The Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brigadier General Xavier Julián Isaac, said today that they are planning to “form a special body comprised of the three forces,” confirmed that “soon” the F-16 fighters purchased from Denmark will be in the country, and expressed feeling “reassured” by the recent vindication of the Armed Forces by the Defense Minister, Luis Petri.
“Defense is always my priority. It is always a priority even though one might have different concerns at times within the country. It’s not a utopia; it’s quite feasible to organize, and that’s what we are doing,” Isaac pointed out to Aviación on Line while participating in the inauguration of Argentina’s stand at FIDAE 2024, in Santiago, Chile.
The brigadier added that they are now “very focused on the project to recover the Patagonia transport ship, which is a central capability for our fleet’s supply, regardless of the fleet’s size, whether it has the ships in service it should have or not. But the Patagonia will be one of our priorities in this first year of administration.”
“We will work -he said- together with the head of the Navy so that it can be sailing again in full condition before the end of the year.”
Regarding his presence at FIDAE, Isaac stated that “coming to this fair is always important. One has a pre-arranged agenda, and meetings develop where different things, materials, technologies are offered to you. From the moment the FONDES appears, the level of reception that a representative of the Argentine Armed Forces receives is different.”
«In particular, with the Air Force, we have a specific agenda of certain companies, some of which are currently working with the armed forces, proposing technology contributions, and others bringing innovative things, like, for example, a communication company, with which we had never worked before, offering 7 different products,” he explained.
He detailed that “then it’s about going back home, seeing well what was discussed in each of the interviews, assessing the force’s needs, then having some deeper meetings, and basically deciding if the armed forces need any of the products offered.”
“The plans we have today in the Navy include the P3, which is obviously already underway, then see how we continue for the rest of the year and year 25 to complete the other 3. We want to see how we can recover the Fenix, of which there is only one in service, and we believe it is a capability for, at a minimum, our ships to obtain the capacity to project and perform better control of the 200-mile limit,” he detailed later.
“Then we will work from the joint, along with the Navy, to create a maintenance program via FMS for the See King, which were bought and did not have a good maintenance program, we are reassembling it and then I think the priority that the navy has with its new head is to recover the surface ship capabilities,” he highlighted.
He then referred to another initiative, such as “supporting the joint action of our Special Forces. Along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we want the joint training, which is not only planning for an exercise once a year, I want them working together permanently, almost I would say once a month or two.”
“The Joint Special Forces Command was strictly a very limited planning organ, and I want it to be a well-trained force, as it is today, but working together. And within the FONDES, in the part that corresponds to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have allocated a number of resources to advance in joint purchases, agreed upon with the three forces to start acting more frequently in a coordinated manner,” Isaac emphasized.
Finally, he said they are “in very good tune with the Defense Minister (Luis Petri), but I am a man of hardware, and I like when support comes with hardware. The FONDES was a success, I have no doubt. But there were other decisions that were at the political level that transcended the FONDES. The purchase of the F-16s could never have been made with FONDES alone.”
“We celebrate that the minister and the president are constantly supporting us, and what we want is to recover the armed forces that the country needs,” he remarked.
“And very soon we will have the F-16s, and many speculations from those who spoke without knowing anything will end. They come with all the equipment, the weaponry, and everything needed. And as for the in-flight refueling system, it’s something we will carefully analyze, without rush, because the planes have great autonomy, and we will see what best suits our possibilities,” he concluded.
