The US has approved equipment sales for the modernization of Chile’s F-16 fighter jets. With the modernization program, Chile would remain plugged into the US’s regional defense umbrella. Still, the sale has not been concluded and requires final approval.
The US State Department said on Thursday that it will approve a deal over nearly US$635 million, selling equipment and services for the modernization of Chile’s F-16 fleet. The entity’s Defense and Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which provides military services to allies, informed on Wednesday that Chile requested several items. Among these are 19 joint helmet-mounted cueing systems, six inert MK-82 (500LB) general purpose bomb bodies, two MXU-650KB air foil groups, 44 LN-260 embedded GPS/INS, and 49 multifunctional information distribution system joint tactical radios.
Other items include software upgrades and support, mission planning support systems, friend-foe identification systems, bomb components, and engineering, technical and logistical support services. In a release, DSCA said, “this proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a strategic partner in South America.”
DCSA added, “The proposed sale will improve Chile’s capability to meet current and future threats by modernizing its F-16 fleet, which will allow Chile to maintain sovereignty and homeland defense, increase interoperability with the United States and other partners, and deter potential adversaries.”
F-16 Modernization Program
While keeping radio silence on public channels, Chile’s defense undersecretary Cristián de la Maza said Friday in a statement on Twitter that the upgrade program started in 2012. It is aimed at “extending [the F-16s] useful life and avoid much more expensive replacement.”
The modernization unfolds in several phases of which the latest was just approved in the US, he said, adding, “the prices in the DSCA release are referential and higher than the ones considered for the Defense Ministry project.” Payments would be made partially and over more than nine years, the official said.
De la Maza highlighted that the project had been approved long ago but was postponed early this year “due to the sanitary emergency and the need to prioritize state resources for more urgent” necessities.
🔴 Comunicado de prensa del Subsecretario de Defensa, Cristián De la Maza, en relación a la noticia del upgrade de los aviones F-16. pic.twitter.com/eBBkA4Pvjo
— Ministerio de Defensa Nacional (@mindefchile) July 24, 2020
Analysis
From a cost-benefit perspective, Chile gets a great deal. If paid over nine years, the amount is acceptable and certainly cheaper than either replacing fighters or letting them deteriorate, in which case they provide no value. Chilean civil and military authorities show they are able to avoid the fate of Germany’s Luftwaffe, whose helicopters are rusty and even the few jets that fly barely function.
The news is, however, that the upgrade confirms Chile’s commitment to remain under the US military umbrella while increasingly interlocking its economy with China’s. That means China must see Chile as a potential military adversary even though it’s an important trade partner. Hence, officials should stop pretending ties with China are based on anything other than economic interests.
In that sense, the US approval is a geopolitical carrot. A stick will certainly follow, probably in the form of pressuring Chile into rejecting or limiting the use of Huawei’s 5G technology, as Washington does with Brazil and the UK.
Also, even though a great defense deal, it can’t be divorced from the socio-political reality the country is living. A recent debate on allowing citizens to withdraw 10% from their privately managed pension accounts highlighted that competition for resources is fierce. Officials face the impossible task of explaining why they spend over US$600 million on military equipment while starvation returned to Latin America’s capitalist wunderkind.
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That debate could also lead – for the first time in decades – to pondering what Chile’s armed forces are for. Large amounts, derived from copper sales, go without much oversight to the military that doesn’t have enemies. None of the adversaries that have lived on in public imagination will be in a position to attack the country.
Bolivia is in such shambles, it couldn’t even plan an attack, Peru is increasingly integrated into Chile’s economy, which its leadership and citizens are happy about and wouldn’t reverse, and instead of its military, Argentina is ramping up adversary diplomacy, in Antarctica for example. From its defeat in the Falklands War, the country has learned that persistence in international institutions leads better results than brute force.
This security environment renders the current makeup of Chile’s military – equipped with weaponry to fight orthodox invasions – obsolete. It is a bloated, though glitzy institution. But since its capabilities are underused, leaders are tempted to use it for policing tasks, like fighting drug trafficking. This is establishing a dangerous precedent.
Moreover, the forces are being trotted on the national holiday for parades that serve purely propagandistic purposes and to brag in front of allies. An expensive accessoire indeed.
Christian is Managing Editor at Chile Today, where he curates the foreign policy blog Teatinos One/Eighty. Christian is also Lead Editor of E-International Relations, co-editor of an open access textbook on International Relations Theory and Director at the Chilean Association of International Specialists (ACHEI).