Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
From a philosophical standpoint, I never agree with politicians as all politicians propose using government to do something, and that’s an automatic non-starter for me. As such, I tend to get uncomfortable when I find myself agreeing with a politician from a pragmatic standpoint, particularly when that politician is called Donald Trump.
The President-Elect, however, recently echoed his not-incorrect-if-factually-inaccurate call to cancel all plans for the next iteration of Air Force One by criticizing Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II program as being too expensive.
“The F-35 program and cost is out of control… billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after Jan. 20th” Trump tweeted, according to an article by Reuters’ Alwyn Scott.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll point out here that I’ve been a life-long nerd when it comes to military aviation; possibly a result of growing up near enough to Selfridge Air National Guard Base that seeing F-16s and the like overhead was common. In my own humble, educated-but-not-expert opinion, Trump is on to something here. Again, yes, philosophically, I oppose even the existence of the state; pragmatically, I accept that it exists and wants a military that I’m going to have to pay for. As with every other involuntary expense I pay, I’d like it to be as small and reasonable as possible. The costs associated with the F-35 program have proven to be everything but, as the Reuters article points out.
That same article carried comments from Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain, who seemed to agree with Trump’s sentiment while throwing a little cold water on what the President-Elect can do about it, even after Jan. 20.
“He can reduce the buy over time, next year, as we look at it again,” McCain was quoted as saying by Reuters in the article after pointing out that even President Trump won’t be able to cancel the purchase order now that funds have been allocated.
Of course, massive Defense Department projects like F-35 Lightning II are grotesque feeding frenzies of corporatism, so, naturally there was some push back.
“’The suggestion that costs are out of control is just plain wrong,’ he said. Trump should ‘learn more about the facts’ before discussing ‘arbitrary cuts in the program,’” reads comments in the piece attributed to Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, which is home to Pratt & Whitney – the company that makes the massive engine at the heart of the F-35 – and the thousands of jobs related to production of said jet engines.
The Reuters piece then goes on to discuss some of the controversies and problems dogging the F-35, which have been an issue since the very beginning, when the Pentagon ordered the jet even before development of it was complete.
In some ways, it’s easy to see what was attractive about the F-35; it was promised as a do-everything air-frame. From the dawn of the jet age on, militaries around the world built jets to do specific jobs. The U.S. Military typically denotes those intended jobs by the letter proceeding the number; F for fighter, A for surface attack, C for cargo, B for bomber, etc. This, in turn, resulted in the creation of a great number of aircraft built to excel at specific tasks. The A-10 Thunderbolt II, aka Warthog, was designed to provide close-air-support to troops on the ground while annihilating entire Soviet tank divisions, for example, but it can do very little else but pound the ground at slow speeds while weathering return fire. The F-15 Eagle was designed to be able to intercept even the fastest Soviet attack jets and shoot them down; but in its original spec, it wasn’t much good for bombing ground targets.
Then, the military began retrofitting exiting planes to enable them to do more jobs. The F-14 Tomcat, designed as a carrier-based interceptor fighter, was given a few adjustments and the “Bombcat” variant was born. At the same time, designers the world over, save Russia mostly, started sketching out multi-role warplanes; planes that would be designed to do several jobs right from the outset.
The F-35 is then in many ways the ultimate expression of that idea. The air-frame itself is designed to operate off of both carrier decks and tarmac. One version even allows for short take off and vertical landing. In all configurations, the F-35 is designed to be stealthy, having a tiny radar signature. Theoretically, it can fly slow enough to provide close-air-support, and fast enough to mix it up with fourth-generation fighter jets from Russia’s Sukhoi and Mikoyan. Many military aviation experts are inherently skeptical of such multi-role aircraft, suggesting that being capable of all things prevents them from doing any one thing well.
Despite initial and ongoing criticism of it, however, this Swiss Army knife of jets is now in use with the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force, as well as by six U.S. Allies: Australia, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Israel while Japan just received their first Lightning II very recently. Clearly, the program is big business for Lockheed, with Australia committed to buy 72 F-35s themselves, and an unreported number more from other partner countries. Reuters reported that Lockheed, to their credit, has been trying to get costs and prices down on the F-35 program, and the program leader for Lockheed said the per-jet cost should be down to about $85 million by 2019 or 2020. The Pentagon now pays $102 million apiece for the A model, which is capable of conventional take off only.
While the experts cited in the piece agreed there wouldn’t be much Trump can do about the F-35 program as it is now, it could represent a shift in how risk and cost is shared across partner nations in these sorts of joint efforts going forward.
Sitting here, watching my entire tax payment evaporate in about six seconds of operating one F-35, I find myself reluctantly hopeful Trump will do any of the good-sounding things he’s suggested doing. Yes, in my heart of hearts I don’t want there to be any governments, and therefore no air forces and militaries etc. But again, it’s 2016 on planet Earth, so, we’re stuck with what we have and, again, all we can really do is argue for ways to make it all suck less. Reducing spending across the board is a good way of making the existence of the state more palatable; and the military is full of programs that can be pared back. The very fact that a Republican President-Elect is candidly discussing the out-of-control spending by the military is actually refreshing. Let’s see if he actually does anything about it.
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