Nobody Asked Me, But...There's a Little Bit of Fruitcake Left in the Pentagon

When I read about our intended investment in three new tactical aircraft—the F-22, Joint Strike Fighter, and F/A-18 E/F—I am reminded of the lyrics of the great contemporary philosopher, commentator, and songwriter Jimmy Buffet. In his song "Fruitcakes," he describes our government spending $90 jillion on a Martian rocket ship that is promptly lost in space. There must be a little bit of fruitcake in everyone who is party to this tactical aircraft investment plan.

As a former tactical aviator, I know this is heresy. But the facts are so clear it is hard to imagine we are serious about continuing down this path. The most obvious problem is the extravagance of funding a whole new fleet of tactical aircraft. One of these new models, which shall remain nameless, has been in development for 15 years. Even using Arthur Anderson accounting methods, this model will cost well over $140 million a copy. How many of these will we buy? About six squadrons will be a nice complement to the three squadrons of bombers comprising that service's future fleet.

The other thing I cannot help wondering about is the cost ratio of the bullet versus the gun. Why is it we have to spend so much on our delivery vehicles when we already spend so much on accurate bullets? Is it the anticipated extensive air-to-air threat or air defense environment? Do we expect to fight the Israeli Air Force? If this is the case, then why do we still use the B-52? Could it be the B-52 is a more economical delivery vehicle for our smart bombs? How many tactical aircraft have we lost to fighters, or even to air defense systems, since Vietnam? Not enough to warrant the kind of expense we are talking about here.

Putting aside the fact that we cannot afford this plan without scrapping the rest of the defense budget, even more damning is our failure to believe the evidence of current events and trends. Unless we choose to fight the same war a third or fourth time, we are not going to have any place to put all the new stealthy, high-speed, short-range, airsuperiority fighters that will need to make numerous roundtrips to deliver their puny ordnance—unless we want to buy United Airlines and turn all its big jets into tankers so we can operate from friendly bases. The Pacific is a pretty big place—a conflict there would generate some healthy logbook entries for our die-hard tactical aviators.

What is it about the B-52 that keeps it around after more than 50 years of honorable service? Could it be that it can carry a lot of ordnance a long way? It seems like a good capability to have, considering current events, likely trends, and future enemies. It appears the smart bombs have a lot to do with the B-52's longevity as well. A B-52 can carry a lot of smart bullets a long way, especially compared to our new fighters. It seems clear that using smart bullets is a great advantage in any conflict. It also is logical that having more of them to shoot would be even better.

What if we bought all those big jets that United Airlines has and turned them into bomb trucks? They are newer than B-52s and the crew comforts would be much better. With that many big jets, we could keep lots of them airborne, hanging around the battle space—just waiting to rain down several hundred smart bombs on any enemy foolhardy enough to expose himself. If our battlespace dominance is all it is cracked up to be, then with relatively cheap add-ons, our battle liners could plug into the information network to get all the information they need, and then let the smart bombs fly. Just think of the advantages—long legs, long on-station time, large bring-back capacity, and no tanking problems—and all with immediate massive firepower on-call for the battlefield commander around the clock, and one less airline in Chapter 11.

This makes more sense than trying to turn a fighter into a tanker, an electronic jamming aircraft, and an air control aircraft that, oh, by the way, can deliver a couple of bullets. We might even be able to afford it.