Senate rejects additional F-22 funding - CNN.com
In a victory for rationality in Defense spending, the Senate rejected more funding for the F-22. The F-22 plane, plagued by cost overruns, serious issues with its exterior stealth coating and high maintenance costs, was targeted for shutdown by Sec. of Defense Gates. The primarily problem with the F-22 is that it has no real mission. It has not been deployed to the theatres of war where we have been fighting for the past six years. It was designed not for the wars and enemies we face now, but instead for future battles with a near peer superpower such as Russia or China. But the reality is that the US does not require this costly plane in order to maintain its global strategic edge in air power against these global competitors, let alone lesser militarily capable countries. The United States enjoys and will continue to enjoy well into the future effective air superiority on the battlefield, anywhere in the world. The killing of future development of this plane will not diminish or reduce the national security of the United States. Period.
Gates wants to put the money going into this unnecessary system to better uses, for example, to support his intention to increase the size of the Army by 22,000. Boots on the ground baby. Gates is trying to restructure the Armed Forces and enforcing the will to end unnecessary big ticket weapons systems is a needed discipline the Congress must learn. Gates is right and Obama was entirely correct to back him up with a veto threat.
In a victory for rationality in Defense spending, the Senate rejected more funding for the F-22. The F-22 plane, plagued by cost overruns, serious issues with its exterior stealth coating and high maintenance costs, was targeted for shutdown by Sec. of Defense Gates. The primarily problem with the F-22 is that it has no real mission. It has not been deployed to the theatres of war where we have been fighting for the past six years. It was designed not for the wars and enemies we face now, but instead for future battles with a near peer superpower such as Russia or China. But the reality is that the US does not require this costly plane in order to maintain its global strategic edge in air power against these global competitors, let alone lesser militarily capable countries. The United States enjoys and will continue to enjoy well into the future effective air superiority on the battlefield, anywhere in the world. The killing of future development of this plane will not diminish or reduce the national security of the United States. Period.
Gates wants to put the money going into this unnecessary system to better uses, for example, to support his intention to increase the size of the Army by 22,000. Boots on the ground baby. Gates is trying to restructure the Armed Forces and enforcing the will to end unnecessary big ticket weapons systems is a needed discipline the Congress must learn. Gates is right and Obama was entirely correct to back him up with a veto threat.
