The Little “Fighter” That Couldn’t: Moral Hazard and the F-35

Utterly false. Prior to involvement in World War 2, the US had hardly any standing army and rather weak tooling industries (being wiped out by the Great Depression) and yet still managed to field like 2 million troops and vast amounts of weapons for allies in a very short period of time.

When the F-4 Phantom was developed, missiles were extremely unreliable, only around one in ten hit the target they were launched against, and they could only be launched in a fairly limited circumstances.

Around 1975-1985, technology advanced and new generation of missiles entered service. They became reliable, and they could be launched successfully from a wider ranger of circumstances.

Around 1995-2005, technology advanced even more, and an even more capable generation of missiles entered service. As well as being reliable, they're now smart enough and have good enough sensors to be immune to decoys, and they're agile enough that no aircraft on earth can out turn them. Some can even be launched against targets which aren't even in front of the launching aircraft.

Guns are obsolete.

This is really driven by "up or out" ( also called "up and out") personnel management in the military. You're required to charge rents back to your employer for business relationships outside the military.

It's all part of the general pattern of careerism. It's in sharper relief in military contracting because there's simply more & different information about it. It is also damaging in the private sector.

Isn't it more complicated than that?

Today being behind on military technology by as little as 5 years can be decisive in confrontation. The last decade has brought huge changes in military technology including super and hypersonic missile delivery systems (these can defeat the US's current interception capabilities), THAAD technology, directed energy weapons, new reactive armors, satellite bombing systems, startling new radar arrays, hybrid warships, autonomous drones, practical railguns, missile adhoc networks and intelligent interception, material science bringing in new stealth materials and body armor, satellite kill systems, not to mention advancements in electronic warfare. There is constant pressure on the US, because it is the second largest arms dealer around the world, to constantly build better military equipment. And there is constant pressure to do the same because the US's military might has everything to do with the geopolitics that continue to make it rich.

The Washington Consensus chose 25 years ago to continue the investment of military with a pivot in tactics and to uses its military might in tandem with 'soft power', financial leverage, social disruption, culture export, etc in an attempt to fix its success and the success of its allies with "minimal bloodshed" - but a form of colonialism nonetheless. It will continually sell off old equipment to aid in funding new research and development.

The US is a world empire - and while this can be seen by looking at a map of military locale it is better seen as a Capitalistic one. It uses its host of leverage, import-export bank, 'structural adjustment programs', 'value sharing initiatives' and the like. The US's foreign policy is wrapped up intrinsically in providing energy security to the first world, which means constant interventionism in the Middle East. It also has a huge number of security and military obligations around the world - e.g. right now we're promised to go to nuclear war were there to be an attack on Latvia.

The US has many reasons to be militaristic - its waning economic dominance but continued military commitments and global footprint, its obligations and its own incentives to fix its success during continued globalization. Military contractors feed this fire, yes. They benefit from it, yes. But it is not as simple as military contractors lobbying successfully.

Unless, of course, you're interested in strafing what's on the ground. If you carry 8 missiles, you have 8 shots. Assuming you can get a lock on what's on the ground. If you have 10-30s of 20mm or larger, you can do wonders on, say, a convoy of trucks.

While we used to have different planes for different tasks, the staggering costs of current/future models is killing off such things. And as there's no external threat today (for the US military), the enemies are themselves - the different services. Nobody in the Air Force really wants to support those in the mud. But they won't give them fixed wing aircraft (A-10) so they can support themselves.