Gates Versus Gates

Gates Versus Gates: Foreign fi

fth-generation fighters are a lot closer to being operational than has previously been disclosed, based on comments made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates April 7. His statements appear to contradict his own assertions on the previous day about US dominance in airpower that justified his decision to cap F-22 production at 187 aircraft. In a press roundtable discussion April 7, Gates said the intelligence he’s seen indicates that a Russian fifth-generation fighter will reach initial operational capability “about 2016.” China will field its fifth-gen fighter “about 2020,” he added. Assuming that Russia wants to take a few years to test the design and get production ramped up, that means we’ll see the Russian answer to the F-22 ... any day now. Gates’ remarks seem to corroborate comments by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov in January that the first flight of the fifth-gen Sukhoi fighter would take place this year. (See, for example, UPI’s Jan. 26 report.) Western analysts had shrugged off Ivanov’s statement because Russia has made similar claims for 15 years. As for China, the Pentagon’s 2009 annual report on Chinese military power was silent on when the Sino-equivalent of the F-22—dubbed the J-12—will arrive, but previous estimates had broadly forecast it for the mid-2020s, depending on the degree of cooperation with Russia. (April 7 transcript)

—John A. Tirpak

4/10/2009

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.