Outside the Beltway

F-22 Boondoggle

James Joyner · Monday, April 5, 2004 · 1 comment

George Wilson has an interesting column in WaPo on the F-22, entitled “Planes the Air Force Doesn’t Need.”

The Pentagon’s figures show that it intends to buy 278 F-22 fighters for $72 billion, or $258 million a plane, counting research and development costs already spent to bring it into being. But the General Accounting Office has just told Congress this will not be enough. The GAO says it will take an additional $8 billion-plus to finance the planned upgrades to make the F-22 a high-tech ground attack aircraft as well as air superiority fighter. This improvement would push the F-22’s price tag up to $300 million.

The $80 billion to buy a fleet of F-22s is one-third higher than this year’s Education Department budget and about eight times as much as the State Department’s current annual budget. The top priority the F-22 is getting as the president and Congress apportion tax dollars suggests this is a must-have airplane. But in fact changes in the world and other developments argue against buying this plane in the numbers being contemplated. President Bush is scheduled to decide whether to put the F-22 in full-scale production this December.

He then makes a pretty detailed argument why the plane is, in fact, one we don’t need. What’s peculiar is that most knowledgable observers came to this conclusion about a decade ago. It’s a magnificent airplane and, frankly, would be nice to have. And comparisons with its cost and that of school lunch programs is rather silly. But the fact remains that our defense dollars could be allocated in far more efficient ways. Air superiority isn’t going to be an issue for the foreseeable future. Lack of assets for stability operations has been a problem for a decade and will surely continue for another decade.