The US and Turkey have agreed to Turkey’s purchase of 30 F-16 Block 50 fighters. A Lockheed Martin statement says the new F-16s would have the same advanced features the company currently is installing on Turkey’s current F-16 fleet. Lockheed will get approximately $1.1 billion of the total $1.8 billion agreed purchase price. Turkey began last year to work an agreement to purchase more F-16s and is still a partner on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…