on,” he said.
The F-35 is designed to replace several older aircraft at once, Grazier said, noting that it does “a lot of things well, but nothing great.”
“It also costs a fortune,” he says. “So you pay a fortune for an aircraft that is actually in many cases less capable than what came before.”
Lockheed Martin has pushed back on such criticism.
“The F-35 is the cornerstone of the battlespace for 20 allied nations, enabling peace through strength,” the company said in a statement. “It is battle-proven and offers the most advanced capabilities and technology. With more than 1 million flight hours and more than 1,255 aircraft in service, the F-35 makes an indispensable contribution to global security.”
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