Somewhere through my limited understanding of international relations.... I heard that Mr. Putin is stepping up military-industrial production. Wonder if we'll be caught with our pants down?

this is an apolitical post... just wondering about the strategic and future economic implications of "not being at war with anyone".

 

I agree with your inference and understand as well as respect your responsibility as moderator. However, the politics, and the leaders we choose to represent us do indeed directly impact us as pilots. Leaders whom find it important to disarm the military, impose carbon taxes on aircraft, and impose General Aviation user fee's can directly impact our industry, our security, our jobs, and our families. There is a strong need for moderation in these discussions, however, they are relevant, and should be debatable because it is our future in the mix.

Especially when politicians deem aviation as non-essential/non-important infastructure while at the same time they are flying around in 747's with C-5A's and C-17's following it everywhere they go.

 

Convairator -

Thank you for the understanding and consideration. Unfortunately it is WE - the very pilots who frequent this forum - who have proven over and over in the past that WE are incapable of thoughtful political discussion on the revelent issues which indeed affect us; the useful discussion degenerates into name calling and flamebait. Fortunately there are other forums where that is more acceptable.

A reminder from the TOS:
You'll notice that I have not yet closed the thread. I like to think that we eventually mature and can have meaningful discussion. My reminder was just that - a reminder.

USMCFLYR

 

But in all seriousness, Sec Gates isn't stupid, and this isn't about Obama being the mother of all sleeper cells and destroying our country from within (wow, that's an awesome conspiracy. I better copyright that before Rush Limbaugh gets a hold of it). Right now, 180-ish F-22s is more than sufficient to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We don't have enough UAVs for the current mission. So how about we focus on winning our current war before we get too wrapped around the axle about WW III with RussIranKoreaStan.

Maybe in a few years we'll revisit the F-22.

 

The F-22 and F-35 are the last of the manned fighters. It's all unmanned from here on out.

 

Hey what happened to the first half of my post?!!! This is a conspiracy! Anyways, I started writing this trying to reassure everyone that the military has to spend its money wisely and get the most bang for its buck... but then I remembered all those times flying across the pond empty... and flying 8 Hum-vees to Afghanistan only to pick up 8 and bring them back to the states (god knows the 82nd Airborne can't sign a hand receipt and use the 101st Hum-vees for a few months)... and I remembered just about every squadron I've ever been in runs out of toilet paper and paperclip money in September but somehow finds "different colored" money to buy 5 flat screen plasma TVs that do nothing but show a power point presentation from last month's commanders call... and I realized that the military isn't all that smart after all.

And on a somewhat different note - if it really takes 90,000 people to build an F-22, then maybe we're getting ripped off anyways.

Maybe we need to cancel the F-22 to fund CyberCommand. They'll win all wars for us.

 

We don't need the F-22 to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need it for when we go to war with Europe and China. And 180 is not enough.

 

I had to stare at this for a while. I thought it was sarcasm, but I don't think it is.

Zero F-22s are sufficient for Iraq and Afghanistan. But using those wars as the benchmark for a useful or needed weapons system is a bit absurd. It it was the benchmark, why isn't anyone trying to get rid of submarines, artillery, amphibious landing craft, etc. None of those are useful in this war either.

The fact is that there will be another war. The fact is that we don't have any idea what it will look like. Very few folks would have argued in Aug 2001 that we'd be in a prolonged counterinsurgency conflict now. Everyone thought back then the next war would look just like the last one. Remember Bosnia? After that conflict, lots of "experts" were asking why we needed the Army anymore. After all, we could achieve our political objectives with air power alone. That wasn't very long ago at all.

The F-22 is not my favorite weapons system, but the fact is that it can do what no other system can do. Our #1 objective in the military is to become so credible a force that no one would dare attack us...in other words: a deterrent. If we have a credible force to zip through the air defenses that some (very recently considered third world) countries have/are buying, than that is the most important deterrent to all nation-state threats. If some thug dictator can buy a fancy SAM system and put it in his capital, and we can't get there without significant risk to our forces, then he just became somebody on the world stage because he can bet that we don't have the political will to take big losses. And he'll be right.

The F-22 production line has NOTHING to do with how many UAVs we have. It's not preventing us from affording them, it's not keeping us from buying them, and it's not clogging the pilot pipleline and keeping dudes from flying them. It's a non-factor. I know a lot of dudes hold up the whole former CSAF thing as an example of why "fighter dudes don't get it"...but the reality is that anyone who thinks the F-22 was an obstacle to UAVs doesn't get it. The issues are unrelated.

Closing the F-22 line means they are done. If they are too expensive now, there is zero chance they'll be affordable after the factories close, machinery is sold, labor goes elsewhere, etc. There is no option to "revisit the F-22." We'd better hope that we've got the team on the field that we need when the balloon goes up for the next conflict.

 

Tbone - great points. I'm short of time so please forgive my short response.

A couple counter points:
1. Money is limited. We gotta put out the biggest fires first, regardless of what is on the horizon. Perhaps there's room for both, but I don't know.
2. Deterrence doesn't work against nationless rogue groups. Somali pirates don't give a crap about our nuclear submarines. North Korea doesn't care about our Nukes. F-22s won't make Hugo Chavez or Al Qaeda change their ideology.
3. We don't know what tomorrow's conflict will look like - I completely agree. That's why we need F-22s and F-35s, CSAR helicopters, UAVs, etc. We need a mix, and although 180 F-22s isn't a perfect mix, it's an acceptable mix given the environment we're in right now.

 

All good point.

Make no mistake. We have an incredible need for new and replacement weapon systems and our government isn't forking over the cash required.