F16s head to Ukraine as NATO and US Pacific allies square off against China
(Originally published July 11 in “What in the World“) Ukraine will receive its first F-16 fighter jets this summer.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at the summit meeting in Washington of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that F-16s from Denmark and the Netherlands are being transferred to Ukraine and would be put into service over Ukraine “this summer.”
President Joe Biden approved allies handing over the U.S.-made fighter jets in May last year after a three-month stage-managed pantomime patterned after the same reversals that saw him lift restrictions on supplying Ukraine with Stingers, howitzers, Himars rocket launchers, Patriot missiles, and Abrams battle tanks. Biden used the same “twist my rubber arm” tactic last October to reverse his restriction on supplying Ukraine with long-range Atacm missiles, and then in May on using U.S. weapons against targets across the border inside Russia.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was cast as Biden’s provocateur in this stage play, giving the American president the nudge by saying in May last year that he and former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would set up a consortium to buy Ukraine F-16s in apparent defiance of the U.S. refusal to send its own. Surprise, surprise: Rutte is due to take over as NATO Secretary-General in October.
The U.S. began training Ukrainian pilots last year in Arizona, then last November opened an F-16 training facility in Ukraine’s NATO-member neighbor, Romania. Belgium pledged in May that it would be the first NATO member to get F-16s to Ukraine, adding that it would not allow Ukraine to fly those jets into Russia. It’s not clear if the same restriction will apply to the Danish and Dutch F-16s headed for Ukraine. It seems likely it will, however: Biden hasn’t yet lifted his restriction against Kyiv using Atacms against targets inside Russia, like the airbases launching missiles against civilian targets in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is at the NATO summit hoping to convince Biden to let him fire those Atacms into Russia. The summit is already proving to be a bonanza for Ukraine: as part of efforts to ensure that weapons keep flowing should Donald Trump win re-election in November and pull the U.S. out of NATO, NATO members are ratcheting up pledges to support Ukraine. This week, they have promised to send Kyiv more Patriot air-defense batteries and other air-defense systems, to boost defense spending to ensure Ukraine has sufficient ammunition, to station a permanent NATO official in Kyiv, and to create a 700-person team in Germany to take over coordinating weapons supplies to Ukraine from the U.S. military.
The only restrictions Biden has remaining appear to be: firing Atacms into mother Russia, sending Ukraine attack drones (it’s developed and deployed its own, thank you very much); sending U.S. troops into Ukraine (special forces have already been there for more than a year). The Pentagon has warned that large-scale Ukrainian attacks inside Russia could prompt China to begin openly supplying Moscow with lethal weapons of its own.
But NATO seems determined to push China off the fence. The organization issued a declaration Wednesday condemning Beijing for supplying Russia with components and technology that Moscow is using to make weapons. This is the first time NATO has officially named China as a threat.
China has refused to condemn Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and President Xi Jinping has repeatedly trumpeted China’s abiding relationship with Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. But Beijing has been careful to confine itself to buying Russian oil in defiance of a U.S.-led embargo and with supplying Russia with only non-military exports. This despite Washington’s unsubstantiated warning in February last year that China was considering sending arms to Moscow.
While Washington has backed away from charges that Beijing was about to ship arms to Moscow, Washington now accuses China of shipping Russia “dual use” products, including computer chips, advanced software and components that Russia is using to modernize weapons production. To convince skeptical NATO allies, the White House reportedly handed them a list of Chinese companies exporting these high-tech, dual-use products to Russia.
Unfortunately, China isn’t the only place Russia is buying parts for its weapons factories. Russia has ramped up production of its Kh-101 cruise missile—one of which destroyed a children’s hospital in Kyiv earlier this week—using parts from Switzerland-based ST Microelectronics, as well as from U.S. chipmakers Analog Devices, Intel, and Texas Instruments. Perhaps NATO needs to draft a strongly worded message to Washington, too.
China, whose navy is now conducting exercises in the western Pacific with the Russian navy, has accused Washington of trying to create a NATO in the Pacific rim with its neighbors, Japan and South Korea. Both countries’ leaders are attending the NATO summit. And the U.S. has in recent years created new Pacific alliances like Aukus and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan to counter China’s growing assertiveness in the Pacific and the South China Sea. That includes stationing U.S. Marines in Taiwan to help it deploy new U.S. weapons and cementing an expanded defense treaty with the Philippines that gives U.S. forces access to a growing number of Philippine bases, including the former U.S. naval base at Subic Bay.
Japan’s Ministry of Defense this month approved the purchase of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, or Jassm-Er, missiles from Lockheed Martin for its F-15 fighter jets. The purchase is part of a $104 million U.S. arms supply deal that includes other missiles and anti-GPS jamming equipment.