Discontinued the F-35 to unveil the corner of the iceberg: "The era of pure American manufacturing weapons is no longer"

Text | Old Driver Ma Zhitu

This article is reproduced from the WeChat public account of the Global Times "Privy Temple No. 10" (ID: GH_9C8255618A4D). The original first was released on September 19, 2022. The weapon era is no longer "", which does not mean watching think tank views.

Because of the "parts made in China", the Pentagon has announced that it has not ended the suspension of the acceptance of the F-35 fighter. The US "Diplomat" website criticized on the 17th that this incident revealed that the advanced weapons that the U.S. military proudly rely on foreign supply chains, "especially the manufacturing industry that depends on East Asia", is unlikely that there are "pure American manufacturing Weapon.

It is reported that the magnets used by the turbine mechanical pump provided by Honeywell were purchased from China, and the Pentagon confirmed that the delivery of the F-35 fighter was put on hold on September 7. Two days later, the U.S. military stated that it would seek an application for exemption, otherwise the production of more than 140 F-35 fighters each year will face severe risks of stagnation.

"This is by no means an isolated situation. It partly reflects that since the end of the Cold War, due to the contraction of the US defense and civilian industry, the US military has encountered a wide range of and increasingly difficult difficulties in the industrial supply chain. , Make foreign supply, especially the supply chain from East Asia, is increasingly indispensable for key weapon projects in the United States. "

Taking F-35 as an example, it is reported that the magnet used by Honeywell's company is not the first aircraft component in the fighter project to depend on Chinese production. The Pentagon has previously approved the exemption application many times, allowing the use of Chinese parts during the early development phase of the fighter project-if it is not done, the delay of the F-35 during the development period may be even more serious.

The problem of anxiety for the Pentagon is that the U.S. military knows little about whether the supply chain of key national defense supplies is "really safe". Due to the use of layers of subcontracting in the procurement of U.S. military equipment, it is difficult for the Pentagon Building to track which company to produce the specific parts components in the weapon system. Essence

According to reports, the F-35 contains about 300,000 parts produced by 1,700 suppliers. It is difficult to fully understand their origin. In fact, the Pentagon found that the F-35 uses the process of Chinese parts, just like a winding passage: the Pentagon I heard from Lockheed Martin (F-35 General Bag), Honeywell (F-35 turbine Manufacturer) I heard from its lubricating pump supplier that the latter heard from magnet suppliers that they used the alloy made by China ...

The Pentagon is worried that the huge risk caused by this is- "If the United States starts war with China, the economic connection between the two countries will be completely cut off, and the Pentagon may know which key weapons needed by the Pentagon will be made in China - - Because China stops supply, when these weapons are most needed in the United States, their production may stop. "

However, the report acknowledged that even if the U.S. military uses advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence to accurately track Chinese parts, it is difficult to completely remove it from the US military chain. "In the future, it is not small to find Chinese manufacturing in F-35. China provides more than 85%of rare earth resources in the world, and produces about 417 kg of rare earth for each F-35. It will seriously hinder the production plan of the fighter. "

It is reported that due to the structural transformation of global industries and high -tech to East Asia, the "national interest" website proposed soul torture in 2018- "whether it is possible to create pure American weapons." The conclusion of this issue is that the feasibility of completely transferring related production to the United States is very low. Three years later, the survey results of the US military journalist Brett Tingli were even more pessimistic: "At present, most of the technologies in the United States in the field of defense and consumption are almost dependent on electronic products made by foreign manufacturing."

In particular, the United States is worried that the future trend, the advantages of China's defense products are obvious, because China's related R & D scale is larger, the civilian industry has a larger foundation, and the scale of high -tech manufacturing is greater. The high concentration of this high -tech manufacturing industry is associated with a higher level of innovation, and its results may be more significant in the next decade.

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