Does South Korea's cancellation of their apparent decision to buy F-15SEs mean Seoul doesn't trust America to protect South Korea against North Korea's nuclear threat?
Given the practical need to have American forces involved in an anti-nuclear strike on North Korea, I didn't think that getting a fully stealth F-35 was as important as having more frontal stealth F-15SEs for the same money. If South Korea wanted some full stealth capability, supplementing the more numerous partially stealthed planes is certainly reasonable, I thought.
But my reasoning is either wrong or simply isn't Seoul's reasoning:
[South Korea's] DAPA [Defense Acquisition Program Administration] yields to pressure from the air force to pursue a 5th generation acquisition “in response to the latest trend of aerospace technology development centered around the fifth generation fighter jets and to provocations from North Korea.” A new tender process is to start, apparently with a new, presumably higher budget.
The government says that process should take about a year. This puts Lockheed Martin in a strong position, if the money is there and stealth ends up being the defining “5th gen” requirement.
The Europeans think they have another shot at the contract:
European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. plans to improve its bid to sell 60 Eurofighter Typhoons to South Korea, and top Boeing (BA) Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) when a competition for the combat jets is reopened.
And this article names North Korea's nuclear forces as the reasoning:
The South Korean government yesterday called off a tender for 60 fighter jets after rejecting Boeing’s bid for the 8.3 trillion-won ($7.7 billion) contract over concerns the F-15SE wasn’t advanced enough to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat. The Eurofighter Typhoon and Lockheed’s F-35 entries were rejected earlier on cost grounds.
I don't think Typhoon meets the requirements for full stealth if that is the highest priority. Nor is the F-15SE a contender if that is the priority.
But that is somewhat disturbing. Does Seoul trust us to strike North Korea's nuclear arsenal if North Korea gears up to implement their threats to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire"? Is the F-15SE sale an early casualty of the Syria WMD deal and our earlier pledges to inflict an "unbelievably small" strike on Syria? Does South Korea believe they must have the assets for the entire mission rather than simply being able to participate in a mission we'd lead?
South Korea may have little choice but to rely on us as their main ally. But they seem to want their own ability to scare and deter North Korean threats in case we fail to stand up against North Korea, and instead decide to suddenly strike our own "peace in our time" WMD deal with North Korea.
UPDATE: Remember, allies not sure we'll be there for them when the spit hits the fan is the flip side of enemies not worrying about us too much.
UPDATE: Being the ally of a country with thousands of nuclear warheads and a country that will have lots of F-35s isn't enough of a deterrent these days, it seems:
But with North Korea's possible nuclear weapons a constant concern after three nuclear tests, the latest in February, supporters of the decision to re-issue the tender say the very presence of stealth jets can deter the North.
"Possession of stealth fighters can only apply pressure to North Korea," said Lee Han-ho, a former air force chief of staff between 2003 and 2005.
That's pretty damning of our reputation as a friend of South Korea and a foe of North Korea.
UPDATE: More on the fighter decision. The article brings up the idea of a mixed buy--but with more F-35s and the rest F-15SEs to provide numbers under budget,
