What is your war policy?

[Deleted]

Peace through strength

This ^

Even though I am a pacifist for the most part, I find the idea of having a weak military to be stupid.

[Akylios]

My home country doesn't even have an army. Heck, our law enforcement agents don't even carry firearms.

[Vuljatar]

This ^

Even though I am a pacifist for the most part, I find the idea of having a weak military to be stupid.

I agree we should maintain superior military strength, but currently our military strength is so superior that I'm confident we would remain the world's #1 military power even with half the budget we currently have.

[Twotonsteak]

Reduce our military strength.

Our military should be used as a means of defending our borders. Not act as the world police. Not chase people all over.

[Skroe]

I agree we should maintain superior military strength, but currently our military strength is so superior that I'm confident we would remain the world's #1 military power even with half the budget we currently have.

You sure of that?

Let me put it this way. What kind of car do you drive? Is it the same car you drove in the mid 1980s? Think about this question, and then you realize the problem at hand.

Now imagine an F-18C. Its been on carriers for 25 years. It's been exposed to salt water, salty sea air. It's slammed on the deck of the carrier and suddenly decelerated. it was catapulted off of it. It's been knocked around and dinged. It's been flown thousands upon thousands of hours.

A fighter, a ship, a tank. Beyond technological improvements generation to generation, the central problem with them is no different than your car. If you use it a lot, it wears out. It becomes a creaky old machine. Creaky old machines may be "so far ahead" of what China or whoever else has at the present, but they are also unsafe to operate after a certain date due to age unless they are expensively refirbished (which is what the US has done with the B-52 bomber, which is why it will fly until the 2050s at least, when its 100 years old).

The problem the US faces right now, if you want to call it that, is that the "name brand" vehicles every one knows... F-16C... F-15C, Nimitz Class, Los Angeles Class Submarine, M1 Abrams... the weapons of the late Cold War... they're getting old. They've been used a lot. 2013 snuck up on us all. Most of them can't safely be used another 10 years. The Navy has already retired lots of Los Angeles Class subs and is replacing them two per year with Virgina Class. The bank-buster is going to be the Ohio class replacement. But the fact of the matter is, what else is to be done with a submarine submerged in the ocean contiously for 30 years other than retire it?

These things need to be replaced. The question is, which is more important than "the size of the military budget", is are taxpayers getting gouged. Because let me put it this way, if we buy a carrier every 5 years for $14.5 billion to replace $4.5 billion Nimitz at a 1:1 ratio with our current budget, if we cut the budget in half, all we're going to do is buy less new carriers, likely at greater cost at that. And you may think "well the US shouldnt have those global responsibilities", but any which way you cut it, we're still overpaying an absurd amount for a carrier.

That's why costs have to be controlled. It's the same situation with NASA. NASA and the DoD use the same contractors (understandably). People have petitioned and started threads here about doubling the NASA budget. And every time it comes up I say "if you do that, all you'll do is find a $2.5 billion Mars rover turn into a $5 billion Mars rover". Contractors - like everyone else now days - have become absolutely adept at charging taxpayers through the nose. The James Webb Space Telecope is the worst example in modern contracting history: promised in 2004 for a cost of $2.5 billion by 2009. It will now launch in 2018 - maybe - for a cost of $8.9 billion. And not a single person has lost their job over it. No one asks why. Taxpayers get out the check book whenever the head contractor (Northrop in this case) says "we're facing a cost overrun".

People want to go back to the budget of the early 2000s? Fine by me. But before we do that, let's remember we were paying $2.5 million for tanks in 2002. The M1A3 is going to turn into $10 million per copy supertank that we won't be able to afford more than a few hundred of, just like every other replacement program, if we don't get this fixed.

More than anything else, the defense budget is huge because the military has certain needs, and taxpayers are getting royally ripped off. And this isn't cutesy "1990s" government waste. This is truly epic we'll-spend-more-on-the-F35-then-going-to-Mars waste. We keep this up, we'll buy only 10 of the the replacement to the F-22 in the 2030s.

[Flatspriest]

The old phrase "If it ain't broken, don't fix it!" is what I tend to think when it comes to situations like you ask. Leave the military alone. Do not add to it or take away from it as it is fine just the way it is.

[Azutael]

There's no question, my country. Norway has to increase our military presence in the arctic, we are gradually improving (veeeeery slowly), But there's a long way to go before we are anywhere near to be able to cover our wast ocean territories effectively.

