First the F-35 Fighter jet screw up….
Whoever thought the concept of on piece of airplane could fit the needs of the Air Force, Navy and Marines should have to give their salary back…
THAT has been an almost complete failure….
A Ferrari is surely a wonderful sports car, but let’s be honest: Most of us couldn’t afford the day-to-day maintenance, let alone the sticker price, and these beautiful creatures are hard to drive on America’s pothole-plagued streets, and a massive pain in the butt to repair when they break down. So you can imagine the raised eyebrows earlier this year when a top U.S. Air Force general compared the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jet — decades and hundreds of billions of dollars into a lifetime that will cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion — to that Italian dream machine.
“I want to moderate how much we’re using those aircraft,” Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the Air Force chief of staff, told Pentagon reporters about the Lockheed Martin-built fighter in February. “You don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our high end, we want to make sure we don’t use it all for the low-end fight … We don’t want to burn up capability now and wish we had it later.”
In so many words, Brown was admitting that one of the most expensive weapons systems known to humankind is a failure — to be kept under a heavy tarp in a padlocked garage six days a week…
Officials acknowledge the challenges are formidable. Only in February did the military begin using Boeing’s KC-46 tanker, developed to replace the 1950s-era KC-135, on a limited basis. After a decade of development, and 20 years since the Pentagon first launched efforts to field a new tanker, the plane has still not been deemed ready for combat. A leading general recently described it as a “lemon.”
Even more well known is Lockheed Martin’s F-35, the stealth fighter whose two decades of development have been plagued by setbacks and mechanical problems. The plane, which costs between $77 million and $100 million apiece, has yet to hit full-rate production. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee called it a “rathole.”…..
All of the above point to an America unable to develop cost effect new military systems…
The faults are system wide from top to bottom,….
Innovation, flexibility and common sense are just plan missing most of the time …
And we, the tax payer continue to have lawmakers dump TONS of money into ‘ratholes’ the provide jobs, but poor excuses for weapons
And…
Make’s others wonder why the Pentagon is allowed to get increased allowances not just CUTS?
Until Americans get over their fixation(often evident here) that anyone who puts on uniform with a bunch of ribbons on it and mouths off a bunch of often incomprehensible military jargon is ipso an “expert?”
Waste like this will keep happening.
The problem with the American Defense program is complex and actually is shared by many…
Is that you new line?
Seems like every topic that comes up now you come on with something lije its”complex” or its “complicated or some other such verbiage.
If it’s so “complex?”
Why even bring it up for discussion?
Perhaps in your future posts you could designate such as “NOT OPEN FOR COMMENTS,TOO COMPLEX!
Bring back”people can be more than one thing!”
Jack?
The piece and I point to something that IS complex….
The Pentagon Budget IS around $700B….
The process of acquiring weapons systems is well doucumented….
The Pentagon budget is a jobs budget primarily….
Congress protects those jobs…
Defense contractors make political contributions…
System purchases take years of development paying millions in salaries…
I KNOW U tend to be a simple ‘I want person’ but the fact is MOST things we talk about here do NOT have simple answers…
They ARE complex with every move to one side generated complaints from the other which drives our comments here…
Of course you KNOW this….
He, he, he…
And as you know being alive for decades that people ARE MNORE than One thing….
Even YOU.….
Cow manure.
I usually don’t understand James when he discusses non-complicated issues , which is why I am less likely to read his posts than everybody elses here. (In fairness, he can’t understand me either because he regularly misinterprets what I say).
I’m not sure what James thinks makes an issue complicated. Maybe it is something as simple as that he did not fully understand an article and he doesn’t want to publicly acknowledge his limitations?
This “people can be more than one thing” is probably a variation of his “it’s complicated” line. Perhaps he is just inarticulately trying to say that people’s value systems are more nuanced than “a is good, b is bad”. But who knows what James thinks? He does not appear to be always be consistent from one day to the next, as he sometimes appears to contradict himself.
Lastly, do we really wantJames to discuss something that he thinks is complicated. I’m getting frustrated just thinking about it!
Z?
One of the reasons I do this place IS to talk about the complexities …
We ALL enjoy this….
It isn’t good or bad…
It just IS….
Jack is just being Jack….
We’ve been doing this for more than a decade and it IS what we all deal with every day of our lives…
I know I’m being intellectual here…
But politics IS about people dealing with others….
You’re being “intellectual?”
Well, we all need some humor as the work weeks ends.
I agree
However, I also think he uses things like “it’s complicated” not only to mask his own ignorance of the subject, but also to try to delegitimize other opinions on the topic at hand by implying that is so “complicated” that it is beyond discussion.
Thus, my “cow manure” line.
Jack?
I would like you to give a ‘DETAILED’ plan for cutting the American Defense Budget….
Some thing we CAN discuss here in detail with practicality …
I would but we’ll it’s too complicated!
