Fighting fictional foes
By M.W. Guzy
MILITARY SPENDING
The Military-Industrial Complex is about to enter middle age. Though its roots predate WWII, it was formally christened 40 years ago this month when Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned of its growing influence.
Lending credence to Mr. Eisenhower's remarks is the fact that his predecessor, Harry Truman, agreed with him. He grudgingly admitted to biographer Merle Miller that the Pentagon was "probably necessary" but added, "It's not right to have all those people in one building without a single watchdog. . . . We're all in trouble . . . when the generals get that much power." Any time bitter political adversaries reach the same conclusion, you've got to respect their reasoning.
The warning of Truman and Eisenhower may have transcended party affiliation, but it has been ignored in equally bipartisan fashion. In the last presidential election, for instance, both major candidates advocated increased military spending. The unanimity of this call for arms was all the more remarkable because America already spends more on defense than the next 12 largest nations combined.
The numbers involved here are mind numbing. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates that the program cost for the Joint Strike Fighter could reach $750 billion. Micky Blackwell, aeronautics chief for Lockheed Martin, referred to the JSF as a "trillion- dollar contract." The Congressional Budget Office places the U.S. outlay at a mere $219 billion. Lurking somewhere among all those zeros are a lot of tax dollars. And the JSF is only one of four new warplanes under development.
The operation of existing aircraft doesn't come cheaply either. It costs $11,000 an hour to fly a B-1b bomber. That turns out to be a bargain, as the same ride in a B-2 will set you back $14,000. The latter plane, incidentally, set a modern practical performance record when its manufacturer managed to locate subcontractors in 383 out of 435 congressional districts.
Clearly, national defense is a legitimate priority. The problem is that with the Soviet Union out of business, there's nobody left in our weight class to fight. No nation can come close to matching the conventional forces we already have in place. In fact, nobody's even trying. Our enemies now attack us in rubber boats and rental vans -- so-called "asymmetrical" strategies designed to circumvent, rather than confront, military might. The paradox of modern defense is nowhere better illustrated than in the plight of the F-15, a plane that is about to go out of production because of its unparalleled capabilities.
According to the USAF, the F-15 "can penetrate enemy defense and outperform and outfight any current enemy aircraft." During the Gulf War, it recorded a confirmed kill ratio of 26:0. Not one of these planes has ever fallen prey to enemy fire. Because the F-15 has been operational since 1979, the Pentagon considers it to be obsolete and now wants to replace it with newer aircraft. Of course, the plane has been continuously upgraded throughout its production run. Calling it a 21-year-old aircraft is a lot like arguing that a 1979 Chevrolet is the same car as the 2001 edition. Be that as it may, the proposed F-22 is slated to take its place.
The manufacturer of the F-15, Boeing Corp., is having trouble finding foreign buyers for the plane. The stumbling block is not the age of its design, but its price. Our allies apparently feel that cheaper aircraft are adequate to their needs. If relatively affluent democracies can't afford to buy the F-15, what are the odds that potential adversaries in impoverished nations like Russia, China, Iraq and North Korea are going to be able to develop and mass-produce comparable aircraft?
The Bulletin also reports that to justify building the F-22, threat assessments were made of rival air forces, including those of Canada, Australia and Sweden. Sweden? It had been my understanding that aside from Nobel Prizes, the major export of that tranquil kingdom was Playboy centerfold models. If we ever went to war with these people, our primary challenge would be convincing our POW's to come home.
To further thwart the Swedish peril, however, the Department of the Navy has inked a huge contract for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to meet its aircraft carrier needs. Paralleling all of these programs is the X-45A, a drone aircraft that, if perfected, could make manned combat planes obsolete. It can be operated four at a time, by a ground-based geek at a computer terminal. To see how this might work, buy your kid a Playstation 2.
We enter the 21st Century locked in a mortal arms race with ourselves. Though the needs for more advanced weaponry are at best unclear, we proceed on the premise that "if we build it, they will come." The Military-Industrial Complex thus looks forward to a robust middle age.
postnet.com |
