In Retrospect

In Retrospect: The nearly set-in-stone decision to cap F-22 production at 187 aircraft “will leave the United States with, at best, a high-risk F-22 force” and jeopardize the ability of the US military to attain rapid air dominance in future conflict, argues Barry Watts, senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. In a new CSBA backgrounder, The F-22 Program in Retrospect, issued Tuesday, Watts writes that the capped F-22 force “may not be enough through mid-century,” given the proliferation of sophisticated Russian air defenses and modern Russian and Chinese combat aircraft and coupled with “inherent uncertainties of the future.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ “big bet” of accepting this risk with the F-22 force by banking on the F-35 is “surely also questionable” without “solid evidence that the F-35 would not ... encounter major delays, costs increases, or related developmental problems,” Watts writes.

9/9/2009

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.