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The U.S. State Department last week approved an $8.4 billion arms deal for Germany that will include the sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft for Berlin to use during nuclear deterrence missions.
Defense News reported that the 35 F-35s will replace the PA-200 Tornado aircraft by 2030 and will be used during nuclear weapons missions. The funding will be earmarked for aircraft development, related munitions, and training.
The U.S. Defense Security Agency informed Congress last week of the State Department’s approval. The Aviationist reported that the F-35s will be based in Büchel, Germany. The report said it has never been officially confirmed, but that is the base where it is believed U.S. nukes are stored.
These F-35s will be able to carry the B61-12 bomb, which Mother Jones said is the most expensive nuclear bomb ever created at $11 billion for about 400.
German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz has shown how much of the Western world has evolved after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
His initial approach seemed to be deliberate and sensitive to Berlin’s relationship with Moscow. But he has become one of the top critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin and promised to revive Germany’s military. (See “GERMANY JOINS THE FIGHT AGAINST RUSSIA: ‘OPERATION BARBAROSSA 2.0?” and “HEIL GERMANY AS IT RAMPS UP WAR MACHINE TO BE EU’S TOP FORCE.”)
We reported that Scholz addressed the Bundestag in June and vowed to turn the country’s military into the largest in Europe to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, which is code for Russia. Scholz used the Russian invasion of Ukraine as his impetus to strengthen Germany’s forces. Berlin has already earmarked $107 billion for military projects and will now spend more than 2 percent of its GDP on its military.
The country’s military said in May that the new funding will purchase 60 Boeing Chinook CH-47F helicopters, and the 35 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters.
German Air Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz told Defense News “we are shaping our future” with the F-35.
The military news website, citing a source close to the F-35 program, said that aircraft would likely be built at the Lockheed Martin facilities in Fort Worth, Texas. The report pointed out that the other principal contractors involved with the sale “include Pratt & Whitney, providing 37 F135 engines, as well as Boeing and Raytheon Technologies.”
Defense News said several other European nations requested the F-35 to update their air forces. Greece has requested 20 by 2028 and Finland also intends to spend $10 billion on 64 of the fighters. (See “RAYTHEON FOLLOWS BOEING TO D.C. AREA BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE MONEY IS,” “WAR MACHINE MAKING BILLIONS” and “THE MASTERS OF WAR, AT WAR WITH RUSSIA.”)
TRENDPOST: It is barely noted by the mainstream media Presstitutes—media whores who get paid to put out by their corporate pimps and government whore masters—that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin became a rich man in the private sector when got a position as a board of director on Raytheon, the second largest defense contractor in America.
OpenSecrets pointed out that Austin earned seven figures from the defense companies. The website in 2020 reported that Austin, who was retired from the military at the time, and Antony Blinken, the current secretary of state, worked as “D.C. partners” for Pine Island Capital Partners, an investment firm specializing in defense companies.
Top officials in the Biden administration who have been the most vocal backers of providing Ukraine with more arms have deep ties to consulting and investment firms for the military. But you will never read those reports in the mainstream media.
TRENDPOST: As Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his 17 January 1961 Farewell Address, the military industrial complex has taken over America.
Adding to the list, Mark Esper, the defense secretary under President Donald Trump and former Raytheon lobbyist, has been hawkish when it comes to China, said he believes the “One China Policy” outlived its usefulness, [and] it is time to move away from strategic ambiguity.
“I think it’s important that we begin that national discussion back in the United States,” he said before calling on a “bold increase in defense spending.”
Esper met with Taiwanese President Ing-Wen Tsai last week and called China the “greatest challenge facing the democracies of the West,” Stripes.com reported.
Esper has deep ties to the military-industrial complex and spent years as Raytheon’s top lobbyist before joining the Trump administration, Citizens for Ethics reported. The report said he pulled in $1.5 million in salary and bonuses and defined his job as being “responsible for company interactions with members of Congress and their staff at the Federal level and with all state and local elected officials and their staff.”