The Flying Circus

To put some context to the issue, I am a firm believer in evolution by natural selection and I accept without significant reservation the socio-biological basis for much human behavior. While we are semantically perhaps more than apes with large brains, we are certainly related to apes and often display similar patterns of action under the appropriate circumstances. We are territorial, innately hostile to those outside our defined group and unashamed to aspire to domination of all we survey. Fairness also demands acknowledgment that we are capable of great empathy, charity and self-sacrifice, under certain circumstances, but those characteristics do not belie the truth that the world can be a dangerous place, with most of the danger embodied in the far-flung communities of our own species. The point is, if your rival has a stick, you may desire to have a bigger stick, since the rival’s stick may be employed to strike you repeatedly on the cranium and, once you are thereby disabled, repeat such process on your mate, offspring and domesticated canines. If you don’t accept the proposition that the world is a dangerous place, or if you feel that it is precisely our belief that it is dangerous that makes it so, it is difficult to discuss the merits of investments in national defense. Also, if you have a strong moral reservation about incinerating your fellow humans, even when they may not share such reservations, and may in fact even be contemplating the very act of attempting to do so to you or yours, then you will not be convinced by any argument of the necessity to squander the fruits of human labor on the capacity to squash our enemies like bugs. If you are one of those people, then God bless and protect you, but I am not taking to you.

Robert Higgs, an economist from the Cato Institute, estimates that America’s total expenditure for defense related activities in 2010 will surpass one-trillion dollars. The actual Defense Department Budget for Fiscal Year 2010 is about $685 billion, which does not include funds for prostitutes and bribes; those are actually in the Department of Energy budget. Anyway, at the lower figure of $685 billion, that’s about $3,000 for every person in the US over age 20, which is actually quite a bargain for the preservation of global peace, liberty, free trade, gender equity and the abatement of unreasonable search and seizure. On the other hand, if all we are getting for this investment is a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper classes and the eternal resentment of the families and friends of those we have incinerated in the name of justice and prosperity, then maybe it is not such a good investment. At this point it should become clear to the observer that every question is a Chinese puzzle box of underlying questions and maybe my wasted career as a petty government bureaucrat has made it impossible for me to draw any firm conclusions, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that the reality of the merit of military expenditures by the United States is a mixed bag of unfortunate necessity and delusional lunacy. I hope this is helpful.

So, somebody says to me, “how about that F-35 Lightning II?” My response is, “gosh, I don’t know.” Lockheed Martin says the F-35 is “a fifth-generation, single-seat, single-engine stealth multirole fighter that can perform close air support, tactical bombing, and air defense missions.” The turnkey cost on each of these sterling examples of American ingenuity is almost $200 million, and we are planning to make about 2400 them, so the actual program cost in currently inflated dollars is somewhere around $480 billion, which includes cruise control, leather bucket seats and an extended maintenance contract. This is the most expensive weapons system project in US history, which clearly makes it the most expensive in world history, more expensive than even an army of Orcs or the Death Star itself. These marvels of avionic science are intended to replace the U.S. military's “aging” fleet of F-16, A-10, F/A-18 and AV-8B tactical fighter aircraft. Since the F-35 is planned to be in widespread deployment in operational squadrons by 2016, we may have actually paid for the aircraft it is supposed to replace by then, maybe. The plane has been in development since 2001 and the first prototype flew in December of 2006. The design and development process has not been without issues, both technical and political. In keeping with our sacred tradition of military procurement, the project is over budget and behind schedule. There were costly fixes to the plane’s weight and a host of other nagging issues have emerged, like the delivered product costing twice what was originally estimated, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates even went so far as to relieve the project director, Marine Major Gen. David Heinz, of his job earlier this year. Despite all of this, the F-35 Lightning II seems to be on track to take to the air in a few years to confront the evils of Islamo-fascism, Russian nationalism, Chinese capitalism and American unemployment.

