“US and NATO know that a handful of non-strategically deployed and operated older F-16s is not going to win the war, are of marginal utility in the overall project, delayed them for years, and never intended to send them in large numbers,” she explains. “The F-16 failure, and expectations of future failures, helps slow down and reduces willingness to send more F-16s to Ukraine, but this was already the plan, and F-16 losses because they do capture the public imagination are more part of the political narrative of ‘end the war soon before our investors begin to doubt that the landscape of post-war Ukraine will be profitable for them’.”
That said, she notes that the Western military and financial aid to Ukraine “is actually intended to be conservative vis-a-vis the projected value and likelihood of the objective,” with the objective being “refreshing and justifying past and future defense and military spending”, as well as securing control of Ukraine’s “natural resources and future wealth for western asset management companies.”
Regarding the attempts by US and Ukrainian sources to portray the aircraft’s destruction as a non-combat loss, Kwiatkowski suggests that it should not be considered as such if claims of the F-16 being lost after shooting down Russian cruise missiles were accurate.
“If this loss occurred in a US or NATO situation, it would be categorized as a combat loss, and it is likely any investigation will not change minds on any side, at this point in the conflict,” she mused. “However, if Kiev wishes to receive more high-end equipment and technology, and even US authorization for deep strikes into Russia -- it must avoid any blame for ongoing losses on its own military, or the combat/logistical/strategic superiority of Russia.”
Kwiatkowski also weighed in on claims of the F-16 being shot down by a Patriot air defense system in a friendly fire incident, noting that both the US and the UK previously lost one aircraft each to Patriot friendly fire during the Gulf War of 1991.
While the problem that caused these losses was rectified by 2003, Kwiatkowski noted that the Patriots supplied to Ukraine were likely older systems that could still be susceptible to this “bug”.
“All honest observers inside and outside this conflict know that Ukraine is fighting with an assortment of equipment that is older, from Soviet era and Vietnam era equipment, often technologically incompatible, operated by people often unfamiliar with these systems, and in a battle-space that is haphazard and not well logistically supported,” she adds. “Friendly fire is a big problem in all wars, and specifically for Ukraine as communications and control systems are not well integrated, and ground operators are increasingly less trained and experienced as the war grinds on.”