F-22 production termination is premature

[djolds1]

Look to Thomas P. M. Barnett for commentary on our future relationship with China:

http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett ... peace.html

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/

I find it hard to believe Barnett. Marx's Economic Determinism has been discredited too many times. First the humanists of La Belle Epoque were convinced that trade and Enlightenment rationalism had granted them escape from history; ten years later they were gutting each other on the Somme. Then the Communists proclaimed the Glory of the Proletariat; that imploded with a whimper 20 years ago (God I'm old). Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the End of History in the '90s, and history came roaring back on 11 Sept 2001. Culture, status-seeking Will to Power and Condign Force are the determinants of history; economics and the men of Money-Power are their second tier servants. Every generation is convinced it has discovered the secret to escape history, and every generation is wrong.

[MSimon]

Look to Thomas P. M. Barnett for commentary on our future relationship with China:

http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett ... peace.html

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/

I find it hard to believe Barnett. Marx's Economic Determinism has been discredited too many times. First the humanists of La Belle Epoque were convinced that trade and Enlightenment rationalism had granted them escape from history; ten years later they were gutting each other on the Somme. Then the Communists proclaimed the Glory of the Proletariat; that imploded with a whimper 20 years ago (God I'm old). Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the End of History in the '90s, and history came roaring back on 11 Sept 2001. Culture, status-seeking Will to Power and Condign Force are the determinants of history; economics and the men of Money-Power are their second tier servants. Every generation is convinced it has discovered the secret to escape history, and every generation is wrong.

He is proposing an updated version of the Colonial Office. And the Colonial office worked out pretty well.

It is not hard. You just have to keep at it for 50 or 100 years.

[djolds1]

Because when you put an enemy down you make sure he stays down, or he comes back at you. Basic power politics and strategy for the last 4000 years. See Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and the consequences of letting Germany go revanchist after WW1 in the last century.

Sun Zi Bing Fa tought to treat the people that lost the war well and to include them into your own army.
And he tought to give them a way out. In the face of total destruction, people will fight until their last breath. Give them a hope to get out of this and you will win much more easily.
Thats what I remembered from his teachings (been a while).

The military historian Martin Van Creveld identifies three forms of peace. The Peace of Assimilation (your above), The Peace of the Prison (The USSR/NK), and The Peace of the Grave (Tacitus, "they made a desert and called it peace"). Each has different costs and takes different lengths of time to implement. In each case your enemy ceases to exist, whether by being made a part of you (which requires a willingness to apply mercy; won't happen if enraged), being beaten into individual human atoms and culturally ceasing to exist, or being physically destroyed. In no case does the enemy in question rise again.

Care to guess which nation was France's largest trading partner in 1913, just before the outbreak of WW1? Economic determinism is a comforting illusion gifted to us by Marx, but when the eternal human game of status & Will to Power rears its head, economics go out the window.

That was almost a 100 years ago. The world is much different now. Economic ties go much deeper nowadays than they did in 1913.

Every generation is convinced it has discovered the secret formula to escape the inevitable circumstances of history ("The New Economy, c.1999), and every generation is wrong.

Beyond that, the F22/F35 generation will be the last generation of manned fighters. The next generation of aerospace superiority fighters will be not only unmanned, but autonomous. The Chinese would be wise to skip the F22-equivalent generation and move directly to Autonomous Kill Vehicles.

I agree on this.
Still, I think that attacking a large trade partner is economic suicide, so I doubt that China would do that. Look at it! Their economy is booming now! They have everything they could want. Why sacrifice that for a small island?

Human beings are not rational, they are rationalizing.

[DeltaV]

Pardon the brief divergence from geopolitics and socioeconomics...

Terminating F-22 production at a mere 187 units after almost 30 hard-fought years of development from initial concept is, frankly, insane.

http://www.afa.org/ProfessionalDevelopm ... arison.pdf

[Skipjack]

But it is being transformed. You will not "see" it for quite some time.

Yes, for the worse. As I said, religious fanatism is on the rise in about every country there. So much, that even those in power there (who are still rather conservative) want to put this change on hold. The recent discussion on veils at universities in Saudi Arabia and Egypt are an example for that. I could also observe this worrysome change in Turkey. Gone are the days of Kemal Pasha. Now the veil is progressing there too and the religious right is slowly taking over the parliament there.
It is very scary, when you are as close to all this as we here are.

In no case does the enemy in question rise again.

