Taking a stand in favor of an unpopular weapon system is dangerous. It's even more dangerous when that stand opposes the perspective of President-elect Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, here is the tightrope to walk. Can one advocate for the procurement of the F-35 for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps while still being fully on board with the DOGE objective of cutting ineffective defense programs?
The F-35 Is a Multi-Role Fighter Here Today
Yet, building military capability is always a balancing exercise. As the DOGE initiative moves forward, it will undoubtedly learn this aspect of the Defense Department's budget. The F-35 is a multi-role capability that is here today. It is stealthy and performs, if not perfectly, at least better than any other fighter aircraft flying the missions for which it was designed. Recently, reports described how the F-35 variants acquired by the Israelis flew over Jordan, Iraq, and into Iran, dropping or launching precision-guided weapons to destroy Iran's air defense capability, nuclear research facilities, and other targets without being detected. That capability is remarkable. It is a bird in the hand for the US and its allies who have acquired the F-35 weapon system. Equally capable unmanned aerial vehicles, no matter how appealing from a cost perspective they might appear, are birds in the bush.
As the nation's military plans for acquiring future weapon systems remain in a cost-constrained funding environment, it is becoming increasingly an incremental loss of capability. Vivek Ramaswamy, co-chairman of DOGE, had this to say about where to apply the concept of return on investment regarding Defense Department weapons acquisition: "If you want to make real improvements to the defense … we would be investing more in drones. We would be investing more in hypersonic missiles. Rather than in a wide range of other expenditures for new kinds of fighter jets … that aren't the highest 'ROI' use of the dollar." Though few would argue that return on investment is an important criterion for evaluating program worth, having an accurate, helpful definition of "return" is essential. It wasn’t clear that Ramaswamy had one.
Ramaswamy's partner in the DOGE initiative, Elon Musk, singled out the F-35 specifically for criticism in an X posting, saying:
"The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people. This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes. And manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway. Will just get pilots killed."
Not wishing to fall prey to throwing out the baby with the bath water, both DOGE co-chairmen are going after the wrong cost-cutting target, manned fighters, at the wrong time. Drones have their place in aerial combat, and hypersonic missiles require more investment, with the US needing to catch up in the hypersonic missile race. The DOGE charge to ferret out cost savings throughout the Federal Government is essential, and the Defense Department is indeed one of the most target-rich environments. However, any drone technology capable of doing what an F-35 can do today is decades away.
Not Mission Ready Is Inaccurate
A recent Daily Caller article described an ugly picture of the fifth-generation stealth fighter. "The Pentagon's premier F-35 fighter jet program has fallen below mission-ready standards for six years, a government watchdog said on Monday [Oct. 21]," the Caller points out. Reading this would give the impression there are F-35 aircraft littering Air Force, Navy, and Marine bases as static displays. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"US Marine Corps F-35C Joint Strike Fighters flying from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln took part in recent operations against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, the Pentagon has disclosed," The War Zone reported. US Air Force F-35As have been flying combat missions in the Middle East since April 2019, based on US Central Command reporting. The Marine Corps "B" variant of the Joint Strike Fighter first flew in combat in 2018 with "the US military in 2018 airstrikes against the Taliban," Business Insider said. So, all the variants of the F-35 are combat mission-hardened.
As of January 2024, "More than 990 aircraft of all three versions [the number as of Sep. 2024 is 1060] have been delivered to air forces around the world. The operational fleet has logged over 773,000 hours of flight in about 469,000 training and operational sorties. In terms of training, almost 2,300 pilots have qualified to fly the stealth fighter jet," The National Interest reported. The F-35 has problems, but those have more to do with software upgrades for future capability than the ability to fly combat missions now.
In April, US Air Force and Navy aircraft participated in shooting down drones headed to attack Israel. All of the aircraft were manned, and not a single Iranian or Yemeni Houthi drone was shot down by another drone. Incorporating drones into the inventory as combat aircraft is essential in the US military's plans for future aerial combat. However, that capability is not here today. Regarding national security right now, there is danger in sacrificing the present for the future.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
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