There's an increasing presence for all the arctic countries in the arctic, and that's hardly surprising with the ice melting. Opening new trade routes, not only during the summer in some cases. And there's a lot of natural resources like oil, gas and minerals just waiting to be exploited.
As well as rich fishing grounds.

I don't want Norway to be another world police though, we have enough of that through NATO anyway. But IMO, it's critical that we are able to protect our own interests here close to home, as best as we can.

[Vuljatar]

You sure of that?

Let me put it this way. What kind of car do you drive? Is it the same car you drove in the mid 1980s? Think about this question, and then you realize the problem at hand.

Now imagine an F-18C. Its been on carriers for 25 years. It's been exposed to salt water, salty sea air. It's slammed on the deck of the carrier and suddenly decelerated. it was catapulted off of it. It's been knocked around and dinged. It's been flown thousands upon thousands of hours.

A fighter, a ship, a tank. Beyond technological improvements generation to generation, the central problem with them is no different than your car. If you use it a lot, it wears out. It becomes a creaky old machine. Creaky old machines may be "so far ahead" of what China or whoever else has at the present, but they are also unsafe to operate after a certain date due to age unless they are expensively refirbished (which is what the US has done with the B-52 bomber, which is why it will fly until the 2050s at least, when its 100 years old).

The problem the US faces right now, if you want to call it that, is that the "name brand" vehicles every one knows... F-16C... F-15C, Nimitz Class, Los Angeles Class Submarine, M1 Abrams... the weapons of the late Cold War... they're getting old. They've been used a lot. 2013 snuck up on us all. Most of them can't safely be used another 10 years. The Navy has already retired lots of Los Angeles Class subs and is replacing them two per year with Virgina Class. The bank-buster is going to be the Ohio class replacement. But the fact of the matter is, what else is to be done with a submarine submerged in the ocean contiously for 30 years other than retire it?

These things need to be replaced. The question is, which is more important than "the size of the military budget", is are taxpayers getting gouged. Because let me put it this way, if we buy a carrier every 5 years for $14.5 billion to replace $4.5 billion Nimitz at a 1:1 ratio with our current budget, if we cut the budget in half, all we're going to do is buy less new carriers, likely at greater cost at that. And you may think "well the US shouldnt have those global responsibilities", but any which way you cut it, we're still overpaying an absurd amount for a carrier.

That's why costs have to be controlled. It's the same situation with NASA. NASA and the DoD use the same contractors (understandably). People have petitioned and started threads here about doubling the NASA budget. And every time it comes up I say "if you do that, all you'll do is find a $2.5 billion Mars rover turn into a $5 billion Mars rover". Contractors - like everyone else now days - have become absolutely adept at charging taxpayers through the nose. The James Webb Space Telecope is the worst example in modern contracting history: promised in 2004 for a cost of $2.5 billion by 2009. It will now launch in 2018 - maybe - for a cost of $8.9 billion. And not a single person has lost their job over it. No one asks why. Taxpayers get out the check book whenever the head contractor (Northrop in this case) says "we're facing a cost overrun".

People want to go back to the budget of the early 2000s? Fine by me. But before we do that, let's remember we were paying $2.5 million for tanks in 2002. The M1A3 is going to turn into $10 million per copy supertank that we won't be able to afford more than a few hundred of, just like every other replacement program, if we don't get this fixed.

More than anything else, the defense budget is huge because the military has certain needs, and taxpayers are getting royally ripped off. And this isn't cutesy "1990s" government waste. This is truly epic we'll-spend-more-on-the-F35-then-going-to-Mars waste. We keep this up, we'll buy only 10 of the the replacement to the F-22 in the 2030s.

I don't really know what to say other than everything you just said is absolutely right.

Government waste is an epidemic in all fields, and defense spending is the biggest one. This is what happens when you give people an obscene amount of someone else's money--they feel no responsibility for it so they make little to no effort to get a good deal. Add in the fact that the same elected officials who make these spending decisions have deep investments in the companies the money ends up going to and you get financial corruption on a scale that makes wall street banking scams look meaningless. It's something that we have to fix, but it's going to be a hell of a challenge with how many of the people in charge are using the current state of affairs to line their own pockets.

Hell, when we get that fixed, we can cut the budget even lower than 50% without sacrificing our military dominance.

[Elegiac]

The old phrase "If it ain't broken, don't fix it!" is what I tend to think when it comes to situations like you ask. Leave the military alone. Do not add to it or take away from it as it is fine just the way it is.

