I noticed a trend in my podcast listening. It’s about the abuse by elites of their power, and how a republic and players in the republic, contending against rivals in the marketplace and on the battlefield, vanquish the only curbs on their political rot. That’s easiest to see with the F-35 Boondoggle.

If Mr. Obama and Mr. Gates were serious about containing Pentagon costs they’d cancel the F-35. If Congress were serious about budget deficits they’d stop funding it. If the public were serious about good government they’d toss out politicians who campaign for it. If the uniformed services were serious about professional standards they’d refuse it. And if mainstream journalists were serious about hewing to their responsibilities they’d report on it (to be fair, some do).

George Kenny talks to Winslow Wheeler, who runs the Straus Military Reform Project. Wheeler presented some very scandalous tidbits, like the amount of time it takes to screw in a rivet on the fuselage of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or that the plane’s thrust can cause damage to an aircraft carrier’s top two decks.. It’s not that the US military services don’t need new planes; they just don’t need a multi-role aircraft each service branch can tweak until a bad design becomes even worse with every trade-off. An F-18 or an A-10 has some great features. But, instead of designing a new and improved successor to the A-10 around the features the Warthog got right, there’s an F-35 that can’t do ground support. Wheeler recently took on US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on related procurement issues.

It’s not a matter of spending vs. non-spending, or the red herring of screwing international partners corralled into helping out on the project in a globalized version of pork barreling. It’s rather a question of how to spend less, to get more. In this case, it means designing more planes for more specific roles that are cheaper to build and maintain, but that do what each service branches wants.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Filed under: America, Business/Economy, Globalization, Military, Podcasts, Politics, USA Tagged: electric politics, f-35 strike eagle, george kenny, procurement, robert gates, winslow wheeler