Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom have reiterated a "strong commitment" to their joint fighter jet development program, in a bid to allay concerns that the multibillion-dollar endeavor could be impacted by a U.K. strategic defense review expected next year.
“We have confirmed there are no concerns about the next-generation fighter jet project and that we will work toward the first jet's deployment in 2035,” Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said Tuesday following meetings in London with his British and Italian counterparts.
But while experts agree there are currently no indications that the U.K. might drop out of the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP), as reported by British media, the multilateral project still faces a number of challenges, including financial constraints, workload distribution and a very ambitious timeline.
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto addressed this in a statement, saying the partner nations “must now ensure compliance with the timeframes and a clear framework on sharing work and technologies," emphasizing that GCAP will be based on “equal participation in financial, industrial and technological terms.”
Newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stressed the importance of the project a day earlier, although he stopped short of guaranteeing it wouldn’t be affected by his government’s recently launched Strategic Defense Review, which comes as the U.K. grapples with an economic downturn.
The ministers’ gathering took place only a few days after British media raised concerns that the project could be axed if the defense review were to conclude that the program wasn’t the best way to deter Russian aggression.
Responding to these reports, Luke Pollard, the U.K.’s new armed forces minister, called the project "really important," but added that it would not be right for him to prejudge the outcome of the review — a remark interpreted by some as suggesting it could be vulnerable to cuts.
A separate report by The Times quoted U.K. Treasury officials as having raised concerns with the previous government that the Defense Ministry could not determine exactly how much its development would eventually cost, with one official saying that London would have to choose between GCAP and its AUKUS security partnership with Australia and the U.S.
There are also concerns that, with the return of a Labour Party government in the U.K., London could regard its involvement in the Indo-Pacific as an overextension and decide it should prioritize spending on the defense of Europe.
However, experts say there is no hard evidence that London would ax the GCAP project, and that Pollard couldn’t have answered any other way in advance of a defense review that must be allowed to look at all the issues without prior restriction.
“There is no basis for expecting the U.K. will back out or drop out of GCAP,” said Philip Shetler-Jones, an international security expert with the London-based RUSI think tank.
“The media reports seem to have taken a misleading impression from a comment by a treasury official, and put it together with a comment from the government’s defense team about no commitments being made in advance of the defense review.”
Aside from its importance as a commitment to partners such as Japan and Italy, GCAP is “the structure that supports Britain maintaining a next-generation air capability at an affordable cost,” said Shetler-Jones, adding that “dropping out would make GCAP more difficult as well as more expensive to complete.”
Simon Chelton, an associate fellow also with RUSI, said that instead of dropping out, London’s focus will likely be on making sure the project can develop and maintain an “affordable” next-generation air capability.
“The new government will have to balance immediate operational priorities with longer-term investment plans,” he said. “This could lead to some level of short-term financial adjustment.”
Given the already challenging 2035 deadline, there is little room for delay, Chelton added, meaning the GCAP team will have to proceed under the premise that the program will continue as planned.
Tuesday’s three-way meeting came just a day after Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Italy’s Leonardo and Britain’s BAE Systems — the project’s lead system integrators — unveiled a full-scale model of the new conceptual design for the future twin-engine supersonic jet.
Aerospace experts said refinements, particularly a larger, delta-shaped wing, point to greater emphasis being placed on range, speed and payload over traditional dogfighting agility as the partner nations devise a platform meant to be “the centerpiece of a wider combat air system that will function across multiple domains.”
The new jet is intended to replace aging Air Self-Defense Force F-2 fighters, as well as British and Italian Eurofighters.
The GCAP defense-industrial partnership marks the first time that Japan is cooperating with countries other than the United States to meet a major defense requirement.
In addition to being an ambitious investment in future combat air capability, the program recognizes that technology globally is advancing rapidly, Chelton said.
“Traditional approaches to military procurement have been slow and cumbersome, and often lead to excessively late and expensive introduction into service, so GCAP is attempting to address these issues in a practical and cost-effective way,” he said.
The program aims to achieve this by, among other things, being a testing ground for transformational digital engineering processes and the application of an open-systems architecture, Chelton noted, adding that, “if successful, these changes should make a material reduction in future costs of ownership.”
But while the international project presents huge opportunities, it also faces challenges, according to Masashi Murano, a U.S.-based Japan expert at the Hudson Institute think tank.
“It might be generally assumed that the more countries participate in the program, the lower the financial costs shouldered by each country,” he said.
But while this is true in the production phase, the increase in the number of participating countries also means a greater number of actors who can say “no.”
“Any difficulties coordinating required capabilities or program management could increase total development costs and extend the development period,” Murano said.
He also pointed to rapid advancements and changes in weaponry and tactics, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region.
Traditionally, establishing air superiority with high-performance fighter aircraft has been seen as a necessary condition for securing maritime superiority and all other stable operations, Murano said.
However, with the drastic increase in China's advanced military capabilities, including thousands of drones and missiles of various types, and with that threat likely to have increased further by 2035, partners and allies in Asia need to build up their defenses under the premise that it will by then be “extremely difficult to achieve air superiority in the early stages of a conflict,” Murano said.
“From my experience in designing and participating in various war games, it can be said that more than 70% of the fighter squadrons that the U.S. and Japan have in the Western Pacific will be destroyed on the ground by the Chinese military’s theater-range missiles,” he added.
Murano also noted that sixth-generation fighter programs in several countries, including the U.S., had progressed poorly.
“At this point, it is unclear how likely it is that the U.K. will withdraw from the GCAP program,” he said. “But if it did, Japan would find it difficult to continue the program working only with Italy and would have to reconsider cooperation with the United States.”
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