THE PLANK JULY 21, 2009
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
The senior senator from Massachusetts, who was one of the more interesting players in the Obama/Gates-Senate showdown over the fighter jet program, released a statement today explaining his decision to side with the White House and against parochial interests:
Months ago, the Massachusetts Air National Guard conveyed to me
their concerns that their aging aircraft will compromise their ability
to complete their mission in the future and I've also had a
longstanding concern about our industrial capacity in Massachusetts in
the event that funding for important technologies is interrupted.
I called Secretary Gates last week and yesterday we had a
productive discussion in which he assured me of three key and
persuasive facts: that the Pentagon’s shift in resources and priorities
will have no adverse affects on Massachusetts workers whose skills are
transferable from the F-22 to the F-35, that there will be no shortage
of planes or equipment for the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s
mission, and in fact that production of the F-35 could generate
additional jobs for our experienced workforce.I understand the Pentagon’s need to reorganize its resources and I
take Secretary Gates at his word that our state will not be harmed in
the process. I was also persuaded by the arguments made by the
President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the former Secretary of Defense, and the
Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that
additional F-22 aircraft are unnecessary. For those reasons, I decided
to support the Levin Amendment, and will remain vigilant in ensuring
the needs of the Massachusetts Air National Guard are always met in
policy planning.
Does Kerry really think the needs of the Massashusetts Air National Guard are so critical--especially when Gates is pleading that the national interest requires an end to the F-22 program? Somehow I doubt it. This is all about the jobs. But good for Kerry that he took the high road here.
--Michael Crowley
12 comments
The F-22's development costs have already been sunk. It's absolute idiocy that they would not buy the minimum required to fulfill the air force's needs.
The F-15 30 years ago also had Times articles written about its unreliability and its extremely high cost. 30 years later, it has an impeccable record, never been shot down, a ridiculous kill ratio, and has helped America maintain its air superiority. We are again at a crossroads with the F22. Once the decision is made to cut the program, it cannot be started again. How much more will it cost in 10-15 years to start a brand new air-superiority fighter from scratch when we could have delayed that day by 30+ years with the acquisition of just a few more of these fighters today?
- jwl2672
July 21, 2009 at 3:46pm
"It's absolute idiocy that they would not buy the minimum required to fulfill the air force's needs."
Based on the number of F-22 missions flown in the last two wars, the Air Force's need for F-22s is exactly zero. Which means that we have about 187 more of these planes than we actually need.
But hey, maybe the Russians will finally come rushing through the Fulda Gap. Could happen any day now.
- FWright
July 21, 2009 at 4:11pm
Why would we have to start from scratch? Is part of the bill to burn all the blueprints too? I guess that's one way to keep China from stealing the tech :p.
- acria multa
July 21, 2009 at 4:17pm
The F-35 program is well underway, and hardly constitutes "starting from scratch".
We need more infantry, more helicopters, more and newer drones, and perhaps some new ships. We don't need more F-22's.
Carey has known this for at least as long as he knew he was in no position to get any meaningful assistance from "allies" when he promised to do so in the 2004 campaign. Same ol' same ol'.
- Robert Powell
July 21, 2009 at 4:37pm
Really, jwl? Deploying a fleet of 194 F-22s will buy us thirty-plus extra years of operational life compared to deploying a fleet of 187 F-22s? And why is 194 the magic number, as you assert, rather than the 224 that would be required to match planned F-15 decommissionings on a 1:1 basis?
Isn't the chief determinant of the operational life of the F-22 not whether we buy seven more of the planes this year, but whether any peer competitor ever deploys a fighter that can match or exceed the performance of the F-22? Given that there is not even a proven peer to the F-15 in existence, and no likely peer to the F-22 even on any drawing board, why should we fret that fielding seven fewer F-22s will render the aircraft obsolete thirty years early?
- rhubarbs
July 21, 2009 at 4:51pm
If the statement was released as written, John Kerry doesn't know the difference between affect and effect, which is sad.
On the merits, the F-35 will do just fine, thanks. 187 F-22s seem to be plenty, and there appear to be no peer competitors on the horizon. Let me second ennis - more troops, more drones. It just doesn't look like we're going to fight a conventional war anytime soon - there are no such armies for us to fight. Maybe China, if they got froggy and did something stupid over taiwan, but extremely unlikely.