Sure, but some of these options bring you closer to being just another Hitler/Stalin yourself. I thought that people had matured past that. Guess not.

Every generation is convinced it has discovered the secret formula to escape the inevitable circumstances of history ("The New Economy, c.1999), and every generation is wrong.

Nice quote, yet irelevant. History does not repeat itself. It is just our imagination that sees patterns where there are none. Thats how our brains work.

Human beings are not rational, they are rationalizing.

I cant confirm that. There are many rational humans in this world. Actually your current president seems very pragmatic and rational in his decisions. That does not mean that his decisions are always right. They do however seem rational based on the information available. E.g. funding for stem cell research (I very much applauded that).

[Skipjack]

Terminating F-22 production at a mere 187 units after almost 30 hard-fought years of development from initial concept is, frankly, insane.

I do agree that a full termination may not be a good decision (money wasted), putting the production on hold until the need arises however is.
You can always ramp up production again, should the need arise.
Let me say though that 187 units is not THAT little.
Enough to keep the North Koreans at bay, I am sure.

[DeltaV]

I do agree that a full termination may not be a good decision (money wasted), putting the production on hold until the need arises however is.
You can always ramp up production again, should the need arise.

You're forgetting about the thousands of specialty component suppliers that go bankrupt during the wait. The half-life is not infinite. It will soon be too late to restart production.

Let me say though that 187 units is not THAT little.
Enough to keep the North Koreans at bay, I am sure.

Hopefully everyone else will behave out of good will and not take advantage of the stretched out forces.

[Skipjack]

You're forgetting about the thousands of specialty component suppliers that go bankrupt during the wait. The half-life is not infinite. It will soon be too late to restart production.

Thats the way the market works. Sorry to say that. I cant simply demand the government ordering stuff from my company either.
I would be surprised if they did not find something else to deliver parts for though. After all, the US will order many more UAVs in the future.
So many actually, that they are having troubles finding pilots.

Hopefully everyone else will behave out of good will and not take advantage of the stretched out forces.

Well most of your enemies that would require those planes would be in eastern asia anyway, so more or less the same corner of the globe. Also I doubt that you will need a total of 187 F22s to just deal with North Korea.

[DeltaV]

Well most of your enemies that would require those planes would be in eastern asia anyway, so more or less the same corner of the globe. Also I doubt that you will need a total of 187 F22s to just deal with North Korea.

187 is less than half the number needed for the total force, per military planners.

[DeltaV]

I would be surprised if they did not find something else to deliver parts for though. After all, the US will order many more UAVs in the future.
So many actually, that they are having troubles finding pilots.

Parts is parts? No, sorry, the parts are airplane-specific and storing jigs, fixtures, tooling, materials, etc. for those specialized parts costs money, not to mention rehiring/retraining costs and numerous intangibles. People who have worked on large, complex systems know that you can't just turn these programs on and off like a light switch. There is inertia and momentum involved in starting and stopping, like a heavily-loaded oil tanker.

[djolds1]

Pardon the brief divergence from geopolitics and socioeconomics...

Terminating F-22 production at a mere 187 units after almost 30 hard-fought years of development from initial concept is, frankly, insane.

Full agreement. But the US Congress refuses to allow foreign sales and with current US force structures the original planned buy of 600+ US airframes is unjustifiable. Plus with the limited numbers that are justifiable the per-airframe cost is astronomic due to the limited production run.

http://www.afa.org/ProfessionalDevelopm ... arison.pdf

The F22/F35 is a high-low pairing, just like the F15/F16 pairing pioneered by John Boyd's "fighter mafia" in the '70s. Qualitatively the F35 is inferior to the F22, despite being a decade+ newer. Rationally the F22 should be opened to foreign sales, but absent that there is no reason to keep the production line running.

[MSimon]

But there are patterns in history. Which is why Machiavelli wrote a book and people are still reading it. Five hundred years on.

There are patterns in war. Sun Tzu is still being read some 2,500 years later. Or for a more modern work:

Strategy

Are the patterns ever exact? No. But there are similarities. Orbits.

[IntLibber]

Terminating F-22 production at a mere 187 units after almost 30 hard-fought years of development from initial concept is, frankly, insane.

