Whether it's an indication of my deep love for this country or merely a side-effect of growing up in the Top Gun age, there are few things I find more exhilarating than our country's arsenal of fighter jets. I admit that my earliest affinity was for the F-series planes, but even the B-2 Spirit (aka the Stealth Bomber) has a special place in my heart. I have a model of it sitting next to a model of the U.S.S. Constitution on my bookshelf... symbols of the military strength that has spanned the centuries and generations of this country.
It's true war isn't always the best answer, but there is a reason our police officers carry guns. Unfortunately, words don't always work. Some people and some situations are just wrong, just evil. Words should always be our weapon of choice, but we have a responsibility to ourselves and our allies--to history itself--to be prepared for those situations where words and reasoning fail. There is no one, after all, who believes even the most articulate or pragmatic of speakers could have persuaded Hitler to embrace a different sociological view.
How many of you are familiar with what a 5th generation fighter jet is?
If you aren't, Wikipedia provides the following definition: "The fifth generation was ushered in by the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor in late 2005. Currently the cutting edge of fighter design, fifth-generation fighters are characterized by being designed from the start to operate in a network-centric combat environment, and to feature extremely low, all-aspect, multi-spectral signatures employing advanced materials and shaping techniques. They have multifunction AESA radars with high-bandwidth, low-probability of intercept (LPI) data transmission capabilities."
To put it simply, they are crazy cool.
They are also costing us a lot of money. By recent estimates, the F-35--the latest fifth generation fighter jet--will come with a 201-million-dollar-per-unit price tag. An estimate that many experts are calling optimistic, given not even 10% of its test flights are complete.
As with most endeavors our government tries to undertake, the F-35 program, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, has been plagued by overly ambitious deadlines, continuously changing requirements and--quite simply--an abundance of human error. It's not only costing us way more than expected, but there doesn't yet seem to be an end in sight. Some analysts project that the per-unit cost on the F-35 could reach as high as 260 million before all is said and done.
Like I said. A lot of money. Money that could be put toward our children's education; money that would make a nice dent in updating our energy infrastructure; money that might cover at least one visit to an ER.
I'm not against funding our military. Far from it. I am also empathetic about the difficulty associated with planning and budgeting for the kind of R&D associated with these planes. Yet there is little evidence that the cost and pressing urgency associated with the JSF program can be justified, particularly in light of the other challenges facing our country. It is important to keep an edge but--given the caliber and effectiveness of our existing fleet--there is little evidence we are competing with anyone but ourselves on this front.
We would scoff if someone barely able to make their mortgage payments brought home a Saleen S7... no matter how cool it looks, no matter how exhilarating the ride. Quite frankly, we would think they had lost their minds. What about when our government does it?
