America’s F-35 Fighter Kicked Asia’s Stealth Race Into High Gear
Singapore’s decision to buy F-35 puts it in what China derisively calls the “U.S. F-35 friends circle,” a group of nations that border China that have bought F-35s to counter China’s increasingly powerful air force.
Here s What You Need To Remember: Singapore’s decision to announce the F-35 purchase during
a series of sea and airspace disputes with Malaysia suggest that the F-35s capability could become a “big stick” that it might wield in the future in regional affairs.
In January 2019, Singapore
announced that it planned to buy a limited number of F-35 fighters for evaluation purposes. While this didn’t come as a surprise to many Singaporean military watchers, the decision comes at a tense time for Singapore, with China becoming more assertive and rising tensions with Malaysia.