Top Japanese military officials are quietly but firmly insisting they want the U.S. to release the F-22 to compete for the air force's F-X fighter program, and are adamant about fielding the most advanced air-combat technology available.
Tokyo wants a stealthy fighter equipped with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for cruise missile detection and wide-band data links to push additional information into Japan's increasingly sophisticated air defense system. For the moment, only the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor offers all these features.
Access, however, is far from assured, with the U.S. Congress requiring over-sight and approval of any plan for foreign sale of the stealth fighter. The U.S. has been trying to pitch either an upgrade of in-service designs (such as F/A-18E/Fs or F-15Es equipped with advanced, small-target, long-range radars) or the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the F-X program. The primary driver for the F-X requirement remains air superiority--which includes cruise missile defense--for which Tokyo wants the F-22.
Japan has a long history of buying the latest American technology for their military (and integrating their own). The interesting thing here is that the F-X program was to make a indigenous stealthy aircraft originally. That's obviously no longer the case. I suspect that it is because of economic reasons that this might be true: Japan had a rough decade and a half. However, I am surprised since they did do the F-2 program that they didn't follow through this time to make another new fighter themselves. However, the costs of the F-2 might have to do with it too: they cut it from the original 138 fighters to 98 after all. Then again, climbing the tech tree ain't cheap and if you want to bootstrap it costs you.
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