Just a year ago it was out of the question, but it will soon be a reality. Ukraine will also have F16s, having already obtained rocket launchers, tanks and missiles from the US, EU and NATO. But not even this will be enough to put an end to the war and it is certainly not new, at least for the United States. Months ago, it was the Chief of Staff of the US armed forces, Mark Milley, who explained that there is no military solution to the conflict.
Not only that: the delivery will require funds and time and even more to train the pilots. In short, in the future multi-role fighters may also be effective on the battlefield, but they cannot be decisive. Meanwhile, in the absence of diplomatic negotiations, the war will continue.
Long lead times, high costs
The supersonic fighter promised to Zelensky is a sophisticated and expensive weapon. The F16 Fighting Falcon made its airborne debut in 1976 and is currently in service in 25 countries, with nearly 3,000 examples in all. It is suitable for both air-to-air combat and air-to-ground strikes and has already been deployed in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Developed by the US Lockheed Martin, it is produced in the US and in some authorized factories in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, which could supply Kiev with their aircraft, replacing them with new F35s.
But times are long. Although last January the chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin, Frank St. John, announced to the Financial Times his intention to accelerate the production of the aircraft in Greenville, South Carolina (where up to 4 fighters are made per month), for “to supply any country that decides to make transfers to third parties to help” Ukraine, at the moment it is not clear how many aircraft will be sent to Kiev (which has asked for 200) nor by whom. While the US doesn’t seem intent on divesting any of the hundreds of F16s in service with the Air Force or Navy, so far the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark have pledged only to help train pilots, a process that will take men and time. According to a secret document of the US Air Force disclosed by Yahoo News, it will take at least 4 months for the Ukrainians to learn to master the fighter, while for Politico Kiev would have no more than 50 experienced pilots able to undergo such training.
However, the problem also concerns costs since, depending on the model, the price of these jets can reach 68 million dollars each. At the end of last year, Joe Biden signed a new $45 billion aid package for Ukraine, which should cover all of 2023. Beyond this date, however, there is no certainty: in fact, the Republican majority in the House could slow down or block new appropriations. Ergo we don’t even know who will ultimately pay the bill. However, the effectiveness of fighters in this conflict is also under discussion.
A hammer without an anvil?
A curious feature of the ongoing war in Ukraine, in all its tragedy, is the fact that after 15 months neither side still enjoys full air superiority. The continuous supply of air force parts, Soviet-era aircraft and drones from Europe and North America has allowed Kiev’s forces to continue flying in their skies, despite the imbalance of forces in the field with the VKS, the Russian aerospace corps, and the Moscow missile arsenal.
However, as noted last September at an Atlantic Council meeting by the former commander of US forces in Europe, Philip Breedlove, this situation seems intentional. Both sides, according to the ex-military, find themselves in a condition of “mutual negation”, in which air support is limited only to the regions they control. Aside from missile and drone raids, neither belligerents push their air force too far from the front line. The reason may lie in the Soviet heritage, whose military doctrine envisaged the use of air operations in concert with the advance of the troops, unlike the Western strategy based on heavy bombing campaigns that precede land penetration. In both cases, however, as Robert A. Pape explained in last October’s Foreign Affairs, “denial works best through a ‘hammer and anvil’ strategy, in which the combined force of air and ground power puts the enemy faced with a Comma 22 situation: if he concentrates his ground forces to best resist an assault, they will become vulnerable from the air and the aerial hammer can tear them apart. Conversely, if it disperses troops over a large area to make air raids more difficult, it risks exposing them to easy defeat in the field.
In short, to work, this strategy requires not only trained air forces and great firepower but also many well-trained troops, something Kiev is starting to run out of. The latest official Ukrainian estimate dates back to last December and speaks of just 13,000 soldiers dead in the conflict even though, as revealed in March by the Washington Post, Germany estimates at least 120,000 dead and wounded among Ukrainian soldiers. Although Kiev does not provide reliable figures even to the allies, Ukrainian intelligence has been admitting for months the numerical inferiority and the shortage of ammunition compared to the enemy.
In this situation, although useful, the F16s risk not being decisive given that the Russian air defenses are still intact, as recently underlined by the British think tank Rusi. For the Ukrainians, according to the air warfare analyst of the same study center Justin Bronk, even with fourth generation fighters it would be difficult to bomb enemy positions, due to missiles and radars that are difficult to evade and which would force the jets to fly at low altitudes: “(The F16s, ed.) They would only add to existing attack options such as (the artillery batteries, ed.) Himars and would draw from limited stocks”, given that the aircraft and pilots would be difficult to replace. Thus, net of possible decomposed reactions from the Kremlin – which continues to threaten recourse to nuclear power – there is only the risk of prolonging the conflict indefinitely.
