The controversy about Japan's proposed development of an advanced new fighter aircraft has raised significant questions about U.S. military and trade policies. Opponents of U.S. involvement in the FSX say it will impede the future competitiveness of America's airplane manufacturers. We believe it is appropriate for General Dynamics, the principal American industrial participant, to express its own views on the matter. As a defense contractor, General Dynamics is an instrument of U.S. government policies, not a creator of them. The company was involved after the government dissuaded Japan from its original plan to ''go it alone'' in the design and manufacture of a combat aircraft for the late 1990s. Subsequently, a debate has ensued on policy and implementation of international programs involving the sharing of military technology with allied nations and potential conflicts between national security and economic factors. While such debate is timely and healthy, it is inappropriately directed at the FSX agreement hammered out during the past two years, which actually serves both U.S. military and economic interests. General Dynamics is convinced that its agreement to work with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in co-developing a plane based on the F-16 is a good one. The pact is beneficial to American security, to American industry, to the American economy and to the interests of the company and its employees. Were this not the case, General Dynamics would not have agreed to participate. Three questions are in order. Why did General Dynamics agree (at U.S. government request) to participate in the FSX program? Wouldn't the company prefer to sell its F-16s ''off the shelf'' to Japan, as some critics of the FSX plan have demanded? Why, as critics allege, is the company ''giving away'' precious technology and know-how for little, if anything, in return? Answers to the latter two questions help provide a reply to the first: Of course the company would rather sell its airplanes directly, rather than co-develop and coproduce a new version. But that never was likely in this case. Japan's original intent was to develop a new aircraft without U.S. participation, until our government gained the co-development compromise -- primarily for mutual defense reasons but also with reduction of the trade deficit and with American industry in mind. If this compromise collapses, there is little doubt that Japan will go it alone and/or use European technical assistance. There is no reasonable basis to call FSX agreement an American ''giveaway.'' Japan will spend approximately $500 million with American industry in the development program and probably $2 billion to $3 billion in production. This will not eliminate America's deficit with Japan, but it will serve as a definite step in reducing that deficit. General Dynamics -- and the Defense Department -- are convinced that Japan indeed has something to offer in advanced composite and avionics technologies. The technologies that would come from Japan are new. The F-16 technologies that would go to Japan, under strict government control, range from current to past. General Dynamics and other American manufacturers already are at work on new technologies and new fighter aircraft. Concerns about fighter aircraft technology being used to compete against the commercial American aircraft industry are overblown. These concerns are not shared by the American commercial aircraft companies, which for years have had their own cooperative arrangements with Japanese industry, and the two major American commercial aircraft companies support the FSX agreement. This contrasts with Europe, which houses the most vigorous competitors of American commercial and military aircraft companies -- competitors yearning to initiate their own partnerships with Japan and quite anxious to supplant the United States on the FSX. It is a fact of life that international sales of American products -- sophisticated fighter planes or whatever -- require partnerships or other cooperative arrangements with purchasing countries. This has been the case with the F-16 since the mid-1970s and is the case now not only with the F-16 but with other military and commercial systems. Many large U.S. corporations have long-range strategic plans that target the international marketplace. In so doing, strategic alliances with foreign companies are a fundamental part of that strategy. The Nunn amendment which Congress approved contributes toward this aim. The FSX program has the potential for being an excellent springboard for still other allian-ces. The debates ranging around the FSX program seem to have greater intensity because the agreement is with Japan. One wonders what direction the debates would have taken if the country had been one of our other allies instead of Japan. It may be true that Japan is a special case because of its success in other economic areas. However, this fact does not warrant uprooting the FSX agreement, which has been reached in good faith by two governments that are allies, not enemies, and by industrial corporations on behalf of those governments. The writer is president and chief operating officer of the General Dynamics Corp.
