At the recent G7 Defence Ministers summit in Naples, UK Defence Secretary John Healey engaged in trilateral discussions with Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani and Italy’s Defence Minister Guido Crosetto to assess progress on the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).
This programme, a significant collaborative effort between the three nations, aims to bolster regional security and develop cutting-edge combat air systems.
A key topic was the preparation for the establishment of the GCAP International Government Organisation (GIGO). With the UK having ratified the international treaty governing the programme, the ministers discussed the importance of getting the treaty through the remaining Parliaments in Japan and Italy.
Once ratified, GIGO will oversee the next phase of GCAP, setting the stage for enhanced cooperation and technological development among the allies. The ministers expressed their optimism that the ratification would be completed before the end of the year, marking a significant milestone for the programme.
In his statement, Healey highlighted the broader geopolitical significance of such partnerships: “This meeting of G7 allies takes place amid huge global uncertainty and growing Russian aggression. In these serious times, serious international partnerships are vital. It was a pleasure to meet my Japanese and Italian counterparts to discuss progress on our GCAP programme, including treaty ratification and other upcoming milestones.”
The progress made in GCAP reflects the shared commitment of the UK, Japan, and Italy to maintaining stability and security in an increasingly complex and dangerous global environment.
As the ratification process moves forward, the programme’s next steps will play a crucial role in shaping the future of combat air systems for all three countries involved.
This fighter looks like it’s the ideal candidate for India which has a need for large fighter fleet replacement in 2035.
Given that we have very little need for replacement fighters in 2035 we should see if we can sell our early trenches as we did with Saudi or Germany did with Austria.
O’h yes it would be a very wise decision to sell them to India. No doubt with that countries close relationship with Russia, it wouldn’t be too long before a couple of them went missing. Only to turn up being dissected by Russian technicians. Might as well sell them straight to Russia.
India is already rapidly re aligning with the west, this is the kind of move that puts them over the top.
Did they recently build Armata tanks? Swear I saw they did. Dont trust them until they’ve basically cut ties with putler.
They already have large amounts of latest gen western technology and none of it has fallen into Russian hands.
At the end of the day countering china without India is much more difficult. With India it’s easy.
India seems to be very pro-Israel, so maybe with Russia siding with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and China against Israel, hopefully India may wake up and smell the Chai (?).
Try reading the Hindustan times and see who India sides with on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Modi and his party are a bunch of raving nationalists, and will side with whoever offers them the best deal.Rife with coruption and ethnic divisions.I would not trust them as far as I could throw them.
Modi’s party is a law until itself true but interestingly it did not take part in anti British actions up to or after Independence indeed it cooperated to a great degree, actions since have tended to aimed at uniting the greater Hindu groupings some of which are pro Russian due to what they see as help in gaining Independence. So it’s a pragmatic approach true but remember India is in a very threatening geographic region and for self interest simply siding with whoever offers the best deal is going to be a narrowing opportunity if it wants to survive within… Read more »
I tend to agree, we have to understand India’s position it is a complex situation whereby it needs good relations with Russia to keep China on a leash. So its actions will continue to include public neutrality and political links. However as China and Russia coagulate worryingly, India is not stupid and will see that in the end Russia is putting itself in a position where it will exert little influence over China. Thus while not overtly alienating Russia I am convinced India will edge ever closer to the West whatever its distaste in aligning too strongly. It will gradually… Read more »
India faces both ways, like Turkey. Unfortunately untrustworthy.
Its a sad fact that much ill-informed anti-British propaganda by Bollywood has not helped.
Biggest bunch of tyre kickers going, would do everything to avoid doing business with them.
Why does the UK need to develop another program? That will costs billions more than, for example, the UK switching to the F35A for RAF and stickingwith the F35B for Navy. The A is already the jet of choice/in service with lots of European nations as well as the USAF. And the UK has a pretty good share of F35 manufacturing, so surely that makes sense from a UK prosperity perspective. We could get A’s into service this decade as well. Bonkers to going into GCAP IMO.
We may build 15% of the aircraft but what we have missed out is developing and building an actual aircraft. Once Eurofighers stopped getting built we’d be only building fuselages etc. this programme is probably the most important thing for our country. We no longer able to build tanks. If this programme doesn’t happen what do we do? Buy foreign products and lose the ability to develop and build our equipment.
This project is more geared to keeping the UK Aerospace Industry alive long term – the F35 programme, whilst good cannot sustain it forever.
Sort of see that, but at what cost? The UK is broke, and whilst industry will develop it will still pass the dev cost on to the taxpayer. We could get a lot of F35 for the dev cost alone of GCAP over the next 40 years (…that the B is in service).
