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Giant weapons contractors just may be too big when their weapons systems so overcrowd a warzone that their own missiles destroy their own warplanes.
This could be what happened in Ukraine in August, when a Lockheed Martin F-16, piloted by Ukrainian Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mes, was most likely shot down by a Lockheed Patriot air-defense missile. Six of the corporation’s F-16s were delivered to Ukraine in August. Belgium reportedly will supply another 30 F-16s to Ukraine, bringing the total to 85. An undisclosed number of Patriot missile systems arrived there earlier, from a General Dynamics program that was bought by Lockheed in 1993.
Mariana Bezuhla, deputy head the Ukrainian parliament’s defense committee, made the allegation of so-called “friendly fire” and has demanded consequences for those responsible. According to the AP, the air force has not denied that the F-16 was hit by a Patriot missile. Four days after the shoot-down, President Zelenskyy fired the head of his air force, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, who had accused Bezuhla of “discrediting U.S. arms manufacturers.” The gall!
Lockheed Martin is a $137-billion global weapons giant that sells all manner of war machines, from jet fighters to missiles, from helicopter gun systems to rocket motors.
One Lockheed program making a real killing today is the F-35 fighter jet being sold all over the world, including to 13 European governments that are mostly NATO members. Lockheed boasts that by the 2030s, more than 600 of its F-35s will be operating in ten European NATO states.
The famously faulty F-35 is still crash- and accident-prone. The plane’s 13 major crashes or disappearances over the last ten years hint at a faulty future at war. Lockheed currently has around 100 F-35s in storage, unable to be delivered due to technical problems and pending software modifications.
Newest fighter jets with newest H-bombs
Four NATO countries that are purchasing F-35s by the dozens — Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Holland — currently station U.S. B61 hydrogen bombs at their air bases. The F-35s are built to carry the Pentagon’s newest version, the B61-12 air-drop H-bomb, and on March 8, 2024, Lockheed declared the F-35A officially “certified” to carry the B61-12. These new thermonuclear weapons are set to be delivered to the allied NATO bases this year or next, replacing the today’s B61s.
So the Russians can sleep a little less easily, as the newest U.S. fighter jets — the first ever stealth warplane to carry nuclear weapons — carrying the newest U.S. nuclear bombs will be ready and purposed for incinerating their cities on orders from the president.
Beyond U.S. NATO partners, F-35s are being peddled to other compliant militaries in Greece, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Canada, and Japan. With the Pentagon itself buying 1,855 F-35s, and nineteen other air forces in line for their share, a rough calculation is that Lockheed will peddle 3,615 of the $110-$136-million jets, pocketing a cool $433 billion.
Starting last year, the U.S. deployed several F-35s to the eastern edge of NATO, operating from Estonia, Lithuania, and Romania. The Dutch Air Force has trained to carry the U.S. B61 nuclear bombs for decades, and since the start of the Ukraine war, the Dutch have twice deployed newly purchased F-35s in shows of force against Moscow, first to Poland which borders Russia, and later to Bulgaria.
In 2024, Lockheed reportedly spent $6,434,005 on lobbying Congress, and it just sponsored a “Future of Defense Summit,” September 19 on Capitol Hill, “to discuss how to build a more advanced defense industry and enhance deterrence.”
This bribery and lying in support of needless military spending only leads to crimes of war or self-inflicted fatalities like the shoot-down of its own jets. Although the word “defense” sells in Congress, Lockheed’s nuclear weapons systems and the means of delivering them are not defensive. They only produce jobs and votes in hundreds of congressional districts, and billions in profits.
With the colossal volume of U.S.-made jets, tanks, bombs, missiles, helicopters, artillery, and intelligence programs being sold, traded, or gifted all over the world, and particularly to Ukraine, it was inevitable that the empire’s guns would eventually be fired against itself — intentionally or by accident.
If F-16 crashes in Ukraine are not to be repeated endlessly, and if nuclear detonations are to be avoided, the United States will have to be forced to end its weaponization of international conflicts, and to replace its militarized foreign policy with a mightier diplomatic one.
