Against a background rattling of sabers, Asian air force chiefs are likely to be taking a more covetous look than usual at the military hardware on display at this week's Singapore Airshow.
In the past few months, muscle-flexing by China has led to confrontations with the Philippines, South Korea and Japan in contested waters of the South and East China Seas.
In November, China unilaterally declared an air defense zone for an area of the East China Sea containing a group of islands known as the Senkaku in Japanese, and the Diaoyu in Chinese, that Japan has controlled for decades; and in an area over a submerged reef called Ieodo in South Korea and Suyan Rock in China, that is controlled by South Korea.
Japan already operated its own air defense zone over the Senkaku Islands. Korea, in response to the Chinese move, said in December that it was expanding its air patrol zone in the disputed areas.
Meanwhile, Chinese and Philippine ships have been playing cat and mouse through much of the past year in the waters around the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
At stake is more than national pride and geopolitical assertiveness. The contested seabeds are believed to hold extensive reserves of oil and natural gas.
Still, if the case for building air surveillance and defense capabilities is strong, financial pressures on emerging market economies mean that defense ministries in the region must cope with tight budgets. Maximum bang for the buck is the order of the day.
A broad range of fighter and maritime surveillance aircraft is competing for sales to Asian governments. One leading contender is Lockheed Martin's new F-35 Lightning II, the product of the Joint Strike Fighter cooperative program that started in 1996. Since its plane's introduction in 2001, Lockheed Martin has delivered some 100 F-35s. The United States Marine Corps is scheduled to start deploying a short takeoff and vertical landing version in 2015, though recent reports say this may be delayed by software maintenance and reliability problems.
Richard L. Aboulafia, a commercial and military aviation analyst at the Teal Group, in Fairfax, Va., puts the stealthy, technically advanced F-35 in a class of its own, describing it as 'the only fifth-generation fighter program on the world market.' It is, he says, a generation more advanced than possible rivals such as Boeing's F-15 Eagle and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, the Saab Gripen, or Russian and Chinese counterparts.
The F-35 program, however, is 70 percent over initial cost estimates and years behind schedule. It was roundly criticized last month by the Pentagon's procurement chief, J. Michael Gilmore.
Still, Japan has said it intends to acquire 42 of the Lockheed Martin fighters, with the first four to be delivered by 2017. South Korea also has plans to buy 40, for delivery in 2018 to 2021, though a senior South Korean official said last month that further program delays would be 'problematic.'
Australia, a partner in the program, plans to take about 100 aircraft.
For potential buyers who are not members of the program partnership, however, there are significant negatives, said Alexandra Ashbourne-Walmsley, a military analyst and director of Ashbourne Strategic Consulting, in London.
Export customers 'will essentially receive a sealed box for a very high price,' she said, since the United States is unlikely to supply the sensitive classified source codes for the F-35's advanced weapons and radar systems.
While 'the F-35 is clearly the most advanced manned fighter jet in production,' Ms. Ashbourne added, 'the downside is that it is likely to be unavailable to countries not already F-35 program partners before the mid-2020s.'
Boeing, meanwhile, is continuing to promote its long-serving F-15 - with production assured through 2018 - and its Super Hornet, operational since 1999. Boeing has orders for the Super Hornet through 2016 and has been wooing Malaysia as a potential buyer.
Among other fighter offerings, the Rafale, from the French group Dassault, has met with little export success over the past 20 years, but it has a potential order for 126 planes from India, which could be signed in April. Of those, 108 would be built in India, but disagreements remain between the Indian government and Dassault over quality assurance and performance guarantees.
Eurofighter's Typhoon has also had limited recent export success. At the end of last year, its production line was assured only through 2018.
Sweden's Saab Gripen NG, the latest upgrade model in that program, recently signed a deal to sell 36 fighters to Brazil, a choice by the Brazilian government that Mr. Aboulafia described as highly rational, on three grounds.
First, 'the world fighter market is quite cost-sensitive,' he said. 'Second, Brazil faces no major strategic threats. The rest of South America consists of friendly nations or basket cases and the Brazilian Air Force needs only to control drug traffic and the Amazon Basin.'
'Third, the Brazilian economy is in grim shape, and Gripen NG's operating costs are about one half of the F/A-18's,' Mr. Aboulafia said.
Chasing more orders after its Brazilian deal, Saab opened an Asia-Pacific office in Bangkok in September. In 2008 it sold 12 earlier versions of the Gripen to the Royal Thai Air Force, along with two Saab 340 AEW surveillance aircraft and an integrated defense system.
In a telephone interview last month, Lennart Sindahl, the head of Saab's aeronautics business group, emphasized the Gripen NG's relatively low purchase cost and highly competitive operating expenses.
Mr. Sindahl also said that his company was exploring a possible Sea Gripen variant that could be capable of operations from small aircraft carriers, building on the existing aircraft's short-airfield capability.
Mr. Aboulafia, of the Teal Group, said a new working relationship between Saab and Embraer of Brazil, in the context of the Brazilian Gripen deal, was 'another intriguing development.' Embraer's role 'as a kind of co-prime contractor' for the Gripen NG program could be the seed of a wider collaboration, he suggested.
Embraer itself will also be at the Singapore show. The company is developing its KC-390 medium-lift twin-jet transport, now starting prototype production, though no prototype is yet flying.
Jackson Schneider, president of Embraer's defense and security unit, said that Indonesia had bought 16 of its A-29 Super Tucano light attack and reconnaissance turboprops, a plane that, like the Gripen, fits advanced electronics to a low-cost airframe.
Boeing, meanwhile, will be showing its P-8, a maritime surveillance version of the ubiquitous 737-800 commercial transport plane, which recently entered service with the United States Navy. India has already ordered eight of the planes.
In November, Boeing also announced a new, lower-cost maritime surveillance aircraft program, known as the MSA. Based on the Bombardier Challenger 605 business jet, it is fitted out with P-8 and AWACS-based surveillance systems. The MSA is being presented to potential buyers this year.
In 2001, Japan opted to buy Boeing's KC-767 aerial refueling tanker, signing a contract for four in 2003. They could, for example, be used to refuel the short takeoff, vertical landing variant of the F-35 that might be operable from helicopter carriers - diplomatically never described as aircraft carriers - being built by the Japanese Navy.
Airbus meanwhile has sold five A330 MRTT tanker/transports to Australia, and India has listed Airbus as a 'preferred bidder' for a six-plane tanker procurement deal. The Airbus A400M transport, too, will soon be flying in the region, with four bought by Malaysia that are due for delivery in 2015 and 2016.
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