Beyond the Point of No Return? Allied Defence Procurement, the ‘China Threat,’ and the Case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Abstract

Why does the US government and some of its allies persist in controversial defence procurement projects? Using the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as a case study, this paper suggests that a contingency discourse created by key actors in the United States (US) military industrial complex has been internalized by policy makers. This is the case not only in the United States but also internationally among the decision-making elites of those countries involved in the production of the F-35. By focusing on the discursive evolution of key actors’ responses to concerns of additional costs, delays, technical failures and waning innovative superiority inherent to the F-35, this paper attempts to comprehend how the US and its allies have justified continued investment in such a controversial defence procurement project. This paper shows that a contingency discourse on the spectre of China’s military build-up and the resulting arms race between the US and China is being deployed by policy makers in the US, Australia and Japan to make the F-35 look like a continuing necessity.

Keywords: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, defence procurement, alliance relations, US-China competition, securitization, contingency discourse