Not that we really expect rational thinking from the Obama White House, but you'd think President Air Power Only would put a high premium on the procurement of fighter jets, yes? You'd think that, but according to one of the leading manufacturers of said fighter jets, you'd be wrong. Boeing tells Fox News it doesn't expect to be making many fighter jets - perhaps not any - in the near future:
The shift comes despite the Navy’s ongoing use of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to strike Islamic militants in Iraq and the company’s ongoing lobbying campaign to persuade U.S. lawmakers to preserve funding for the fighter planes, both of which are built at its St. Louis plant.
Earlier this year at the Navy League’s annual conference outside Washington, D.C., Boeing touted the effectiveness of its fourth-generation EA-18G electronic attack plane over Lockheed Martin Corp.‘s F-35 stealth fighter. In presentations and advertisements, the company argued the Growler is more equipped than the Joint Strike Fighter for operating in areas with sophisticated enemy air defenses, known in military parlance as anti-access, area-denial, or A2-AD, environments.
“Stealth is perishable; only a Growler provides full spectrum protection,” stated a slide in a briefing given by Mike Gibbons, vice president of F/A-18 and EA-18G programs for Boeing, in a not-so-subtle dig at the radar-evading, fifth-generation jet made by Lockheed.
Boeing pressed lawmakers to add funding for 22 additional Growlers in the Defense Department’s fiscal 2015 budget, which begins Oct. 1, citing analysis that shows the need for a total of 50 or 100 more EA-18Gs to meet joint and coalition requirements.
The Pentagon’s budget request didn’t include any funding for the EA-18G, a derivative of the F/A-18. What’s more, it proposed retiring 51 F-15C Eagles, almost half of which are in Europe, due in part to automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.
Blaming sequestration for decisions like this is utter nonsense
Blaming sequestration for decisions like this is utter nonsense. The Pentagon is not eliminating fighter jets because of sequestration, which is merely a tiny reduction in the increase in federal spending - a reduction that doesn't force the administration to apply it in any particular way. This Obama Administration simply doesn't regard effective weapons of war as a priority, which you probably find ironic considering that when they have no choice but to intervene in a situation abroad (like, say, now), they are determined to do the fighting without American boots on the ground.
But that's governing in the age of Obama, isn't it? It's always a matter of flying by the seat of your pants - establishing the broader strategies based on your political needs of the moment, then doing whatever dance you need to when your strategy doesn't comport to reality.
I recently reported and wrote a story for Detroit's Business Magazine (not yet published so I can't give you a link) that looks at this as a bigger trend on the ground as well. Defense contractors and others in the industry tell me the direction of this administration is to pull way back on manufacturing new defense vehicles and to focus instead on refurbishing and retrofitting vehicles that have been in action, in some cases, for many decades.
This type of thinking is always based on the Obama fantasy that the U.S. can pull back from the world - can "stand down as other countries stand up" or some such nonsense - and that we aren't going to need those new vehicles and planes. We allow ourselves to rest comfortably in this thinking until a threat like ISIS, seeing America's lack of resolve, runs wild and becomes such a huge problem that it needs to be confronted. Then the U.S. gets dragged kicking and screaming into the fight, but determines to do so only with planes, which we no longer make because hey, why would we need them?
I wonder if Americans will ever get it through their heads that we can never retreat from the world, and that we have to accept that and remain prepared - which includes spending the money to make the vehicles, planes and weapons systems that keep us ready to fight. I don't think Americans really want to accept that, which is why they constantly back politicians like Obama until reality forces them to deal with reality.
You realize, of course, that our enemies - the ones we know about and some we haven't even heard of yet - are also following the news of our delusion. Better to care now than to wait until we have no choice.
