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F-35 is built for the wrong war

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Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#21

Increased defense spending actually makes the US less, not more, safe. Everyone we're going to fight is prepared for an asymmetric, cheap war. We're vulnerable in how much they can make us spend to wage that war. A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone, etc.

I agree to a point.

But also look at Ukraine. They are punching well above their weight with asymmetrical tactics, but Russia is not defeated.

Drones and other autonomous, cheap weaponry changes a lot. Smaller states and non-state actors can inflict much more serious and expensive damage now more than ever.

Large weapons still matter though. If we ever were to enter an existential battle you would quickly see how big, expensive systems can still be advantageous. I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine or the US in Iran vs, say, WWII. Modern morality prevents such scale and tactics until it does not. Then suddenly what matters are big weapons and the huge supply chains powering a war machine.

Both the US and Russia are also pivoting heavily towards drones, and they've been developing them for decades. Yes we have big, expensive weapons programs but we also have a lot of stuff ready or soon to be ready which is much, much cheaper.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#22
post #10

Increased defense spending actually makes the US less, not more, safe. Everyone we're going to fight is prepared for an asymmetric, cheap war. We're vulnerable in how much they can make us spend to wage that war. A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone, etc.

Also seems that having a very capable military that lets you project power around the world also invites that power to be used. See for instance the Iran war. Quite pointless by all accounts and wouldn't have happened if the US didn't have aircraft carriers to send around the world. So perhaps thriftiness in defense spending would also invite a prioritization in actual defensive capabilities?

> Also seems that having a very capable military that lets you project power around the world also invites that power to be used.

I assure you that is a much better problem than the alternative.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#25
post #17
post #8

The insight here is, that in current warfare, quantity is the quality that matters. And with quantity, cost of replacement needs to be low, platforms expendable, cheap to maintain and resupply. It, and it's support infrastructure, need to not easily be detected and targeted by drones while on the ground. F35 is not these things. It's powerful but brittle, and like many US platforms, too much value packed into too few…

That's not a new idea, it's the same thing Germany learned about tanks in WWII.

I heard it argued that Germany didn't have the raw resources and production capacity to go for quantity. Especially later in the war. So quality it was.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#26
post #17
post #8

The insight here is, that in current warfare, quantity is the quality that matters. And with quantity, cost of replacement needs to be low, platforms expendable, cheap to maintain and resupply. It, and it's support infrastructure, need to not easily be detected and targeted by drones while on the ground. F35 is not these things. It's powerful but brittle, and like many US platforms, too much value packed into too few…

That's not a new idea, it's the same thing Germany learned about tanks in WWII.

I mean not really? People focus on quantity but the German late war tank designs just sucked.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#27
The F-35 was specified when the Joint Strike Fighter program began in 1995, with the development contract awarded in 2001, and the first flight in 2006 or thereabouts.

Of course it was built for a different war... the use of drones didn't proliferate until after the 2010s and really more since the 2020s with Russia/Ukraine.

So, thanks Captain Obvious and arm-chair quarterback, for the insightful article.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#30
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed by committee I've seen an argument--which I don't have enough expertise to advocate for--that the F35's broad but shallow appeal ("jack of all trades, master of none") has an indirect strength: A wider base of demand goes with a manufacturing and supply chain that is constantly active and can be ramped-up if needed. Speaking of military hardware in general, I can easily imagine there are cases where "best…

> A wider base of demand goes with a manufacturing and supply chain that is constantly active and can be ramped-up if needed. Except it can't really be ramped up. It's enormously expensive to build a single F-35, let alone maintain them, and the geographic distribution of the effort only makes that worse. And then they made it worse again by making many parts of the F-35 F-35 specific. You can't just drop in the same…

part of its mission is being expensive, but surely you can see how that changes with the stroke of a pen?
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