Going Down
Here's the headline of a solid story from the Associated Press (in case you missed it): "Air Force says budgets are billions of dollars short of what's needed."
The gist of it is that after years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, jet fighters and other important gear are on the edge of breaking down. But while the Air Force says it needs to spend billions to keep up, Congress and the White House are poised to cut defense spending.
This is no surprise to government contractors. They have been bracing themselves for a slowdown since about the time spending hit wartime highs. But it will have an impact on the Air Force, which has been spending top dollar on sophisticated gear for years, the AP story says.
"The Air Force is going to be confronting a major procurement crisis because it can't buy all the things that it absolutely needs," said Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon comptroller, in the AP story. "It's going to force us to rethink, yet again, what is the strategy we want? What can we give up?"
"The Air Force's distress is partly self-inflicted," Steve Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington told the AP. "The F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning, the new jet fighters that will supplant the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Falcon, have drastically higher price tags than their predecessors and require a bigger chunk of the defense budget."
"'One of the reasons their equipment has aged so much is because they continue to move ahead with the development and presumed acquisition of new weapon systems that cost two to three times as much as the systems they are replacing,'" Kosiak said. "It's like replacing a Toyota with a Mercedes.'"
By Robert O'Harrow |
February 20, 2008; 5:59 AM ET
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Posted by: Tom | February 20, 2008 8:01 AM
Should we still consider (redundant) fighter jets as absolutely necessary? (Of course the Air Force thinks so!)
The continued use and stockpiling of fighter jets is becoming less and less necessary and this is due to the spot on capabilities of non-manned GPS and advanced laser guided UAV systems.
These are among the arguments presented to Congress and naturally the Washington Post won't relegate the space necessary to be more informative.
The folks at the Washington Post just want you to feel like you're not working hard enough at a job you hate, just like them.
Posted by: Quiet Painter | February 20, 2008 1:21 PM
Tom misses Kosiak's point - that is replace the aging "Toyotas" with new Toyotas. It is not necessary to move up to "Mercedes". Tom your income has not grown, you cannot afford the Mercedes version jet fighter but you can afford a new Toyota model.
Posted by: Ian | February 21, 2008 12:06 PM
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Kosiak couldn't be more short sighted.
If the Toyota is in the shop every week and needs extensive repairs and upgrades to simply perform, the Mercedes is the cheaper option because of greatly reduced maintenance costs.
Are aircraft are long past their intended flying hours and if they aren't replaced now the threat is real that the Air Force won't be able to continue to protect the skies above our ground forces -- or God forbid the skies above American soil.