Japanese media: US allies in arms sales pit

[Global Times correspondent Shang Kun Yi Huirong] Japan’s defense ministry, which relies heavily on the United States in the field of armaments, recently insisted that the development of the next generation of fighter planes must “go its own way”. This decision surprised the outside world. “Japan economic news” website disclosed on the 18th that the Ministry of defense made the decision because it had suffered too much losses when cooperating with the United States to develop weapons. To the dismay of America’s allies, Japan is not the only one. < p > < p > < p > according to the Japan economic news, the United States initially proposed to Japan to jointly develop the next generation of fighters based on the US F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters. However, this plan failed because the historical lessons of the joint development of F-2 fighters by the United States and Japan in the 1990s proved that “the Americans are not reliable at all.”. In this process, the chief designer of guoda-2 plays a key role. In his book “chief designer unveils the truth about the development of F-2 fighter”, he vividly records the experiences of the United States and Japan in developing the F-2. For example, it is far from being an open “joint development”. The F-2 fighter is called joint development of the two countries. However, the United States has not disclosed its technical secrets to Japan, but has absorbed the exclusive Japanese technology it wants. What makes Japan even more indignant is that even if the US technical personnel find that the Japanese team has made mistakes in the development, they do not tell each other. Nevertheless, by contrast, the projects undertaken by Japan are progressing smoothly and the cost is relatively low. It can be seen that the US side is “deliberately pulling its feet”. According to the report, more than 20 years later, when Japan introduced the US made F-35 stealth fighter, it once again tasted the pain of being a mouse for the Americans. The Japanese air self defense force began to deploy the F-35 in 2018. In April of the next year, the F-35 crash occurred. The pilot made a mistake in the up and down direction of the “flight space orientation obstacle” during the high-speed flight, leading to the wrong operation and falling into the sea. Japan was puzzled by the U.S. military’s response since then. In July of that year, the U.S. Army installed the “fall arrest device” originally scheduled for use in 2026 for its F-35. Does the Pentagon already know that the fighter plane has this hidden danger? Many Japanese people thus concluded that “if the US military continues to take the initiative like the F-35, Japan will not be able to protect pilots.”. After learning from the bitter experience, Japan finally decided that the next generation of fighters must “follow their own path”. The U.S. government and arms dealers are not immune to the practice of exporting weapons even if they know that there are problems with weapons. Israel is forced to accept the kc-46 tanker, which is a model. The quality problems of this new type of tanker frequently occur in the use of the US military. As early as in the test phase, it revealed the defects of the fuel pipe, such as too fragile. After delivery, the U.S. Air Force repeatedly found that there were wrench, garbage debris and other processing residues in the body. This kind of low-level problem seriously threatened the flight safety, resulting in the aircraft grounded several times. Kc-46 key subsystem remote refueling visual observation system also has design defects, refueling personnel can not even judge how far away from the receiver. What’s worse, these design problems have not been solved so far. In early 2020, the air force chief of staff, David goldfein, publicly admitted that it might take until around 2023 to completely repair the kc-46’s design defects. However, under the pressure of the United States, Israel was forced to give up the plan of refitting its own tanker and purchasing similar European products, and chose to spend $2.4 billion to purchase eight kc-46 with quality defects, which is tantamount to serving as a “white mouse” for Americans. The “bad news” encountered by the US air force when it received kc-46a is likely to be repeated in the Israeli air force. It is more common for the United States to take second-hand used goods or even “junk goods” to replenish its foreign arms sales and military aid. Ukraine has a deep understanding of this. In 2015, the Ukraine government soldiers Tucao make complaints about the quality of the “Hummer” armored vehicles provided by the United States, many of which were second-hand goods produced in 1980s, and used old tyres, not to mention, even windows and doors were plastic. In 2018, the director of Ukraine’s “light” Design Bureau disclosed that the “javelin” anti tank missiles sold by the United States to Ukraine are actually over the service life. When the Ukrainian army demonstrates shooting, the missile can not be started at all. In addition, many quality problems of us made weapons have also emerged in South Korea and Australia. For example, the South Korean military purchased six millimeter wave radars when loading the “Apache” armed helicopter, but the Korean army found that the radar reported a high error rate. A military expert told the global times on the 18th that the United States always has the habit of “keeping one hand” when selling weapons. For example, other countries cannot obtain the core code when purchasing the F-35. However, the United States “economic and military” bundling of allies has made many allies suffer losses and can only admit defeat. This is a good lesson for countries that do not have their own defense industries.