No, for the military, this is the right decision, but it does highlight the jobs aspect of the defense budget.
- butchie b
July 21, 2009 at 5:07pm
jwl, you state that the F-22 development costs are sunk. True. However, one should not base a decision on sunk costs.
The F-22 just doesn't fit in today's operational environment. We're fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They don't have an air force. As for traditional challenges, the Russians continually upgrade the SU-27/35 family but they're not in the same league as the F-22. Their advanced MiG (MiG 1.41 MFI) was cancelled and the MFI designation is now for the MiG-29, again incremental improvements. China? A handful of SU-27's and indingenous designs that may be comparable to the F-16.
The future is the F-35, to be flown by USAF, USN/USMC and foreign partners. Different models will be operable from land, from carriers, and the USMC model has VSTOL capability. Flexibility the F-22 just doesn't offer.
- dubyadoubte
July 21, 2009 at 5:20pm
Ahem... last time I checked John Kerry was the junior senator form Mass., the senior senator appears to be one Ted Kennedy, I think his face was on the cover of some other magazine
- Riossb
July 21, 2009 at 5:23pm
Suppose you and your family lived on the income you received employed in a plant that manufactured a commodity used by the Defense Department.
Would you be more or less inclined to embrace the "high road" if your job was about to be flushed down the toilet?
Is there a way in which to calculate a cost/benefit analysis whereby it could be determined when the needs of national security outweighed the needs of folks in your own community to have jobs?
In reality of course this relationship becomes hopelessly blurred when the noble "high road" stops being an academic assessment of policy and starts being a matters of having or not having jobs.
You understand this distinction, right? Or maybe it never crossed your mind?
Pundits love to perch themselves atop the noble roads when nothing more than their analysis is on the line. What is at stake here for Crowley? What is at stake here for you?
What is at stake here for me? Nothing. I am not employed by a defense contractor in Massachussetts, nor do I know anyone who is.
None of this is to suggest that Crowley and Kerry and Gates and the F22 are now bound up in either "the right thing to do" or "the wrong thing to do". Instead it is to suggest that these relationships are always far more complicated and conflicted than pundits lay them out to be.
In venues like this Crowley, you and I are ever arranging words into sentenses, sentences into arguments, arguments into political and moral policy we choose to accept or reject. It becomes a persuasive illusion that one set of arguments is more rational or more ethical than another.
That's what you accept, right? That's what you champion, isn't it?
george walton
- iambiguous
July 21, 2009 at 6:38pm
The smart policy would be to abandon the F22 and F35 altogether and build new, updated F-15s. Use the existing fleet of F22s to establish air superiority (if necessary, F15s can already do this). But use a proven workhorse with new avionics, weapons, and some stealth capabilities to do the day-to-day work of flying patrols and bombing and shooting down most anything else that the F22 has missed. Boeing already has a new version of the F-15 (with new airframe, of course, the current fleet's only weakness), ready to go:
www.flightglobal.com/.../pictures-boeing-unveils-upgraded-f-15-silent-eagle-with-fifth-generation.html
Sure, the Russians have a handful of advanced fighters that are a match for the F15s, but not in numbers. American pilots are also better trained, get more flight time, and have incomparably more sophisticated and capable, integrated radar and combat information system. All of those things along with better avionics and weapons make them more than a match for an enemy plane that can turn a bit more sharply.
- bhunziker
July 21, 2009 at 8:03pm
did Gates promise every senator that no jobs would be lost in their states if the F-22 project is ended, or is this a special promise just for Kerry? wouldn't the main point of shutting down the program be to save the money being spent on it to, e.g. pay for jobs in MA and elsewhere? this statement is either a lie or it's just deeply cynical boasting about how he got Gates to bribe him for his vote. you can't even see the high road from here. or Gates just lied to Kerry and took him for a ride, which I hope is the truth, for more reasons than one.
- perkowitz
July 21, 2009 at 8:37pm
I am with Bob and butchie on this. Russia is on a slow death spiral and China is a generation away (hell, the Ruskies are building them their first Aircraft carrier), and as butchie rightly says, Taiwan is the only issue they will fight about and they have no need to do it.
- blackton
July 21, 2009 at 9:23pm