F-35 fighter jet: deterrence, made in Texas

In Fort Worth has an air show every day. On the outskirts of the neighboring city of Dallas in Texas, the American armaments company Lockheed Martin is producing a fighter plane in a gigantic plant, which it describes as the most modern in the world and which it is about to sell to the German armed forces. It’s the F-35 stealth jet, and the company flies more than half a dozen examples a day from a tarmac on the factory premises for testing purposes. For people in the area, the military plane is a familiar sight in the sky next to the city skyline.

Inside the central assembly hall, which is almost exactly a mile long, ubiquitous flags indicate which country the planes are destined for. For example, they can be seen on monitors in front of the individual workstations and show whether the F-35 jets currently under construction there are going to the US armed forces or to countries such as Great Britain, Norway or Israel. German flags are not among them so far, but Lockheed Martin is closer to this moment than ever. In March of this year, the federal government announced that it wanted to order 35 aircraft of the type.

“The world has realized that there are threats out there”

They are to be paid from the “special fund” of 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had announced a few weeks earlier. It was a remarkable reversal, because the previous government had plans to acquire other fighter jets, and Lockheed Martin already seemed out of the game. The final contracts have yet to be signed. But the approval of the American government, which is necessary for every F-35 sale to foreign armed forces, has been secured, and another decisive hurdle could be cleared in Germany with a so-called parliamentary referral in December.

The Bundeswehr is now about to purchase a state-of-the-art combat aircraft for the Luftwaffe fleet, which, however, has had its critics for years because of its costs and poor quality, especially in its American homeland. Germany would join a growing number of countries that have ordered the jet, most recently Switzerland and Finland. Lockheed Martin says the F-35 is made for uncertain geopolitical times like this, whether in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or in the Pacific Rim. “The world has realized that there are threats out there,” said Greg Day, who oversees international business for the F-35. The plane is like a “peacekeeper”. Nobody wants to mess with a neighboring country that has it in its armed forces.

In fact, in Germany, the F-35 is primarily intended for deterrence. It is intended as a successor solution for the Bundeswehr’s outdated Tornado jets, which have been in service for more than 40 years and are to be replaced by 2030. Their main purpose is to secure the so-called nuclear sharing, for which several dozen tornadoes have been used so far. In this NATO deterrence concept, countries like Germany have the role of allowing American nuclear weapons to be stored on their territory and providing technical equipment such as delivery systems for their use in an emergency. The F-35 jets also have the necessary certification for this function as nuclear weapon carriers, which Tornados are currently taking over. Like Tornados before, the Lockheed Martin plane would be based at Büchel Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate, the suspected, though unofficial, German site where US nuclear weapons are stored.

With the purchase of the F-35, the Bundeswehr wants to demonstrate “credible alliance capability” in the context of nuclear participation. In addition, the current Tornado fleet has other missions, such as electronic combat, which involves using electronic means to disrupt or neutralize enemy systems. The Bundeswehr wants to use versions of the Eurofighter jets that have been further developed separately from the F-35 in the future.