Facing soaring costs and American opposition to the integration of Israeli systems into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Israel Air Force is reviewing specifications of a new and advanced model of the F-15 Eagle, which is claimed to have enhanced stealth capabilities. In March, Boeing unveiled the F-15 Silent Eagle (F-15SE), a new configuration of the F-15 which has undergone improvements and modifications that, according to media reports, give the plane a stealth capability that is effective in evading radars on enemy aircraft, but not ground-based radar systems.
Improvements in stealth include coatings and treatments to the aircraft as well as a new design for the conformal fuel tanks that allows them to carry weapons rather than fuel.
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The choice between the F-35 or F-15SE is of course ultimately up to the US Government:
ReplyDelete- which is providing the money, and
- the export licences.
Israel can think it can bargain, but not much.
Pete
US internal politics will not allow the Executive branch to halt export licenses to Israel. But the money is another matter. For all their claims to self-reliance the Israeli defense budget is, for all practical purposes, determined by the US Congress. This is what lies at the heart of the sometimes-frantic circus of pro-Israeli lobbying in the US. Israel's ability to defend herself out of her own resources evaporated long ago.
ReplyDeleteSo what does the future hold? The sober military-industrial strategists know that the F-35 can only meet its intended goals if a large number of units are bought. Boeing, on the other hand, certainly has considerable lobbying clout on Capitol Hill. Israel can, of course, deploy its formidable array of lobbyists in its arsenal. This probably a negotiating tactic. The Israelis want the source code and they want to integrate their own systems in the plane and this is their way of undermining the recent decision by the Pentagon that they should have neither.