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Overall fleet-wide monthly availability rates remain around 50 percent, a condition that has existed with no significant improvement since October 2014, despite the increasing number of new aircraft. One notable trend is an increase in the percentage of the fleet that cannot fly while awaiting replacement parts – indicated by the Not Mission Capable due to Supply rate.
[...] Total acquisition costs for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s next-generation fighter may rise about 7 percent to $406.5 billion, according to figures in a document known as a Selected Acquisition Report. That's a reversal after several years of estimates that had declined to $379 billion recently from a previous high of $398.5 billion in early 2014.
FY17 DOD PROGRAMS: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)
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(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday January 29 2018, @03:11PM (7 children)
As George Orwell ruthlessly explains, the point of ridiculous military spending is not to protect the nation or win the war. It's to use up valuable resources on a useless activity, thus allowing the government to deprive its citizens of the resources that would enable them to rebel. The point of the war, in turn, is to create an excuse for ridiculous military spending.
And of course in the American version, there's all sorts of kickbacks from the big military contractors to ensure their guaranteed profit stream continues unabated as it has ever since the establishment of the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. They had a small brush with serious problems after Mikhail Gorbachev really screwed things up by quitting the game, but the industry was entrenched enough that by the time there was serious effort in the direction of "Why are we spending all this money to defend West Germany from the USSR when both of those countries don't exist anymore?" a new boogieman of international terrorism was found. Terrorists are a better boogieman than Communists are, because they could be anyone, anywhere, so they will never go away - if you crush, say, ISIS, you just define a new set of people as "terrorists" and go after them.
The way you really know the F-35 is a total scam is that none of the people who really want to attack the US have any fighter aircraft of their own, which makes fancy new fighter aircraft completely 100% useless. Fancy new fighter aircraft also aren't the US's best weapon against China: If we wanted to go after China, we'd instead go after them economically.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @04:52PM (5 children)
While I agree with you (and who wouldn't) that military spending can turn into a jobs program / corporate welfare,
it is not true that America's only enemies/agressive rivals are poor countries.
The USSR may not exist anymore, but Russia still does and it has invaded and annexed territory basically just yesterday. They and the Chinese have been using their military to harrass US forces on NEUTRAL territory.
Only the naive think a country doesn't need a robust military to fend off attackers/expansionists who take over allies' territory. The F-35 program in particular may be a bad joke, but military spending in general isn't. (Big projects are always tricky to keep on track.)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 29 2018, @08:38PM (4 children)
I'm guessing you're referring to grab of Crimea from Ukraine. Which (a) doesn't threaten the US in any way, (b) they did to retain control of one of their major naval bases, and (c) occurred in the wake of a US-backed coup against their allied (and elected, I might add) government of Ukraine. The Russkies are not exactly the aggressors there.
As for the Chinese, I'm guessing you're talking about the jockeying around in the South China Sea. That also isn't a threat to the US in any way, although it's annoying (but not actually threatening right now) our allies in the Philippines and Taiwan.
As for military spending, we spend about 3.5 times what the Chinese spend, and about 8 times what the Russians spend. I'm not convinced we're seeing anything close to good value for our money.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @03:50AM
Don't forget Russia's stealing a piece of Georgia (South Ossetia) before that and the takeover of the eastern part of Ukraine.
US military planes and ships getting HARRASSED in international territory or inside allied territory is nothing other than a threat--a test, really, to see if we are cowards.
I suppose for you until they actually blow up one of our planes or ships they aren't a threat. It's too late at that point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @04:04AM
You seem totally ignorant of the benefit of having safe shipping lanes and countries that don't have to worry about being invaded or having their territories with natural resources stolen.
The United States performs this vital world peace keeping service which is one reason they spend more than other countries that just free ride on the US's services.
Absent order, other countries would have to build up their militaries and more wars would break out. Police perform a critical service everyone (except crooks maybe) benefits from, and the US is the world's police. Better us than the Chinese.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:11AM
That is also ignoring the United States dominion over 80+ percent of the pacific in large part due to the Guano Act, combined with UNCLOS rules surrounding island sizes sufficient to recieve coastal waters and an EEZ.
The US complaining about Chinese influence over the Spratly Isles and other areas is really the pot calling the kettle black. Given China's size in comparison to the US, the US is grabbing far more sea resources than they deserve based on either population or territory size.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:16AM
If we spend 3.5 times what China does, they they are ahead. This is because everything they buy is made in China. Everything we buy is made in the USA, so it costs more. We ought to be spending 10 times as much.
We also throw in some expensive stuff that China probably doesn't, like Veterans Administration health care.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday January 29 2018, @11:11PM
> allowing the government to deprive its citizens of the resources that would enable them to rebel
Indeed too many resources under control of the common man generate time (to get informed, to bond with others), decreasing of the value of money (so people can afford not being yes men), and decreasing money's conditioning power. Milking the common man occurs in peacetime, but wars have an unrivaled impact on a cultural/social level.
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