It's not. As a rule of thumb, a country's military should not exceed 2% of its GDP: the United States is almost double that. A large military funnels funds, labor, and industry that could be put to productive use.

[jugzilla]

It's not. As a rule of thumb, a country's military should not exceed 2% of its GDP: the United States is almost double that. A large military funnels funds, labor, and industry that could be put to productive use.

Well, I doubt that we would put all that freed up industry to productive use. We would take a tank tread factory, change it into a widget factory, and then shift widget manufacturing to a country with no EPA, OSHA, Unions, or trial lawyers. Free trade FTW!

Were does this 2% rule of thumb come from anyway?

Oh also, I don't want to link something that obviously might have copyright issues, but if you do a search on youtube for "Pentagon Wars" you will find a very amusing and truth based movie on military spending waste. It has the guy from the princess bride, Frazier, and 2 of the guys from office space. And some other people.

[Theinquisition]

It's not. As a rule of thumb, a country's military should not exceed 2% of its GDP: the United States is almost double that. A large military funnels funds, labor, and industry that could be put to productive use.

Were not really at a loss of industry, or skilled labour. If anything we have those things in excess.

[Skroe]

I don't really know what to say other than everything you just said is absolutely right.

Government waste is an epidemic in all fields, and defense spending is the biggest one. This is what happens when you give people an obscene amount of someone else's money--they feel no responsibility for it so they make little to no effort to get a good deal. Add in the fact that the same elected officials who make these spending decisions have deep investments in the companies the money ends up going to and you get financial corruption on a scale that makes wall street banking scams look meaningless. It's something that we have to fix, but it's going to be a hell of a challenge with how many of the people in charge are using the current state of affairs to line their own pockets.

Hell, when we get that fixed, we can cut the budget even lower than 50% without sacrificing our military dominance.

Well lets be clear. This problem doesn't fall into ANY kind of libertarian narrative about government waste, corrupt politicians, incompetent public sector employees, and "spending other peoples money" line of thinking.

In fact, this is a problem that elected officials and appointed officials know about and despise what s happened (Secretary of Defense Robert Gates killed the VH-71 Kestrel $400 million a unit presidential chopper program). Congress has held many hearings about cost overruns on the F-35 JSF, the James Webb Space Telescope. A DoD Acquisitions officer went to jail a few years ago for the Boeing KC-X scandal, when Boeing tried to LEASE 300 tankers to the Air Force instead of selling them (due to our Eisenhower-era tankers needing to be replaced). That got over turned as well. Oversight is very good. Even more so Generals and civilians in the DoD, on record, have said repeatedly that the biggest threat to US Military viability is the structure of federal contracts being one that places no incentive on controlling costs.

So whats caused this if it isn't the usual suspects of "freely spending other people's money" and incompetent government oversight? In short, history, experience and fear.

In 1992 Dick Cheyney killed the A-12 Avenger program. The A-12 Avenger was supposed to be a carrier based strike aircraft. It looked like this. It was aptly nick named the Flying Dorito.





The Flying Dorito was being manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. It was their post-Cold War meal ticket. By it was in many ways, ahead of its time. Stealthy but durable. Long range, but fast. It tried to be everything, but turne dout to be nothing. After what was then considered "serious" cost over runs of a few billion dollars. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney killed the A-12 Avenger II.

What happened next was a breach of contract lawsuit agains the government that lasts to this very day and has had costs total in the billions. Furthermore cancellation of it killed McDonnel Douglas. The cancellation lead to the buying of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, which was based on Avenger II technology in a more conventional Hornet Derived Airframe (although it is largely a new aircraft), and McDonnell Douglas being bought by Boeing in 1997.

Dick Cheney's "good management' of a program that was facing massive cost increases by holding the contractor responsible ended up costing the United States a major defense contractor (directly leading to 1990s industry consolidation, always unhealthy for competition), and earned it a 20 year and counting lawsuit.

If the Air Force similarly killed the F-35, or the Ford Class, it would be faced with a simular situation. It would devastate Lockheed Martin in a way that is hard to describe. It would lead to a decades long legal battle over which party was at fault for the programs failure. And in the mean time the Air Force would still need a new fighter to replace the aging F-16, and there is no guarantee that Boeing or Northrop or even EADS wouldn't a decade down the line, find the US in the exact same position. In fact it's entirely likely. Just last year Northrop got caught red handed underbidding a sattelite contract just to win it, and then tacking on development costs that made it's bid higher than Boeing's "more honest" cost. Boeing isn't innocent either though... from the tanker scandal to the projected costs to replace the aging Air Force One fleet - billions upon billions.

