Hugh Hewitt
Trillions for pork but nothing for the Raptors?
By: Hugh Hewitt
Examiner Columnist
April 13, 2009
Has the world really changed that much since 1990?
When the Air Force first announced its planned procurement of the F-22 Raptors, the intended acquisition was for 750 of the fighters. The Soviet Union was the enemy then, and soon thereafter the Soviet Union fell apart. In 1990 the Air Force adjusted its expected acquisition to a total of 648.
The world continued to get safer –at least in the eyes of President Clinton-- and the 1994 projection dropped to 442 planes. Three years later the total was cut to 339. By 2003 the number was 277.
Last week, with two active battlefields still requiring the complete air superiority Americans have come to assume is a condition of nature, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that production of the Raptor –generally recognized as the greatest fighter plane in history with no equal on the planet-- would conclude at 187.
Proponents of a robust margin of safety in the skies when it comes to military power did not react well. Joseph E. Sutter, Chairman of the Board of the Air Force Association, asked in an op-ed whether the U.S. was “one day closer… to the day when the US loses air dominance, one of our asymmetric advantages in any conflict – irregular warfare or major conventional-strategic combat operations?”
“Every plan, every contingency, assumes we will control the skies,” Sutter continued. “One of the first tasks of Operation Desert Storm was to wipe out Iraqi air defenses. Today, our unmanned air vehicles operate freely in Iraq and Afghanistan because we are unchallenged. Ending the production of the F-22 fighter at 187 places at risk our ability to meet known threats.
“We know others are producing highly capable systems to challenge our current F-15s and the F-22. And they will not stop at 187. As recently as last year, reducing the F-22 buy from 381 to around 250 was described by some as a ‘medium risk’ maneuver. What does capping it at 187 mean?
“The F-35 will be a wonderful addition and complement, but it is not optimized for air superiority nor does it have the stealthy characteristics of the F-22. We must continue the F-22 production, and pursue equipping our closest allies with a few squadrons of this essential element of our defense.”
Another articles at the Air Force Association website, www.afa.org, quoted retired General Barry McCaffrey as stating succinctly that the “F-22 is the most important acquisition program in the Department of Defense. We should buy 750 of them.”
The planes cost less than $150 million each to build. We can get 100 more F-22s for $15 billion. Given that our six-month deficit for the fiscal year under way is already scraping $1 trillion, what’s $15 billion for an extended run of unchallenged air superiority against existing and –crucially—unknown threats?
Did I mention that the F-22 is shovel ready? Remember all those jobs President Obama wanted to “create or save”? Evidently there is a category of jobs he doesn’t count among those worthy of retention –those on the national security shift.
Even if the Raptor wasn’t a guarantor of margins of safety for every American soldier, sailor or Marine operating below its shield, even then you’d have to conclude that the shuttering of its production line in an era of giant job losses was indicative of a remarkable, deeply ideological hostility towards defense spending.
The second coming of the Carter Administration is upon us, heralded by this almost wanton sluffing away of a weapon of unmatched capabilities and the simultaneous paring of missile defense appropriations.
Secretary Gates is providing a little cover for the Pentagon budget-cutters at OMB whose priorities are with increased NEA spending and a new fleet of hybrid cars for the government, but not much. Whether or not his heart is in it won’t and shouldn’t still the sharp criticism headed this budget’s way.
Forfeiting a huge advantage in the skies on the assurance that we will never need such superiority should be met with reminders that no one saw 9/11 or the market collapse of 2008 coming, and there are clearly threats on our horizon that could accelerate just as quickly as the Islamist threat or drops in the Dow did in the recent past.
Trillions for pork but not even millions for the greatest fighter plane in history? Congress needs to step in and step up production of the F-22 and of the components of missile defense. We already have too many reminders of the ‘30s. A unilateral disarmament in air power is an unnecessary and dangerous addition to them.
Examiner columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
More from Hugh Hewitt
Follow The Examiner
