Themed Journal Issue on “The International Politics of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter”

By Kim Richard Nossal (Queen’s University) and Srdjan Vucetic

In the Maclean’s annual list of “99 stupid things the government did with your money”, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter appears as exhibit 46:

Jet lagged: After dissing reports from the auditor general and Parliamentary Budget Office that warned the price of F-35 fighter jets would be far higher than the $16 billion the Harper government promised, the feds shelled out $645,000 for an outside opinion. After paying KPMG to review the defence department numbers, the government finally accepted the price would be $45 billion.

The issue of acquisition costs is but one part of the stealth fighter saga that has been all too familiar to Canadians since mid-2010. (The CIPS Blog alone has 12 posts on the subject penned by 6 different authors). To what extent are Canada’s woes with the F-35 unique? The answer, or answers, to this question can now be found in a new themed issue of International Journal. The collection (available to subscribers online) provides a comprehensive analysis of the main driving forces behind the new fighter procurement processes in eight JSF partner countries, plus in the consortium’s first foreign customer.  

If we as co-editors of the collection may say so ourselves, this themed issue is the most comprehensive study of the F-35 program from the perspective of the partner countries and customers. Our hope is that it will contribute to larger conversation about the politics of foreign and defence policy in Canada and its allies.

As co-editors, we also want to thank the contributing authors and the reviewers as well as the three individuals at International Journal who have greatly assisted us in the completion of this project with their enthusiasm and skill: editors David G. Haglund and Joseph T. Jockel and the assistant editor Naomi Joseph. Last but not least, we also wish to thank the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University and CIPS at the University of Ottawa for supporting a workshop in 2011 that helped us move this study forward. 

Table of Contents

The international politics of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Srdjan Vucetic & Kim Richard Nossal

The UK and the Joint Strike Fighter: The trials and tribulations of international collaborative procurement, Peter D. Antill & Pete Ito

Italy and the F-35: Rationales and costs, Alessandro Marrone

Noblesse oblige: The transatlantic security dynamic and Dutch involvement in the Joint Strike Fighter program, Giles Scott-Smith & Max Smeets

The logic of interoperability: Australia’s acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Adam Lockyer

Investing in fighters and alliances: Norway, Denmark, and the bumpy road to the Joint Strike Fighter, Jens Ringsmose

Turkey’s involvement in the F-35 program: One step forward, two steps backward?,    Serhat Güvenç & Lerna K. Yanık

The ‘only choice’: Canadian and Japanese F-35 decisions compared, Atsushi Tago & Srdjan Vucetic

[The lessons of history] Late learners: Canada, the F-35, and lessons from the New Fighter Aircraft program, Kim Richard Nossal

Related Articles

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

The CIPS Blog is written only by subject-matter experts. 

 

CIPS blogs are protected by the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

 


 

[custom-twitter-feeds]