Tired of watching things go to hell here in America? Well, a change is as good as a rest, they say, and instead of brooding about our declining fortunes here at home, it might be refreshing to focus for a minute on how very badly things are going overseas. Our indefatigable sources have sent along two links.
The first concerns our latest arms deal with the Saudis. If you haven’t heard, we are selling them about $90 billion worth of advanced weaponry. Why? To maintain a regional balance of power with surging Iran. (It’s almost enough to make you miss Saddam.)
This is about as icky as it gets. While the Saudis, who view us with nothing but contempt, are busy with one hand buying military technology they could never in a million years have developed for themselves, with the other they are funding the overthrow of our civilization through a worldwide campaign of Wahhabist dawa. And where did they get the money in the first place? From selling us oil.
The second link concerns our impending loss of air supremacy, a result of massive development efforts by Russia and swaggering China, and our own abandonment of F-22 Raptor production (see here, for example, and here). We read:
The U.S. Air Force’s former top intelligence officer warned a roomful of generals this week that the U.S. has lost its air power advantages and is dangerously ill-prepared to stop the gap-closing efforts of China and Russia.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, a former F-15 pilot, challenged Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ fundamental belief that U.S. air power vastly overmatches any foreign military.
…His presentation attempted to reopen more than just the F-22 fight, warning that from surface-to-air defenses to air-to-air fighters, the U.S. was letting others catch up. These future threats, he said, are now current.
It has long seemed to many observers that it was imprudent to halt manufacture of the still-unmatched F-22 in favor of the lesser F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and now it seems the consequences are becoming apparent. I’m sure things are getting warm at the DOD.
I’ll tell you what, though: I’ll bet the Russians and the Chinese haven’t got one of these.
2 Comments
While I have to agree that fighter aircraft such as the F-22’s production line being shut down is my primary concern – it’s not just fighters:
“…of the Air Force’s 5,500 aircraft, only 162 are bombers, of which only 20 are stealthy, of which only a dozen are combat ready. That is a truly puny force against any serious adversary. Worse, their average age is 33 years.
Aging planes, and the knowledge that future enemies are working feverishly to heavily defend their airspace might lead you to believe that new bombers would be a U.S. priority…”
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4775549
Took me awhile to remember where I’d seen this post, but judging from where the Soviets left off (referencing your “I’ll bet the Russians haven’t got one of these.”) They can’t be that far behind:
http://adangerousbusiness.com/2010/01/05/the-museum-of-soviet-video-games/