It's a shakedown. Defense contractors know that Congress and taxpayers are stuck in an awful negotiating position. They can't kill a program because of legal liabilities and risks to the wider already-too-small defense industry. Congress is rightfully frustrated about being stuck in the awful sunk-cost fallacy (which is why the James Webb Space Telescope wasn't canceled... billions had already been spent and the mirrors procured).

The only thing that really can be done is getting through these contracts than redesigning future contracts. The F-35 is a wonder machine. It's basically an Iron Man suit in aircraft form. It can do everything. It is even going to have artificial intelligence. But this contrasts with how planes were procured in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Incremental improvements, highly specialized in one role (interdiction, close air support, air to air combat), tightly focused programs. They were cheap because a contractor would knock off a few hundred of one type of fighter, but then get a contract for a successor class that did something different. Capability was multiplied instead of, as we have it right now, all our eggs being in one basket with the F-35.

If the importance of one contract to a company goes down, we can start killing contracts where price isn't controlled. Furthermore the types of contracts need to change. The Government utilized Cost-Plus contracting, which is ideal if you're intention is quality, not controlling costs. Basically taxpayers cover any overruns, Lockheed just has to deliver what is asked for, and the government provides incentivized bonuses for meeting certain benchmarks. Furthermore even how we're getting them is screwed up. Instead of, as in the past, a finished ready for mass production prototype PRIOR to high rate procurement, instead the Air Force is buying 25 half finished F-35s a year and every time a new round of upgrades comes out, retroactively upgrade the previously bought fleet to the new standards. I think you can see why this is expensive: the government is buying something it has no idea is even going to work. At least if they had finished the F-35 prior to procurement, they could have said "this is not what we're looking for, no contract". Not so with this scheme. Now we're stuck with it.

That is all that needs to change, and it is slowly. The DoD is shifting to fixed-price contracting that is making contractors responsible for overruns. The F-35 procurement model is not being repeated with any other program. The DoD is hiring many new accountants. But it's going to take time to dig out of this mess that was built over a decade where fears of further industry consolidation lead to a very non-confrontational posture by the Government.

Frankly, I was rooting last year, for Obama to kill the James Webb Space Telescope. I think the telescope is an over designed mistake. The technology in it is so specialized for far infrared (which is the light of the early universe), and its cost so immense, that no new technology utilized in it will ever be used again on this scale. You may not know this but the KH-11 Kennan series of spy satellites that the National Reconnaissance Office has owned are virtually identical to the Hubble Space Telescope, just with a different optics package, and are pointed at earth. NASA built one hubble, but the NRO has built and launched at least 20 KH-11s since the 1980s with at least two and a half more sitting in storage being handed over to NASA shortly. NASA switching to a Hubble-successor would have been a low cost way to get science done, kill the JWST, and in retaliation for their failure to deliver on their contract serve Northrop with a 5 year contracting ban. That's the kind of stuff that needs to happen. But taxpayers need to get through these contracts into new ones so we can be confrontational with contractors and be freer to kill these programs with intentionally uncontrolled costs.

Make no mistake. This is the fault of private industry, of defense contractors, not the government that is being horrifically fleeced. But it will only stop if we learn from our mistakes, so when the F-22 successor contract rolls around at the end of the decade, if Lockheed Martin bids we feel free to say "we're paying $120 million per fighter. Every dollar more is on you. If it bankrupts your company, we'll take our business to Boeing".

Otherwise in two decades we'll have a $1.5 trillion defense budget, with fewer carriers, tanks, fighters, bombers, choppers and people than ever before, because contractors have figured out to maximize profiteering to such an extent.

[Itisamuh]

Better to have a too strong military and never need to use it, than to have a too weak military when you do need it.

[Theinquisition]

Well lets be clear. This problem doesn't fall into ANY kind of libertarian narrative about government waste, corrupt politicians, incompetent public sector employees, and "spending other peoples money" line of thinking.

In fact, this is a problem that elected officials and appointed officials know about and despise what s happened (Secretary of Defense Robert Gates killed the VH-71 Kestrel $400 million a unit presidential chopper program). Congress has held many hearings about cost overruns on the F-35 JSF, the James Webb Space Telescope. A DoD Acquisitions officer went to jail a few years ago for the Boeing KC-X scandal, when Boeing tried to LEASE 300 tankers to the Air Force instead of selling them (due to our Eisenhower-era tankers needing to be replaced). That got over turned as well. Oversight is very good. Even more so Generals and civilians in the DoD, on record, have said repeatedly that the biggest threat to US Military viability is the structure of federal contracts being one that places no incentive on controlling costs.

