The recent successful test of a Chinese satellite interceptor weapon is an uncomfortable reminder of an invisible arms race that America is losing. While most of the world has been disracted by the wretched spectacle of our foolish neo-colonial war in Iraq, America has been slowly sinking into a losing pattern of self-defeating high-tech weapons development. This diary provides some specifics and an indication of where the trends are heading.
The vast "defense" expenditure of the United States, which is approaching the total amount of the military budgets of all the rest of the world's nations combined, presumably buys us an arsenal that would assure military superiority over any adversary nation. Unfortunately, the American Military Industrial Complex is no longer held accountable by the military and the government for delivering effective weapons systems. Forget about efficiency; that went out the window long ago as overruns and supplemental budget allocations became the norm for any "strategic" weapons system. I am talking about basic EFFECTIVENESS, the ability of a weapon to perform as designed and to confer advantage in a military engagement. Here are some examples of lavish spending on ineffective weapons systems.
- Missile defense. The "Star Wars" initiative undertaken by Reagan lives on, and $60 billion dollars later has still not demonstrated the ability to intercept a credible test missile. All the testing "successes" to date have been against dummy targets flying known launch trajectories and without realistic countermeasures. This program achieved a milestone of defense procurement corruption when deployment was approved BEFORE development was completed. That's right, the US is deploying an interceptor missile system that doesn't work. The Bush administration believes that the taxpayers are too stupid to notice.
- The V22 Osprey. This Rube Goldberg airplane takes off and lands like a helicopter, then rotates its engines to fly like a plane. Unfortunately, the aircraft performs better in a PowerPoint presentation than in the air. It has killed over a dozen test personnel in several crashes. This aircraft is probably the worst example of an unkillable corrupt weapons program that the US has ever produced. For more details on the mess read this link:
Osprey flaws report
- The F22 Raptor. The Raptor is the Air Force's prized stealthy next-generation fighter. Unfortunately, its price has soared far higher than its performance. Originally planned as a 750 aircraft order, the program has been cut back to only 180 planes, resulting in a per-plane cost of about $360 million, incuding development costs. Unfortunately all the things the Raptor can do, unmanned stealthy fighters can do better - and at much lower cost. Thus, the Raptor will probably be the world's finest obsolete fighter by the time it is fully deployed.
- The F35 Joint Strike Fighter. The F35 was supposed to be the F22's cheaper smaller brother. A versatile, vertical landing replacement for the F16, the F35 has begun to succumb to all the ills afflicting the F22. Cost overrun's, program delays, and performance shortfalls. Probably the biggest weapons program in US History, the F35 will cost over $250 billion if the US buys over 1000 of them. But as pressure builds to cut back production, the per-unit cost is approaching that of the bad-boy F22. Of course, unmanned stealth fighters will make the F35 obsolete too - all $250 billion worth of them.
There are many more examples of corrupt US Defense programs that are producing dwindling quantities of dysfunctional or obsolescent equipment. So what are our potential adversaries doing? (Hint: they are not producing over-priced junk).
China, Russia, India, and other nations wary of the US are systematically exploiting the weaknesses of a corrupt US defense establishment. The Russians are making modest by effective changes in their missiles to allow warheads to change course and evade even fully functional US missile intereceptors. The Chinese are threatening our vulnerable reconnaissance and communications satellites by deploying a relatively cheap and effective interceptor missile. India is keenly interested in remotely piloted vehicles.
In summary, the US is proceeding along a path of unilateral military disarmament through gross corruption of the weapons procurement process. The obsolescent gold-plated weapons emerging from the increasingly dysfunctional US Military Industrial Complex will be inadequate in quantity and quality to defeat the threats of adversaries whose weapons have been competently developed and produced. The endemic corruption of our society is creating the conditions for a new Pearl Harbor, one gold-plated battleship at a time.