Perhaps if you would refrain from trying to answer every comment here with inane remarks like “it’s complicated ,”you wouldn’t engender such negative remarks.
Others have mentioned this in the past.
You want to agree or disagree with a comment is one thing ,but implying ,either purposefully or ,in your case ,more than likely ,mindlessly, that another commenters post lacks substance because ,well ,”its complicated,” is annoying .
In other words,if you really have nothing to say ,which that line seems to imply?Why say anything?
Jack….
BULL SHIT….
Your concern is going back and forth with me…
You are NOT answering my question…
You ARE insulting ur own intelligence which is vast….
Most things here as DSD points out so do I ARE indeed complicated….
Stop dancing…
You might take a hour and answer MY question….
DETAILED cuts to the Defense budget….
I think you cannot do that….
Oh here you go .
Think you’re being clever.
You’re not..
You’re showing nothing more than how nonsensical you really are.
Of course I do not have a military budget in front of me and that has nothing to do with my original post.
And here’s another example of how you engage in childish forms of lashing out and pouting.
Like is said Jack….
Ya ain’t gonna do anything except debate ME😆
Your weak on the issue itself…
I totally agree with Jack.
Of course u do…
Petulant
He, he, he U are?🙄
I assume u are working on ur list?
We might not be able to discuss which military weapons we don’t need, but not “because it is complicated” as you implied. We just know we waste a lot of money and the military is probably the biggest waster in the government. And we know that the military has shown it is often willing to risk American lives for goals that are at best questionable.
See though James is ok with the military wasting money.Indeed he has ,at various time ,described
This waste as a “jobs program.”
If that be true,we would literally save money by sending those who participate in these boondoggles a check and simply forget the projects themselves.
I agree. I noticed that james does use “it’s complicated” when someone proposes something that James perceives would not personally benefit him.
Now james is saying he is being “intellectual”.
We have used a lot of words throughout the years to describe James, but I don’t think anyone here would ever describe him as being “intellectual”. Please correct me if anyone disagrees.
In this case, it is complicated, because as James notes, there’s not some simple group or class at work, but a vast nearly-impenetrable amount of institutional and intellectual inertia caused by coalitions, cross-interests and cross-tensions between various political, social, economic, financial, industrial and research interests.
To a green civilian like me (and to JFK’s defense staff) an advanced plane that can serve more than one of the military arms seems to make sense on its face. (Why have the Navy and Air Force engage in vast separate R&D projects in different silos, as their separate space programs did before NASA?)
But decades of failure and overspending has shown that what’s facially plausible to us has not proved to be true.
That simple enough for you?
Ask James.
I personally see nothing at all “complicated “ about that.
He, he, he….
Like I said….
Jack is NOT gonna answer …
He’s just bull shitting me🤣
I’ll be waiting for u two….
Inane
I understand. Not sure why the sarcasm was needed?
Essentially, the military doesn’t have a significant incentive to be efficient or reduce expenses.
Not many stakeholders in the process do
James, I’ll make a deal with you. Let’s agree not to talk with each other.
Z?
It’s MY Blog….
I’ll talk to who ever I want……
It’s always YOUR choice about coming here….
I understand your frustration Zreebs.
But have you ever noticed that there is one poster here who rarely,if ever, engages with James?
Scott.
He will post comments relative to articles posted here and often post things of his own.
However He rarely responds to James in any way,even when James attempts to draw him out by one of his famous “agrees” (often if you read what he says though he really doesn’t).
I’m beginning to think Scott is the smartest poster here.
I think I might take a leaf out of his book going forward.
Engaging with James is ultimately futile anyway.As you said earlier he constantly contradicts himself ,makes incomprehensible responses,oftentimes appears almost Irrational and then acts like it was all some kind of joke.
Yes James you can talk to anyone you want here.The catch?
They don’t have to talk back!
Yup Jack….
And again?
You ARE working on a list of cuts to the Pentagon Budget?
And Z?
You’re gonna do research on what old people need from the government?
James, I asked you nicely not to communicate with me. Shouldn’t you be taking a vacation from this site?
Afternoon Z….
Oh just so you know?
I was talking about people like you.
Rep Madison Cawthorn said the mass shooting in Boulder was in response to Pres Biden Syrian airstrikes.
These Republican doves in the wake of Trump sure are amusing.
Since US military action is unilaterally bad now you’d think these Republicans would be in favor of cutting a trillion or two from the defense budget.
Yea Right?
U.S. Air strikes in Syria are OK (to the GOP) if they aim at Revolutionary Guard commanders and start a dangerous standoff with Iran.
But not if they inspire an American resident with severe mental problems to shoot up a supermarket in Arvada.
It’s not complicated, but as James would say Republicans are not all one thing when it comes to the Near and Middle East.
My theory is that Scott and james may actually be the same person….
He, he, he….
Nope….
CG…..