I do agree that a full termination may not be a good decision (money wasted), putting the production on hold until the need arises however is.
You can always ramp up production again, should the need arise.
Let me say though that 187 units is not THAT little.
Enough to keep the North Koreans at bay, I am sure.

a) ramping production back up will cost as much as the development program, because of needs to retrain new workers, rebuild production facilities, relearn what will be obsolete manufacturing methods, etc.
b) you are grossly underestimating the chinese threat, as well as the threat of going through proxy wars funded by china and or russia. We currently see some saber rattling by Venezuela against Colombia. Guess which country now owns the companies that run the Panama canal? China. If we get into a conflict with Venezuela, China will shut down the panama canal quick as you please and our own hemisphere is hostage to the chinese.

The Chinese military takes it as a given that they will fight a global war against the US some time this century. They now have ballistic missile subs in action capable of wiping the continental US. They are building enterprise class supercarriers.

When, not if, they decide to retake Taiwan, they will first dump their dollars on the global market, wrecking the value of the dollar and making it impossible for us to buy oil to fuel our navy and aircraft. We will be unable to supply Taiwan, never mind send carrier groups there. The carriers could go cause they are nuclear, but their support vessels are not, neither are their airplanes.

Once they have retaken Taiwan and proven us unable to defend our allies, they will be able to buy all our dollars back off the market for a small fraction of what they sold them for, turning a profit on the war.

[Skipjack]

But there are patterns in history. Which is why Machiavelli wrote a book and people are still reading it. Five hundred years on.
There are patterns in war. Sun Tzu is still being read some 2,500 years later.

There are patterns in war, but not in history.
A wrong strategy is always a wrong strategy, but I have yet to see history repeat itself in anything.

a) ramping production back up will cost as much as the development program, because of needs to retrain new workers, rebuild production facilities, relearn what will be obsolete manufacturing methods, etc.

That depends on how long that break is. You are not completely off here, but I dont think that it is quite as extreme as you think. You can take a break of 4 years or so, sometimes even longer. Some space tech has been dug out and redone decades later.
Still, I give you the point here. It will cost more. But then, your current military leaders want more UAVs and need all the pilots they can get for those. The UAVs are more important in the wars you are fighting right now. What do you want to do about that?
Of course you might just as well quit all the wars you are fighting now and prepare for a future war with China, LOL.

b) you are grossly underestimating the chinese threat, as well as the threat of going through proxy wars funded by china and or russia.

I am not underestimating any thread at all. I think you are overestimating their will to sacrifice for a comparably worthless island. China is going to win this war economically, without firing a single bullet. And yes, the US Dollar will loose its value, even more than it did in the last decades. Probably a big loss in the first few months. Lots of USD have been stocked by other countries. If they all hit the market at once... But that is purely your own fault, or respectively your bankers fault. They were being ruthless and stupid and you all are paying the price. That is what a completely libertarian economy does for you.

Finally, let me add, that if you are willing to ruin your economy because of some phantom thread that you are seeing, then you might do worse to yourself than a war with China would. After all, all those planes and other war machines cost lots of money. Your economy is already down, thanks to 8 years under Bush and wars that you cant afford and that wont gain you anything. You keep going like this and Taiwan will happily ask the Chinese whether they can come back
The Chinese are the power with the biggest economic growth. Their pure financial power will soon allow them to just dictate whatever they want to the rest of the world. They wont need to fire a single bullet for that. Also very "Art of War" thinking (the best war is the war that you dont have to fight).
Face it, you fracked up. Your great libertarian financial geniuses outsold all your production, basically half your economy to other countries like China in return for a few cents more profit for a few rich stockholders. The effect is that you will soon have more money leaving the country than what will be entering the country.

You just spent how many billions bailing out Chevrolet? You might just as well have sent the money directly to China.

Arent your Hummers being built in China now too? LOL, guess the Chinese wont have to do much to turn of your military supplies.
I wonder how much else of your military equipment is at least partially manufactured in China.

Nope, I dont underestimate China, but for very different reasons than you do. China will be a big huge economical problem for you. Of course you could always start a war with them (I am sure you can find some reason to do that) and hope that you will be a winner, but I would not recommend that for all our sake (you would loose).

[MirariNefas]

A threat is something which may harm you, or an expressed intention of causing harm. A thread is a piece of string, or a sequential set of webpostings on a message board.

My cat chases threads. The military chases threats.

To loose something is to set it free from binding. To lose something is to come to be without it. I can loose my tiny dog upon the mailman if I want a laugh, and I can lose my mail by misplacing it.


Edited for scope and examples!