So whats caused this if it isn't the usual suspects of "freely spending other people's money" and incompetent government oversight? In short, history, experience and fear.

In 1992 Dick Cheyney killed the A-12 Avenger program. The A-12 Avenger was supposed to be a carrier based strike aircraft. It looked like this. It was aptly nick named the Flying Dorito.





The Flying Dorito was being manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. It was their post-Cold War meal ticket. By it was in many ways, ahead of its time. Stealthy but durable. Long range, but fast. It tried to be everything, but turne dout to be nothing. After what was then considered "serious" cost over runs of a few billion dollars. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney killed the A-12 Avenger II.

What happened next was a breach of contract lawsuit agains the government that lasts to this very day and has had costs total in the billions. Furthermore cancellation of it killed McDonnel Douglas. The cancellation lead to the buying of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, which was based on Avenger II technology in a more conventional Hornet Derived Airframe (although it is largely a new aircraft), and McDonnell Douglas being bought by Boeing in 1997.

Dick Cheney's "good management' of a program that was facing massive cost increases by holding the contractor responsible ended up costing the United States a major defense contractor (directly leading to 1990s industry consolidation, always unhealthy for competition), and earned it a 20 year and counting lawsuit.

If the Air Force similarly killed the F-35, or the Ford Class, it would be faced with a simular situation. It would devastate Lockheed Martin in a way that is hard to describe. It would lead to a decades long legal battle over which party was at fault for the programs failure. And in the mean time the Air Force would still need a new fighter to replace the aging F-16, and there is no guarantee that Boeing or Northrop or even EADS wouldn't a decade down the line, find the US in the exact same position. In fact it's entirely likely. Just last year Northrop got caught red handed underbidding a sattelite contract just to win it, and then tacking on development costs that made it's bid higher than Boeing's "more honest" cost. Boeing isn't innocent either though... from the tanker scandal to the projected costs to replace the aging Air Force One fleet - billions upon billions.

It's a shakedown. Defense contractors know that Congress and taxpayers are stuck in an awful negotiating position. They can't kill a program because of legal liabilities and risks to the wider already-too-small defense industry. Congress is rightfully frustrated about being stuck in the awful sunk-cost fallacy (which is why the James Webb Space Telescope wasn't canceled... billions had already been spent and the mirrors procured).

The only thing that really can be done is getting through these contracts than redesigning future contracts. The F-35 is a wonder machine. It's basically an Iron Man suit in aircraft form. It can do everything. It is even going to have artificial intelligence. But this contrasts with how planes were procured in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Incremental improvements, highly specialized in one role (interdiction, close air support, air to air combat), tightly focused programs. They were cheap because a contractor would knock off a few hundred of one type of fighter, but then get a contract for a successor class that did something different. Capability was multiplied instead of, as we have it right now, all our eggs being in one basket with the F-35.

If the importance of one contract to a company goes down, we can start killing contracts where price isn't controlled. Furthermore the types of contracts need to change. The Government utilized Cost-Plus contracting, which is ideal if you're intention is quality, not controlling costs. Basically taxpayers cover any overruns, Lockheed just has to deliver what is asked for, and the government provides incentivized bonuses for meeting certain benchmarks. Furthermore even how we're getting them is screwed up. Instead of, as in the past, a finished ready for mass production prototype PRIOR to high rate procurement, instead the Air Force is buying 25 half finished F-35s a year and every time a new round of upgrades comes out, retroactively upgrade the previously bought fleet to the new standards. I think you can see why this is expensive: the government is buying something it has no idea is even going to work. At least if they had finished the F-35 prior to procurement, they could have said "this is not what we're looking for, no contract". Not so with this scheme. Now we're stuck with it.

That is all that needs to change, and it is slowly. The DoD is shifting to fixed-price contracting that is making contractors responsible for overruns. The F-35 procurement model is not being repeated with any other program. The DoD is hiring many new accountants. But it's going to take time to dig out of this mess that was built over a decade where fears of further industry consolidation lead to a very non-confrontational posture by the Government.