I agree, it will come at a massive cost – hopefully those in the know will have done their sums right and squared the desirabilty and affordability equation.
Not as expensive as losing the Aerospace Industry. Or as prudent.
UK is not broke (as in lack of wealth) , it just spends more wealth than it creates :))))
It is a choice by the political-journalist-academia that UK is a distributive country instead of predominantly creative country it once was.
Who says we are broke…you’re not buying into this £20 billion black hole -or is it £40 billion now….
No I’m not, I’m buying into Air Command having to pick and choose. It’s common knowledge if you pay attention.
We will be far more broke if we lose one of the few industrial sectors (esp high tech) where we are highly competitive and influential on the World stage and feeds through to other sectors too. We may as well turn off the lights on the way out if in so doing we turn Bae into an American headquartered business with decreasing interest in Britain, destroy much of our innovation generation and lose all credibility and confidence of other vital nations in doing business, technological cooperation and and keeping promises. Great place to be in a crumbling security environment. As… Read more »
Yes.
Pretty simple F35 isn’t an F22 it’s a jack of all trades if it was to meet an 5th gen air dominance fighter of equal stealth attributes it may well struggle (looking at you china). F22 is dead for new builds and the Americans may not sell the next gen because of the tech. All you need is China selling J20 to Russia and we have a problem
… and as I stated above a Typhoon can tramp on an F-35 in a dogfight. Yes it ‘hopefully’ for the F-35 never comes to that but in conflict few things go as planned, especially ially when the plan is 20 to 40 years old in the making.
This programme is for the next generation fighter and with the americans scaling back theirs and french/ german one well behind ours maybe , just maybe we can ahead of the game with this one and get the exports coming out way for once , and put the UK back where it once was ie at the forefront of aircraft design and manufacture
Some people are so lacking in ambition for this country that they would never even have considered that. Yet these same people wonder why “the country is broke” ?
So true I get so frustrated over that as a creative professional. People so often hark back to Victorian times without realising that the Victorians were successful for taking chances, exploiting opportunities, investing and ever looking forward at the next big thing.
Yes. It’s not just a matter of money as some people believe.
Some of those European countries are developing their own 6th Gen fighter, are they also wrong headed ?
This is larger than f35a. It will have better range, with that it should have the ability to carry larger/more internal weapons, it should be more powerful and faster, speed matters, a higher speed at launch will add range to future hypersonic weapons. It will have been built around a newer generation of avionics. It’s a step up in all respects from what the f35a can offer. It just needs to survive government sabotage.
The F-35, regardless of version, is a 5th generation platform. One that is being, and will continue to be improved, but nevertheless, 5th gen. Tempest is going to be an entirely 6th gen system, and there are many implications that go with that, in terms of engines, the speed they’re capable of moving the plane at, but also in terms of powering the onboard systems, sensors, processors, and yes, non-kinetic effectors to wreck an adversaries’ electronics without firing a single missile or cannon. Not only that, but power to run the cooling systems for it all. It’s a little appreciated… Read more »
The SCAF flight demonstrator, after all the Dassualt/Airbus argy-bargy, was last scheduled for 2029.
ITAR
Pure and simple .
Yeah and in so doing let’s very likely lose Bae and possibly RR maybe Leonardo UK and other smaller specialist businesses (certainly much reduce them), which are these days represent the bulk of our high end industrial technology sector vital for our future and economic/military independence. We will be in future (if we are left with anything to pay for it) forced to buy aircraft from the US, Europe or even South Korea and Turkey, yeah that will work wonders for Britain on the World stage. We got our powerful position on F-35 because we gave up production of the… Read more »
More statements on GCAP. Yawn. Build the bloody thing. The longer this aeronautical fore play goes on we are guaranteed it will cost more and potential adversaries will catch up.
The construction of the Tempest Fighter Jet Demonstrator is underway and is due to be completed in the next 3 years. This “proof of concept” aircraft will encompass much of the design elements of GCAP, but will be fitted with the much less powerful Eurofighter/ Typhoon engines (due to be installed next year).
On the same day we decided to spend 130 million less next year on the Tempest the US Navy declared their current thinking on the F18 replacement. It made interesting reading. Then Israel are starting to try and speed up EX delivery. Eying up upgrading current F15 fleet and no current intention for more F35. We live in strange and interesting times.
Israel needs missiles trucks not F-35’s to launch ALBM’s
Very much so. Interesting the US Navy is coming around to that view. They are looking at going it alone with a replacement for the F18. One of the requirements is a bomb truck.
We gave it all away and the raf ruins everything they touch.
Hope I’m wrong but still think our current government would rather join FCAS, maybe like the Tories with the Carriers and Labour with Concorde they are finding it to difficult to extricate themselves from the program.