I will digress slightly at this point to advise the reader (such as you are) that I am a veteran of three years of decidedly undistinguished but nonetheless loyal military service to the United States; I once voted for Sam Nunn and I have a loaded, and licensed, handgun in the glove compartment of my Dodge Charger Hemi V-8 (5.7 liter), albeit with a trigger lock securely in place. This all means I am probably unwelcome in Vermont, at a Greenpeace rally, or even in polite company, but I am more of a South Georgia beer-drinking seen-too-much-suffering Liberal than an Ivy League comfortable life leaves-time-for-speculation-about-greater-good Liberal, not that there is anything wrong with either approach. Anyway, my point is that I stood toe to toe with the evil Soviet Empire during the long dark years of the Cold War (mostly in German bars with German beer and German women) and I know the value of a well-oiled gun in a knife fight, but I have got to give the thumbs down to the F-35.

Here’s the deal. I really don’t know much about this whole issue and I’m mostly making up all the numbers I reference, but we are scheduled to spend almost seven billion dollars on the F-35 this year alone. The only military item we are spending more money on is the National Missile Defense, at $9.4 billion. I can stomach the bill for the National Missile Defense because it is designed to keep me and my family and dogs and property from being vaporized by distant nations that do not respect Comedy Central. Defense spending for actually defending ourselves against something makes sense to me, even if some greedy contractor is making an obscene profit. I know about all the MAD issues, but as long as missile defenses are accompanied by nuclear disarmament efforts, like the one just signed with Russia (which the Senate better not screw up), then I believe we are making real progress. Anyway, I’m not really concerned about the potential flaws with the F-35 design or the criminal cost overruns or software glitches or how loud it is or any of the rational arguments one might make based upon competitive value or adequacy of performance. My intent is to make a cheap emotional appeal.

The F-35 is designed and intended to continue the United State’s unilateral air supremacy over the world’s skies towards the middle of this century. The current fleet of former avionics miracles, including about 180 F-22 Raptors, can be maintained for decades to come. We are, after all, still flying B-52’s and EA-6B’s, which seem to be working pretty well. The state of aviation technology and the financial resources of the nations that may be real threats to us will take perhaps decades just to duplicate the F-22, a squadron of which is about as powerful as the Starship Enterprise. China has a military budget about one-tenth of ours and if they weren’t stealing our technology, they would be 30 years behind instead of just 15. The F-35 program will simply extend our capacity for, and obsession with, taking it upon ourselves to go it alone, ignore the cautious council of our fellow democracies, and involve ourselves in all sorts of short-sighted military adventurism, secure in the knowledge that the world will just have to bend over and take it because they cannot defeat, or even see, our fleets of doom. There is no conceivable line-up of evil axes that could hope to stand against the current military resources and moral resolve of the world’s free nations, and there is no really, really, really true global threat to human liberty that would fail to move our allies to action. Just because some nations want to use non-violent means of punitive coercion and we can’t drag all our friends over to our misguided Arab killing adventure does not lessen my faith in General Lafayette. I’ve been to Germany; I like them and they like me. That’s how we roll.

I’m not even going to discuss what $480 billion in infrastructure investment would mean to our economy or quality of life, or how much medical research could be accomplished with such a sum, or how many young adults could be taken from detention, counseled, educated and diverted from mugging old people. We don’t live on this planet alone. When we take our best minds and strongest metals and bend them to the machines of global domination, we are sending the wrong message and should not be surprised when others feel threatened and sacrifice their own economic well-being to try and compete. When we demonstrate that we do not plan to have to rely on our allies in times of crisis and allow the subtle fear that they might even be on the receiving end of the flying fist of death should it be necessary, we don’t engender loyalty and affection. When we show that the pursuit of happiness will be shortly followed by the pursuit of the shattered remnants of the vanquished foe, we are no longer the last, best hope of Mankind. Let Zeus hurl the lightning, we can make do with the strength of our principles and a few hand me down stealth bombers.