Israel to Receive More Second-Hand F-15 Eagles in Massive New Aid Package

There has been much speculation about what exactly the massive military aid package between the US and Israel would include. Some reports stated that more F-15 Strike Eagle derivatives would be a part of it, along with dozens of F-35s. Now that the deal has been inked we know more about what it will actually includes and there are signs that long-pending fighter jet sales to Kuwait and Qatar are finally going to be cleared to move forward. If this turns out to be true it would offer a massive lifeline to Boeing’s struggling tactical jet production lines at its historic St. Louis plant.

Israel was the first foreign operator the of the F-15 Eagle, and the type has performed brilliantly in combat over the last 40 years. The aircraft’s long-range and adaptability opened up whole new set of possibilities for the Israeli Air Force. Although the F-15A/B/C/D is synonymous with air-to-air combat, the IAF quickly adapted the air superiority jet to fly operational strike missions long before the F-15E Strike Eagle entered service with the USAF. Today, the IAF’s highly modified F-15A/B/C/Ds serve as bombers, reconnaissance aircraft, communications nodes and command and control aircraft.

Now it has been disclosed that Israel has recently received eight F-15Ds from USAF surplus stocks. The American F-15C/D community has been drastically truncated over the last decade even though the aircraft is in greater demand now since any time since Desert Storm.

Today just three active USAF squadrons exist at two locations overseas, with the rest of the Eagle community spread out among five “front-line” Air National Guard squadrons, one training squadron and a tactics and development squadron located at Nellis AFB. Even the USAF’s only F-15 aggressor squadron was shuttered two years ago as a cost-saving measure. In total just 178 F-15C/D primary aircraft are slated to serve for decades to come, and they will receive substantial upgrades to remain tactically relevant. These aircraft are nicknamed “Golden Eagles” within the USAF.

With so many Eagles being retired to the boneyard, the Pentagon has done what it has before, offered these jets to Israel at no cost. This latest batch includes 10 F-15Ds, the two seat version that has become so valuable for non-traditional “gray eagle” roles within the IAF over the last couple of decades. Eight of these jets have already been transferred to the IAF, with two more likely being sent to Israel even before the $38B, ten year aid deal goes into effect officially on October 1st, 2018.

National Security Advisor Susan Rice stated the following concerning the massive deal which includes $5B for missile defense and $33B for other military capabilities and weapon systems:

“This additional funding will allow Israel to update the lion’s share of its fighter aircraft fleet, including the acquisition of additional F-35s and F-15s.”

This statement appears to clarify that Israel will indeed be receiving additional Eagles in the future. Whether those are new build Strike Eagle derivatives or additional surplus F-15C/Ds remains unclear, but a combination of the two is highly possible.

Either way Boeing is slated to win big with the conclusion of this monumental aid package. Even if Israel ends up receiving just used F-15s or orders brand new ones along with its F-35s, the White House is likely to approve Super Hornet and Strike Eagle sales to Arab countries that have been pending for years.

This has not occurred without controversy. Even Kuwait, a close American ally and already an operator of some of the youngest F/A-18C/Ds in the world, has had the sale of 28 Super Hornets (and an option for 12 more) put in limbo without any clear signs of an approval coming in a timely manner. It has led the tiny but very wealthy country to buy 28 Eurofighters as an interim measure, although it still wants to complete its purchase of Super Hornets as well. The sale would be essential to keeping the Super Hornet line, which is already on life support, active. This is especially true if more orders, like one from Canada, do not materialize.

Losing the Super Hornet production line does offer some strategic risk for the US Navy. It is currently the only operational US-built naval strike fighter and electronic warfare platform in production and it stands as a hedge against further F-35 delays and even as an alternative to it.

An even larger sale to Qatar of 72 advanced derivatives of the F-15 Strike Eagle has been pending for nearly three years. This order could see the F-15 production line, which is slated to go cold in 2019 after the last of Saudi Arabia’s advanced F-15SA’s are delivered, to continue on into the next decade. Like Kuwait, Qatar has grown weary of the US foreign military sales process under the Obama Administration and has ordered two dozen Dassault Rafales as a half measure.

A fully armed F-15SA, currently the last of the F-15 line if more orders are not realized.

Slow playing these super lucrative jet sales to key Arab allies has been the result of an intricate cause-and-effect diplomatic chain that began with the Iranian nuclear deal negotiations. Outfitting Sunni Arab states with America’s most versatile strike fighters was seen as a hindrance to getting the landmark and highly controversial nuclear deal signed as those aircraft would have been seen as a direct threat to Tehran. Then once it was executed, a very unhappy Israel had to be placated via the form of a massive foreign military aid deal. Clearly it was thought that making Israel even more upset by dramatically up-arming Arab states was not a good diplomatic move, and it would just be more fodder for Israel to leverage in an attempt to get the largest foreign aid package possible. Now that the aid deal has also been signed, one that includes the most advanced fighters available on the planet, executing sales of Super Hornets and Strike Eagles with Kuwait and Qatar is less of an issue.

So now that the Iranian nuclear deal is firmly in place, with a far richer Iran drastically improving its own conventional warfighting capabilities, and now that the Israeli foreign military aid deal has been finalized, Kuwait and Qatar’s purchases are likely to be approved, at least according to Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

“I’m glad they consummated the aid deal, and I’m glad that the follow on is we’re completing sales to Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait... To act like there’s no connection — let’s face it, it’s like the hostages left when the money arrived.”

Why is Obamski arming the Sabras? Inquiring minds wanna know.

My guess is the Israelis may just have started to attack Iran now or in a nearer future.

Rush Limbaugh actually said on air that the Republicans Corker Bill (Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee) was designed to enable the Iran deal so that companies like Boeing could do business with Iran.

Business interests like those of Boeing, a defense contractor, called the shots on the Iran deal in the end and the politicians like Obama and the Republicans played along with partisan noises, a show argument with show votes.

Boeing has done business with El Al, the Israeli airline since the Iran deal as well.

And the defense contractors of what President Eisenhower called the ‘military industrial complex’ are going to sell billions of dollars worth of their products to the Arab Gulf countries, the Saudis, the Israelis who are all fearful of Iran.

Please read my take in post #5.

The fight over the Iran deal was a show with the GOP Corker Bill upping the threshold to kill the deal to 2/3 of the Senate.

Read my other comments in the other post.

Agreed. I hope Trump jumps on this.

It’s one thing to support our allies. It’s another to rig the system to line Establishment pockets, while making the world a more dangerous place.

Meanwhile we get weaker: Just wait until nuclear arms races really get going in the ME and Asia (N. Korea, S. Korea, Japan, and maybe Taiwan)...

The Corker Bill gave a whole bunch of politicians cover to vote NO and look good as ‘supporters of Israel’ with its 2/3 threshold.

Furthermore, the Israel Lobby (AIPAC) is not penalizing anyone who voted YES for the Iran Deal.

That should tell us something that Israel’s government and its own defense industry stand to benefit from the Iran deal with Israel and the US actively working on anti-ballistic missile systems over the last several years.

I read a story that one of the Arab Gulf countries was looking at getting one of the Israeli’s anti-short range missile systems currently used against the Gaza missiles to deal with the Iranian threat from that type of weapon.

That may be (regarding some of Israel’s gov’t and business. But how they can believe arms and nuclear proliferation in the ME is anything but disastrous in the long run, baffles me.

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