Why The U.S. Imposes ‘Onerous’ Preconditions And Restrictions On Middle East F-35s

The United States is banning Israeli pilots with foreign passports from flying Israeli Air Force (IAF) fifth-generation F-35 Lightning stealth fighters as a precaution against potential espionage. The move follows the 2019 banning of Turkey from buying any F-35s after Ankara purchased Russian S-400 missiles and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) 2021 suspension of a landmark deal to buy 50 of the jets over “onerous” preconditions.

In January, the Jerusalem Post reported that the U.S. Department of Defense issued the ban “in fear of information security and technology leaks.”

“The move by the U.S. stems from an increasingly expanding focus on information security and safeguarding U.S. interests,” read the report. “As a result, sources claim the IAF accepted this stipulation and gave up assigning pilots to F-35 Adir aircraft.”

The Adir is a unique variant of the F-35 and an apt example of tight-knit U.S.-Israel defense ties.

As military aviation writer Sebastien Roblin explained, the Adir is “the only F-35 variant to enter service heavily tailored to a foreign country’s specification,” which is significant since Lockheed MartinLMT
“mostly refused to allow major country-specific modifications to the F-35, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars foreign F-35 operators contributed to the aircraft’s development.”

Even with one of its closest allies, the U.S. felt the need to impose strict measures to ensure sensitive details about the aircraft’s capabilities remain securely under wraps.

Such a move is unsurprising, especially in that unpredictable and volatile part of the world.

In December 2021, the UAE suspended discussions on a $23 billion deal for 50 F-35s and 18 MQ-9 Reaper drones it had reached the previous year shortly after normalizing relations with Israel under the 2020 Abraham Accords.

“Technical requirements, sovereign operational restrictions, and cost/benefit analysis led to the re-assessment,” said a UAE official at the time.

The U.S. feared that the Huawei 5G mobile phone network China is installing in the country, consisting of hundreds of cell towers, could somehow collect intelligence on the stealth aircraft without Abu Dhabi’s knowledge.

The UAE’s ultimate decision to suspend discussions on the historic acquisition likely stemmed from its unwillingness to meet the necessary preconditions or doubts about the legitimacy and severity of Washington’s espionage fears. One Emirati official even used the word “onerous” to describe the American requirements for safeguarding Emirati F-35s against potential Chinese espionage.

In the months leading up to Turkey’s contentious acquisition of advanced Russian-built S-400 air defense missile systems, the U.S. repeatedly warned Ankara that it could not operate the Russian system and the American stealth fighter. For its part, Turkey insisted that its S-400s would operate as standalone systems and wouldn’t pose any threat to the F-35. Ankara proposed forming a “technical working group” to address concerns that its S-400 could threaten American or NATO military systems. Washington maintained that Turkey’s possession of the S-400 could somehow enable Russia to glean sensitive intelligence about the F-35’s stealth capabilities.

Michael Kofman, a noted expert on the Russian military, expressed skepticism about such fears.

“We should consider that most likely the F-35 and the S-400 are not going to be anywhere near each other,” he told Defense One in 2019. “Hence the proposition that Russian technicians are going to be working on the same base, co-located with F-35s, is a low-probability event.”

There were also political reasons behind banning Turkey from acquiring any F-35s. After all, the NATO member state willingly sought out an advanced Russian air defense system designed to counter NATO systems when it had the option of purchasing Western alternatives. Ankara also knowingly exposed itself to U.S. sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) introduced in 2017 — which, as the name suggests, sanctions countries that make significant transactions with the Russian defense sector.

Nevertheless, Turkish officials have maintained that unspecified fears over Russian espionage on the F-35 were merely a pretext for Washington’s F-35 ban. Turkey believed something similar was afoot regarding the subsequent UAE pullout. That same month, a senior Turkish official confided to Middle East Eye that the U.S. “never technically explained to us how the S-400 could spy on the jet.”

“They never wanted to share the ways and methods of such possible Russian espionage through the Russian missile system on F-35,” the official added. “They treated it as a state secret.”

The U.S.’s much more recent banning of pilots from flying Israel’s F-35s is noteworthy. After all, Israel is the U.S.’s main ally and closest military partner in the Middle East. Washington is legally obligated to protect and uphold that country’s qualitative military edge over the region. Therefore, its fear that F-35s in Israeli service could somehow become compromised shows how consistently it worries about its adversaries gaining any insight into the jet’s capabilities and potential vulnerabilities. It could also indicate that its concerns that Turkish or Emirati F-35s could prove susceptible to espionage were at least sincere.

The F-35 remains the single most expensive weapons program in world history. The latest Defense Department cost estimate for developing and procuring the fifth-generation fighters for the U.S. armed forces is $412 billion. Operating and maintaining the aircraft until 2088 will cost at least $1.3 trillion.

In light of this, it’s not in the least bit surprising that the U.S. is so determined to ensure that its stealth capabilities and technology are not at risk of compromise and is willing to impose “onerous” preconditions and restrictions on even close allies to do so.