The New Zero?

It looks like we may sell our newest and greatest fighter plane, the F-22A Raptor, to Japan. It's long been thought the Raptor was too advanced and too sensitive to export. But there are a few countries out there (Australia, the UK, and Japan for example) that can be trusted not to reveal our secrets, sort of.

The version of the Raptor that we would export would first get a frontal lobotomy. All of the sensitive computer programs would be removed and the buyer would have to come up with their own flight and weapons control software. With just a few other alterations, our allies could get their hands on the hottest manned aircraft out there.

Of course some will object:

The Washington-based Project on Government Oversight and other groups also oppose foreign Raptor sales on philosophical grounds. Jennifer Gore, a POGO spokeswoman, said selling advanced weapons overseas increases defense costs for U.S. taxpayers over the long term.

"We sell F-15s to foreign governments and they become the standard so we build F-22s," she said. "If we sell them overseas, then they'll become the standard and we'll build something else. That may be good for Lockheed --- but it's not good for U.S. taxpayers."

That's wrong because of a false assumption: we build the F-22 because the Russians build the Su-30 and the Europeans build the Eurofighter, planes that are equal to or superior to our F-15 Eagles. It's because of foreign competition that we are obligated to continue development of these weapons in order to stay ahead. You can blame the Russians and the French for the F-22's existence, thank you. Besides, the five or six countries that fly the F-15 Eagle are close allies with the US. The F-15 simply did not cause the F-22.

By selling the F-22A to our allies the Raptor becomes cheaper for everyone. First, more planes mean that the development costs are divided up so that each Raptor costs less money overall. Second, countries like South Korea and Japan are already spending $75+ million each on upgraded F-15s. Though the F-22 is more expensive per plane ($130 million), you don't need as many, so a country like Japan could actually save money longterm – good for taxpayers on both sides of the Pacific.

I'd like to see Japan and Australia each get a squadron or two of Raptors. That could mean an impenetrable line of air superiority from Alaska to Australia – keeping any aggressors in Asia bottled up for the next few decades – and that's good for everyone.