F-16s: who has them and who will send them (maybe) to Ukraine
With the green light from the United States, the allies have agreed to train pilots in Kiev, but at the moment no country has communicated the supply of F-16 fighters to Ukraine. The deepening of the newspaper Politico
Just as happened for other weapon systems made available to Kiev only after initial Western hesitations and a disconcerting ballet of declarations, the news of the supply of F-16s to Ukraine is currently being continuously updated . Here is the state of the art outlined in a recent Politico article which takes stock of the various issues on the table including that relating to the training of Ukrainian pilots.
F-16 TO UKRAINE? FIRST THE TRAINING
After prolonged pressure from the Ukrainians, last Friday, with an announcement by Biden made in the solemn context of the G7 meeting in Hiroshima in the presence of Zelensky himself, the US finally entered the nascent international coalition that wants to equip Kiev with fourth-generation fighter jets and train its pilots, generating the expectation that the F-16s are finally on the verge of being used in theaters of war.
Yet, underlines Politico , at the moment neither the US nor the other Western allies appear ready. Natural candidates such as Holland, Belgium and Denmark continue to niche, hiding behind the watchword of the moment: first comes the training of Ukrainian pilots.
"Let's make sure we do most of the training for now," Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said on Monday. “It remains to be seen,” he added, “what the future holds.”
And yet, if we consider what has happened since February 24 last year, we can glimpse a pattern of behavior among the allies that bodes well: we start with an initial phase of hesitation, then one of the Western powers, typically the US , take the first step and finally all the others queue up.
As Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), explains to Politico , this pattern is "indicative of the way the US has provided assistance (to Ukraine) at each stage of the war." .
In a nutshell, if no one seems ready to transfer their F-16s to Russia's borders for now, this state of the art could change very soon.
WHERE ARE THE JETS NOW?
As Politico points out, the slow and painful decision-making process of the Western coalition can be explained by both political and technical reasons.
First of all, there are few countries that have an effective surplus of F-16s: obvious national security considerations therefore prevent the decision to transfer even very few fighters to Ukraine lightly.
Take the example of Holland, which Kiev regards as the state which, in the words of Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, "finds itself in the position of being the first" to make its jets available to the invaded country.
As a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Defense said, the Hague currently has 24 examples of F-16s stamped as "operationally deployable", and these, added the spokesman, "will remain in service until mid-2024 (…) after that, they will be available for another destination”.
But Holland also has another eighteen F-16s which, the same spokesman reported, "are no longer used operationally" and could therefore be transferred "to another destination". Significantly, the same source clarifies that twelve of those eighteen F-16s were about to be sold to a private company when the government's decision to block the sale intervened.
THE POSITION OF THE USA
When we speak of F-16s, of course, our thoughts turn to their manufacturer, the USA, and to its large fleet. Despite having given the green light to the training of Ukrainian pilots by the allies, the Biden administration still appears hesitant to supply its own jets and hostage to doubts as to whether such a move could trigger Moscow's anger.
In fact, it wasn't long ago when Biden, being asked a dry question on the White House lawn by a reporter interested in understanding whether America was about to equip Kiev with jets, answered succinctly "no".
Yet a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and the initial American firmness seems to have evolved. This is testified by the statements made to reporters on Monday by Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall who, when asked specifically about the chances of the US supplying its own planes, replied “I don't know. But I think there are several possibilities."
I wonder if the Secretary was referring to the "coalition for jets" repeatedly invoked by London (which, however, does not have F-16s). Even in this case, however, the obstacle of the American authorization to retransfer the jets from the first buyer to a third country would remain. A taboo, however, that could soon fall.
LONG TIMES
There is a reason behind the American hesitations and it is in the awareness that whatever decision is taken, it will produce effects only in the long term.
As Kendall stated again, "at best (the Ukrainians) will need several months to develop that (strike) capability and there are also numerous details that will need to be sorted out." It is therefore misleading to evoke the F-16 theme as if they represented, to use the expression of the Secretary, a "dramatic game changer".
Better therefore to focus on the fundamental prerequisite of pilot training. A spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who heads a country that lacks F-16s but will be at the forefront of its pilot training program, said on Monday that Berlin and Washington are "in close coordination" on a plan that however “it takes several months, if not years”.
While not providing details on the specific German commitment, it is now clear that the training of Ukrainian pilots will take place at the bases of Spangdahlem and Ramstein, where the US ally's F-16s are stationed.
However, there are those who say they are irritated by the long wait times and the hesitations. Among these is the former commander general of the US Army in Europe Ben Hodges, according to whom “this incremental decision-making process undermines the excellent work done so far. (…) If the Administration (Biden) were to decide that it wants Ukraine to win this war, then all excuses would evaporate, decisions would be made in a timely manner, and we would see the full effect of Western support leading to a speedy conclusion to this war".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/f-16-ucraina-si-ma-non-cosi-in-fretta/ on Wed, 24 May 2023 08:28:36 +0000.