F-22 Round Up
By But I reject the notion that we have to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on outdated and unnecessary defense projects to keep this nation secure. That’s why I’ve taken steps to greatly reduce no-bid defense contracts. That’s why I’ve signed overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation to limit cost overruns on weapons systems before they spiral out of control. And that’s why I’m grateful that the Senate just voted against an additional $1.75 billion to buy F-22 fighter jets that military experts and members of both parties say we do not need.
Gates (via spokesman):
“Secretary Gates appreciates the careful consideration Senators have given to this matter of national security and he applauds their bipartisan support to complete the F-22 program at 187 planes. He understands that for many members this was a very difficult vote, but he believes that the Pentagon cannot continue with business as usual when it comes to the F-22 or any other program in excess to our needs. Today’s vote is an important step in that direction and the Secretary looks forward to working closely with lawmakers as President Obama’s budget is debated in the coming months.”
Not only is this a major victory for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who lobbied strenuously (something he rarely does) to kill this program, and for President Barack Obama, who pledged to veto the defense bill if it contained a nickel for more F-22s. The vote might also mark the beginning of a new phase in defense politics, a scaling-back of the influence that defense contractors have over budgets and policies.
David Axe (good to see him back at DR, if only for temporarily):
At the moment, the only air forces fielding so-called “4.5-generation” fighters that even approach Raptor-level capability are all strong U.S. allies: the U.K., Germany, Italy and Spain with their small fleets of Typhoons, France with its three squadrons of Rafales, and Australia with a single squadron of F/A-18F Super Hornets. Lockheed estimates it might eventually sell more than 3,000 stealthy, “fifth-generation” F-35s to U.S. allies. Among perceived rivals, China just began producing J-10 fighters that are in the same class as the USAF’s 20-year-old F-16Cs. Russia is still building, and exporting, a few variants of the 1980s’ Su-27. Despite lots of promises, neither China nor Russia has ever demonstrated it can build anything more advanced than its current models. Russia’s aviation industry has eroded so badly that it cannot even produce drones for the Russian military: Moscow must buy them from Israel, instead.
It offers some hope to procurement reform at DoD. Much of the modern military–both operationally and administratively–is organized around the purchase of major weapons systems. This works if you have a great weapons system, but is incredibly inefficient, wasteful, and leaves you with the Army you’ve got– pace Rumsfeld, not the one you wish you had. One of the reasons we don’t have the military we wish we had is all of the support, doctrinally, institutionally, culturally, and financially for these weapons systems. The fighter jocks of the Air Force really want the F-22. They have resisted UAVs like Predator and Reaper and ugly Close Air Support planes like the A-10. And yet, these have been among the most useful and most in demand throughout the wars we’re actually fighting. The F-22? Not so much.
We’ll see. For right now, I’m just pleased that a mission-limited platform has been capped at a number that’s not too outrageous, and that the Senate has displayed a mild amount of fortitude in the face of intense lobbying. This isn’t the first time that a major weapons program has been cut short; the US originally intended to buy 29 Seawolf SSNs, later reduced to twelve, then to three. Similarly, the B-2 was cut from an initial order of 132 aircraft to just 21. Thus, I’m not convinced that this represents a major transformation in the way that the military-industrial-congressional complex works. The F-22 was, like the Seawolf and the B-2, an artifact of an era with different defense priorities. That’s it’s been capped doesn’t necessarily mean that the defense procurement institution has been successfully challenged, although it admittedly bodes well that Gates and Obama have been so forthright about using the F-22 as symbol of such a challenge.
I would like to have a better sense of the internal discussions around DADT before asserting that this fully vindicates the decision to keep Gates on as SecDef. I certainly think that it’s still a defensible position; the major decisions regarding Iraq and Afghanistan are fundamentally Obama’s rather than Gates’, and so he’s not really to blame for the general thrust of the policies. If Gates is the major roadblock to getting rid of DADT (and in fairness I haven’t seen many good arguments that he is), then it’s a major sacrifice. That said, cutting the F-22 and some other programs has been and will be much easier with Gates than with anyone else that Obama might have selected.
And in credit where due, kudos to John McCain. Managing defense spending has always been one of his strengths, and he really came through on this issue.