Frankly, I was rooting last year, for Obama to kill the James Webb Space Telescope. I think the telescope is an over designed mistake. The technology in it is so specialized for far infrared (which is the light of the early universe), and its cost so immense, that no new technology utilized in it will ever be used again on this scale. You may not know this but the KH-11 Kennan series of spy satellites that the National Reconnaissance Office has owned are virtually identical to the Hubble Space Telescope, just with a different optics package, and are pointed at earth. NASA built one hubble, but the NRO has built and launched at least 20 KH-11s since the 1980s with at least two and a half more sitting in storage being handed over to NASA shortly. NASA switching to a Hubble-successor would have been a low cost way to get science done, kill the JWST, and in retaliation for their failure to deliver on their contract serve Northrop with a 5 year contracting ban. That's the kind of stuff that needs to happen. But taxpayers need to get through these contracts into new ones so we can be confrontational with contractors and be freer to kill these programs with intentionally uncontrolled costs.

Make no mistake. This is the fault of private industry, of defense contractors, not the government that is being horrifically fleeced. But it will only stop if we learn from our mistakes, so when the F-22 successor contract rolls around at the end of the decade, if Lockheed Martin bids we feel free to say "we're paying $120 million per fighter. Every dollar more is on you. If it bankrupts your company, we'll take our business to Boeing".

Otherwise in two decades we'll have a $1.5 trillion defense budget, with fewer carriers, tanks, fighters, bombers, choppers and people than ever before, because contractors have figured out to maximize profiteering to such an extent.

You know whats intresting....

REmeber the multibillion dollar Commache Program? yeah, ive actually gotten to touch the remains of the prototype. Its sitting gutted, outside and exposed to the elements at the Avation Training school at Ft. Eustis Virgina.

A multi billion dollar project, exposed to the elements and torn down to the frame like a old farm tractor.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Keep our military strong but don't overspend it like a Sugar Momma on crack.

[apepi]

Keep the military strong but be stronger in diplomatic gains. Only use the military if it is forced.

[Skroe]

You know whats intresting....

REmeber the multibillion dollar Commache Program? yeah, ive actually gotten to touch the remains of the prototype. Its sitting gutted, outside and exposed to the elements at the Avation Training school at Ft. Eustis Virgina.

A multi billion dollar project, exposed to the elements and torn down to the frame like a old farm tractor.

Oh god that's stunning. I remember when Rumsfeld canceled that, and the Crusader Artillery system. Stuff like that should never rot outside. If anything else it should be put in a museam.

You may know this already but in the early 2000s, thee Air Force opened bidding on the the 2018 bomber, for a medium bomber aircraft, and Northrop based it's initial bid on the YF-23 from the Early 1990s. And where was it? Sitting outside in the raid rusting. They refurbished it into a display aircraft. The same thing happened to the Boeing X-32 JSF bid too, but that was restored as well.

Comanche though... that was one program that was properly killed. Drones made it obsolete, which was the rationale at the time too. But still, it should have been kept in good shape for technology exploitation so they don't have to reinvent the wheel whenever we need to develop a replacement for the AH-64 and want to make it stealthy.

[Theinquisition]

Oh god that's stunning. I remember when Rumsfeld canceled that, and the Crusader Artillery system. Stuff like that should never rot outside. If anything else it should be put in a museam.

You may know this already but in the early 2000s, thee Air Force opened bidding on the the 2018 bomber, for a medium bomber aircraft, and Northrop based it's initial bid on the YF-23 from the Early 1990s. And where was it? Sitting outside in the raid rusting. They refurbished it into a display aircraft. The same thing happened to the Boeing X-32 JSF bid too, but that was restored as well.

Comanche though... that was one program that was properly killed. Drones made it obsolete, which was the rationale at the time too. But still, it should have been kept in good shape for technology exploitation so they don't have to reinvent the wheel whenever we need to develop a replacement for the AH-64 and want to make it stealthy.

I was shocked as well.

I'd post pics of me with it, if i didn't think it would get me into some serious shit.

Needless to say, the body of the commanche is sitting outside exposed to the elements at Ft. Eustis stripped to the bone.

I'll see if i can pm one to ya

[SidheKnight]

Latin America needs to arm itself, for in the future the USA will find some excuse to invade us and steal our oil and water.

[Theinquisition]

Latin America needs to arm itself, for in the future the USA will find some excuse to invade us and steal our oil and water.

Sigh....

Care to tell us just how much oil we get from iraq?

Or as a % how much oil we get from the middle east overall?

Or perhaps explain how we are a net oil exporter.


eh.....we don't want your water, nobody wants to get diarreha