Steve Trimble A pair of fighter contract decisions two days apart reveals the fickle nature of international arms deals.
Stephen Trimble
Fickle are the fortunes of fighter programs. In a single week, a blockbuster order has reversed a decade-old gaffe by Dassault’s Rafale in the UAE, even as a competitive disqualification killed Boeing’s once-firm grip on an order for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in Canada.
Ten years after dressing down Dassault executives at the 2011 Dubai Airshow for submitting an “unworkable” fighter bid, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, on Dec. 3 signed the largest combat aircraft export deal in French history, awarding Dassault a $18 billion deal for 80 Rafales, along with $1.13 billion for 12 more Airbus H225M Caracal helicopters.
With French President Emmanuel Macron looking on, the blockbuster signing in Dubai caps an annus mirabilis for the once-maligned Rafale sales team. France has amassed export deals for 222 new-build Rafale aircraft over the program’s 35-year history, but 122 of those orders have come in the last 10 months, including a top-up deal for 30 more by Egypt and 12 from Greece. France also agreed to transfer 12 secondhand Rafales each to Greece and Croatia––possibly seeding demand for new-build replacements in the future.
The late-November signing may help remove the sting of a bitter loss of a 36-aircraft order in June at Switzerland, which selected the Lockheed Martin F-35A over the French offer. More importantly, the UAE’s endorsement comes at a critical time for the international market, with competitive tenders underway for new-build fighters in Finland (which reportedly has opted for the F-35), Indonesia and current Rafale-operator India.
“I am very proud and very happy,” Dassault CEO Eric Trappier says of the UAE sale. “This Rafale contract confirms the strategic relationship that unites our two countries.”
That confirmation took more than 13 years and the personal interventions of three French presidents to secure, but it always seemed inevitable. Since the previously separate Abu Dhabi and Dubai air arms united to form the UAE Air Force in 1999, Zayed, the deputy supreme commander of the Armed Forces, has maintained a dual-source strategy for fighter purchases. Thus, three years after ordering 30 Dassault Mirage 2000-9s (along with upgrading 33 Mirage 2000s to the -9 standard), the UAE acquired 80 Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 60s in 2000.
The UAE first opened talks with France about ordering Rafales in 2008. A deal seemed imminent three years later, but talks collapsed in acrimony at the Dubai Airshow. Zayed blamed the terms presented by the Rafale’s manufacturer, not the enthusiastic efforts of then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
“Regrettably, Dassault seems unaware that all the diplomatic and political will in the world cannot overcome uncompetitive and unworkable commercial terms,” Zayed told reporters during the 2011 event.
Negotiations between France and UAE would drag on for years, but finally got serious again after a diplomatic breakthrough appeared to accelerate an F-35 sale.
The Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump administration that normalized the UAE’s relationship with Israel cleared a diplomatic hurdle for the U.S. to export a stealth fighter to the Emirates. Last April, President Joe Biden decided to move forward with the F-35A sale to the UAE, but new issues have arisen since. In mid-November, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence agencies discovered a secret Chinese military base under construction inside a UAE port facility. The UAE reportedly denied awareness of the base and showed U.S. officials that construction had stopped. Discussions now continue on finalizing the F-35 sale, with U.S. officials demanding an “unmistakably clear, mutual understanding” about the Emiratis’ intentions, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mira Resnick said at the 2021 Dubai Airshow.
The UAE Air Force and Air Defense has confirmed that the Rafale deal does not preclude a follow-on purchase of F-35As. “The signed contract with France is not a substitute for the U.S. F-35 ongoing discussions,” Maj. Gen. Staff Pilot Ibrahim Nasser Al Alawi says.
The UAE has become the first export customer to choose the Rafale F4 standard, which adds a multi-aircraft sensor fusion capability.
Launched in 2019, the F4 development program also adds new weapons, although the UAE configuration has yet to be confirmed under a separate contract with missile supplier MBDA. The Rafale will be able to carry the upgraded MBDA Mica NG air-to-air missile and the updated Scalp deep-strike cruise missile. Thales also is improving the air-to-ground modes for the RBE2 active electronically scanned array radar and expanding the frequency band of the Spectra electronic warfare system. The Rafale F4 will also be the first version of the fighter capable of passive geolocation of an emitter.
The UAE order also includes a commitment by Safran to upgrade the engine electronic control unit for the Rafale’s two M88 turbofans, which is expected to improve reliability by an order of magnitude.
The reversal of fortune for the Rafale in Abu Dhabi was juxtaposed two days later by Boeing’s nadir in Ottawa.
In 2016, the Canadian government planned to acquire 18 F/A-18E/Fs as an interim replacement for the CF-18s. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been elected a year before after a campaign that included a pledge to cancel the previous government’s plans to buy F-35s. Although the 18-aircraft purchase was officially a stop-gap order, the interim buy placed Boeing in an ideal position for winning the fleet replacement.
But then Boeing filed an anti-dumping complaint against Canadian manufacturer Bombardier in May 2016. The complaint was thrown out seven months later by the U.S. International Trade Commission, but the damage to the CSeries program was already done. Bombardier was forced to sell the airliner to Airbus, which rebranded the aircraft as the A220. A furious Trudeau ripped up the planned order for 18 F/A-18E/Fs, and his government established a new acquisition policy that penalizes any company that has harmed the Canadian economy.
Last April, Canada disqualified the Boeing for the CC-150 Polaris replacement, leaving the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport as the only bidder. Eight months later, Canada also disqualified the F/A-18E/F from the CF-18 replacement program, leaving the Lockheed Martin F-35A Block 4 and Saab Gripen E as the remaining competitors for the 88-aircraft order.