China's Self-Described Quantum Leap In Military Power

China’s Defense Minister has offered some interesting observations, especially in light of Secretary Gates' speech to the Air Force Association earlier this month.

Secretary Gates said we should be most concerned about China's ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options.

This could be done by cyber and ASAT investments, anti-air and anti-ship weapons, and ballistic missiles.

Basically, China is doing or has already done much of this. It’s a gigantic anti-access strategy to keep us from getting in close enough to fight effectively.

Will The F-22 Destroy The USAF?

R. Jeffrey Smith's WaPo article has so much that should be discussed. Here are a few things that come to mind:

• F-22 maintenance costs per flying hour are about 150% of the F-15. Ok, but is the F-22 twice again as good? That is, if we only need half as many F-22s, that would make it a bargain, right?


• Most importantly, will the plane's massive cost preempt most other USAF modernization, driving the Air Force towards long-term obsolescence? Will this create what former Pentagon tester Thomas Christie characterises as "unilateral disarmament"?


• The prime, Lockheed, farmed out over 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more than 40 states. Everyone can feed at the F-22 trough and cancellation becomes much more difficult.


• Former OSD Comptroller John Hamre says the F-22 program was approved despite the fact it was underfunded. Telling Congress what the real costs were would have been politically unpalatable.


• One unnamed DoD official says its a disgrace the F-22 can only fly 1.7 hours on average before it has a critical failure. I'm thinking that official is one of the folks who supports capping the program at 187 planes.

In many ways the F-22 is emblematic of almost all our space systems. It has the characteristics of an exquisite system that make it difficult to design, engineer, build, and employ.