Opinion | F-35s to Saudi Arabia is tantamount to treason

Graphic by Easton Clark, Photo Editor

“I will say that we will be doing that … We will be selling the F-35s.”

That’s what Donald Trump said while speaking to reporters on relations with Saudi Arabia in late November. And if this is a sentiment that he actually follows through on, we should all be deeply concerned.

Much has been made about the F-35 Lightning II, America’s latest addition to its inventory of manned combat aircraft. It has often been labeled a failure by those who lack a fundamental understanding of what modern aerial warfare looks like. It’s even earned the ire of Trump himself in the past.

It would take a very lengthy article to even fully explain the reasons the F-35 is one of the greatest aircrafts ever invented, and others have done it better, but what it comes down to is the fact that aerial warfare is not what it once was. People often think of jets as trading shots in close-range dogfights, or dropping bombs on enemies from only a few thousand feet above. But air-to-air missiles, ground-based air-defense systems, radars that can search for and track enemies at extreme distances and methods meant to counter all of those factors are the norm. 

Air-to-air combat can take place at distances of 100 to 200 miles, thanks to the range of modern missiles and radar. And with how precise and numerous both have become, an aircraft’s ability to dogfight with, maneuver against or outrun the enemy is no longer of importance. What matters is whether or not an aircraft can be the first to find and attack those enemies before making a quick escape, ideally without ever being spotted to begin with.

That is where the F-35 comes in. It may be slower than aircraft of its previous generation and carry fewer munitions on average, but what makes it the best to ever do it is its stealth characteristics and its onboard systems.

Radars are extremely precise in highlighting targets, but through a combination of unique design elements and certain materials, planes can be manufactured that either diffuse a radar’s signal or pass through it nearly entirely. The F-35 is a large plane, with some variants measuring in at 51 feet long, 35 feet wide and 14 feet high. But thanks to its stealthy design, a radar that scans it will only see an object the size of 0.005 square meters. That’s smaller than a marble, and much harder to identify and track than your standard fighter jet.

Arguably more important are the systems the F-35 uses to identify and track enemies. To name a few, the plane itself features an infrared camera system that allows its pilots to essentially look through the plane at any point for full situational awareness via their helmet. That same helmet also displays a plethora of information vital to the pilot’s performance in combat, keeping them aware at all times.

The aircraft comes equipped with an Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, or AESA radar, which is a type of radar that is incredibly adept at detecting and tracking enemies at extremely high distances before guiding long-range munitions onto those enemies. Unlike jets of older generations, the F-35 can also share information between aircrafts, meaning one jet can use another’s sensors to spot an enemy it isn’t able to, or can even use its radar to guide munitions from another aircraft onto a target. The F-35 even comes with its own electronic warfare suite to counter enemy air defenses, something only highly specialized aircrafts were able to do in the past.

The F-35 is built for an era where information and range is key to survival in combat, and where a jet needs to be able to counter enemies both in the air and on the ground. And during the brief escalation between Israel and Iran this past summer, the F-35 was reportedly crucial in suppressing Iranian air defenses and clearing a path for other aircraft to enter Iranian airspace. While the F-35 has yet to see much other combat, that instance alone should be enough to suppress most doubts.

It's for those reasons that the F-35 has become the most sought-after aircraft on the market. Twenty nations either already operate it or plan to operate it in the near future, with the U.S. alone planning to purchase over 2,000 for use in the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. Five other nations have prospected the aircraft in the past, and some have been denied for the very same reasons we should not sell them to the Saudis.

Most famously, Turkey planned to acquire up to 100 of them, with a few even delivered to an American air base for Turkish pilots to train on. But in 2020, the contract was cancelled by America. 

Why? Because Turkey also purchased Russian S-400 air defense systems, which meant Russian mechanics training Turkish soldiers and maintaining the systems might be able to work out how best to optimize the S-400 against the F-35 without having to do so under combat conditions. The F-35 can only be so effective if its best features can be exploited by our enemies, after all.

That is why it is so distressing to hear the proposal of selling them to Saudi Arabia. While Turkey is still mostly bound to the U.S. and the West via its membership in NATO, the Saudis hold no such ties. They are commonly seen as pledging fealty to the U.S., but they have routinely undercut us for their gains, even allegedly being complicit in events like 9/11. 

They have sought closer ties with both Russia and China in recent years, going so far as to consider joining their BRICS economic alliance. The Saudi military even holds direct ties with the Chinese military, having purchased systems from them like the PLZ-45 self-propelled howitzer and the CAIG Wing Loong UAV. It is far from impossible to believe that F-35s sold to the Saudis could wind up in Chinese hands in some way, shape or form.

Whatever your opinions are on our relationship with China, they are known to have committed hundreds of acts of espionage against America in the past, and have been publicly preparing their military for a war against the United States for decades, from developing jets and vehicles nearly identical to American ones to creating a missile test range with targets shaped like American ships to creating an expeditionary fleet for an invasion against Taiwan, a democratic American ally that we have sworn to protect against Chinese incursions. 

If China seeks to gain an advantage against the most advanced piece of tech in the American inventory, selling the F-35 to Saudi Arabia might as well be serving that advantage up to China on a silver platter, and would undoubtedly put American lives at risk.