National Review: The F-35: Throwing Good Money after Bad
The F-35 program could cripple U.S. defense for decades to come.
“You could argue it [the F-35] was already one of the biggest white elephants in history a long time ago,” stated former U.K. defense chief Nick Harvey in a May interview. Harvey then doubled down, saying there is “not a cat in hell’s chance” the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) would be combat-ready by 2018. While it is noteworthy that a person of Harvey’s stature would level such harsh criticisms, his statement merely reflects the conclusions of reports by the U.S. Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional Research Service, and various independent air-power analysts: The F-35 program is a mess; it is unaffordable and will not be able to fulfill its mission.
Indeed, it could be argued that the biggest threat the U.S. military faces over the next few decades is not the carrier-killing Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile, or the proliferation of inexpensive quiet diesel-electric attack subs, or even Chinese and Russian anti-satellite programs. The biggest threat comes from the F-35 — a plane that is being projected to suck up 1.5 trillion precious defense dollars.
WNU Editor: This is a definite must read on the F-35. This sums it all up ....
.... For this trillion-dollar-plus investment we get a plane far slower than a 1970s F-14 Tomcat, a plane with less than half the range of a 40-year-old A-6 Intruder, a plane whose sustained-turn performance is that of a 1960s F-4 Phantom, and a plane that had its head handed to it by an F-16 during a recent dogfight competition. The problem is not just hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted on the F-35; it is also about not having that money to spend on programs that would give us a far bigger bang for the buck.
Indeed.
4 comments:
The comparisons with those 1960's war birds is not relevant as a combat loaded F-35 would kill them or evade them without being spotted, let alone targeted by those 60's era birds.
Remember that the F-22 was and is the dog fighter to the attacking F-35. Obama and Gates killed the F-22 some 600 jets short of goal leaving the F-35 to take on a mission it was never intended to do, dog fight fifth generation jets.
Blame Obama for killing the F-22 far short of our needs.
That raptor is a beautiful plane too. And it has 2 engines!
Every new system has its haters, every single one. This is not new and will not stop until the jet has been around a while.
The "haters" sure are working hard to kill this thing. I'm reminded of a Shakespeare quote. Essentially to paraphrase "thou doest protest much."
If the program really were as bad as the critics claim, foreign investors would have dropped out long ago, politicians would have withdrawn support for this as cutting defense spending is "low hanging fruit", and the executives in charge would have been sacked long, long ago. This seems like much enemy propaganda designed to get foreign governments from buying the product and to get the US to stop producing it.
As for the argument about this costing high paying jobs and this being why the program cannot be killed, this is a specious argument not grounded in fact. These people can easily be paid their current incomes for a period of five years. This gives them the time to find other comparable jobs in industry or to acquire the training they need for other lines of employment. This could be offset by a vigorous attack against well fare fraud and other government subsidies that are being paid out fraudulently.
With all of this said the F-35 program probably should be killed. This is a program that appears designed at challenging countries such as Russia and China. Russia and China are the most powerful military forces on earth. There's little prospect of the United States being able to do anything in the next two or three decades that is going to change this. As such, the program seems a waste of resources.
When killing it, the pride and emotion aspects mentioned in the article are going to be BIG problems. I've long suggested allowing the people behind this program to be allowed to move on with dignity. One of the problems with the program is the plane seems designed to try and do to many things and hence does not do any of them very well, at least not yet. For assuming a do-it-all plane was even going to be possible, the terms "criminal incompetence" or "criminal insanity" comes to mind, however, in the interest of national security these people need to be allowed to exit with dignity.
The main threats to the US in order are as follows: 1.) an all out nuclear attack by Russia, 2.)an Islamic terrorist attack by the forces of Iran, ISIS, or some combination of Islamic terrorist groups backed by Islamic terrorist supporting states involving the use of multiple "dirty bombs", suitcase nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or some combination of these detonated simultaneously across multiple metropolitan areas, 3.)an invasion of the American mainland by Russia, China, both of these countries, or all of these countries and some combination of the BRICS.
In this scenario, I don't see the F-35 having any utility. Furthermore given the economic situation and debt situations faced by the United States, I don't see how we can afford this program.. Even if the F-35 did everything it is advertised to do and then some, we can't afford it. To use an analogy, it is like trying to purchase "steak" when one's income only allows for "hamburger."
The program probably should be killed and it seems we should be able to do so without hysterical over the top arguments. The level of venom directed at the program causes me to wonder if I could be all wrong in my assessment!!
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