The “Only Choice”

Abstract

The United States has two faithful allies in Canada and Japan. Established at different points in the twentieth century, the two alliances have grown and flourished, helping to maintain an American-led order in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. By any reasonable measure, few states are as integrated in the American sphere as these two. In David A. Lake's index of US security hierarchy, which measures a variety of bargaining mechanisms through which states voluntarily trade autonomy and sovereignty for order, prosperity, and cheaper provided by the US, Japan ranks fifth and Canada eighth.' From this perspective, it is not surprising that Japan and Canada are participating in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. The US, as the patron state, provides to Canadian and Japanese clients, and in return makes requirements, such as customer loyalty in the area of weapons procurement. For weaker states, the benefits of the alliance come at a price. The logic of this hierarchy is widely understood by Canadian and Japanese pundits, many of whom like to describe the F-35 as the only choice. Even government officials often relate the outcome of their nations' fighter aircraft acquisitions to alliance ties. In this article we compare the F-35 procurement processes in Canada and Japan in order to examine the relationship between procurement and alliance, and therefore the nature of what Lake calls American in the world. Given the secretive nature of ongoing military acquisitions, we cannot directly observe how US political authority might operate in the F-35 case. Instead, we can use parliamentary and media records, as well as our own (unstructured and informal) interview data, to explore a set of ideas distilled from scholarly analyses of previous fighter jet procurements in Canada (New Fighter Aircraft program, 1977-1980) and Japan (FSX competition, I9^5'I9^7)-2 We argue that US influence in Canadian and Japanese defence policy is not a simple function of linkage politics-attempts and counterattempts to improve one's bargaining position on one issue by tying it to an unrelated issue.5 Rather, US influence is indirect and distorted through the ebb and flow of domestic politics. The fact that the politics of the F-35 in both Canada and Japan has been reduced to procedural issues suggests a high degree of elite consensus on the value of buying American-made arms; therefore, while the multiplicity of the so-called channels of contact remains an important determinant of military acquisitions, it is ultimately not as important as the durability of indigenous support for participation in US-centric global architectures.While the two alliances are similarly institutionalized in many dimensions, there are obvious limits to comparability in this particular case. Canada expressed interest in the aircraft as early as 1997, when the F-35 was stiU a concept. By investing millions of dollars early on, Canada won the status of Level 3 international partner in the program, placing Canada right behind Italy and Turkey; however, not until 16 July 2010 did the Conservative government of Stephen Harper announce that Canada would buy 65 F-35S. For reasons we identify below, the proposal generated considerable controversy and remains a contentious topic in Canadian politics.In contrast to Canada, Japan joined the F-35 program as a customer, not a co-developer, the main reason being a self-imposed restriction on joint weapon development with countries other than the US. On 19 December 2011 the government of Japan announced that it had selected Lockheed Martin's stealth design as the winner of a new fighter jet competition. Importantly, in the mid-20oos, Tokyo's expressed preference was for the F-22, the other stealth fighter designed by Lockheed Martin, which the US Congress refuses to sell to any foreign government.4 The Japanese government signed the actual purchase contract of the first four fighters on 29 June 2012, and it is expected that Tokyo will buy 42 F-35 aircraft in total. …