[LinuxFreedom]

It is totally inhuman and not acceptable to spend such an enormous amount of money for these primitive war technologies.

We have many people on this planet still suffering from problems that could be solved with a fraction of that money.

Please do not support these destructive projects with your work. You can make a change!

From my own experience I can tell you that you will have a much better life avoiding to work for these neanderthal-minded war prophets.

Many people working in war industries are getting very, very ill, physically and psychically, because it is against your human desire for harmony to make yourself part of a giant killing machine.

Love and Peace!

[crypto5]

It is 1.5 trillions over 80 years of lifetime of F-35, including research, production and maintenance of around 3k jets. 18 billions per year is not big price for backbone of national security.

[lostlogin]

If one of the first outing (disputed according to the article) is bombing in the Middle East, is this really giving security. Seems more like continuing a failed strategy that ensures a significant population wishes harm on the US and its allies.

[crypto5]

Middle East is messy, and I am not going to judge this.. I am just saying that 1.5 trillions over 80 years is not large amount of money and would not solve any of global problems.

[valuearb]

The problem is it's closer to $100B a year the first decade, acquisition costs are are going to be the big part of it and hey are frontloaded. $800-$900 Billion over a decade is a stupendous amount of money.

Secondly, how can an un-necessary plane be a "backbone"? The nuclear triad is our backbone. The F-22 is more capable than the F-35 in most measures. The F-35 can't dogfight, can't ground support, and is too expensive to be a good fighter bomber.

The reality is it's going to cost less than $1.5T, because it's going to get canceled after three or four hundred planes, and our cost per unit is going to be extraordinary.

[crypto5]

> The nuclear triad is our backbone.

Nuclear triad is defense against 3 countries in the world who can realistically hit USA (Russia, China, somebody else). F-35 will project power to the rest 193 countries and hostile organizations. There is a little way nuclear weapon could help USA to fight ISIS or Al Kaida. F-22 is very niche product. Less than 200 jets is too little to support USA's global ambitions, and they can't be air-carrier stationed, and project power across the globe. It is not clear if dogfight is the thing in the modern world. Also F-35 may be good for ground support, future will show.

[valuearb]

Did you just say we need a $1.5 trillion dollar fighter to fight goat herders? ISIS doesn't have an air force.

We literally have zero need to protect power across the globe. Our presence in the middle east is extremely costly and counterproductive to our security. And without the F-35 we project power great with a navy bigger than the entire rest of world combined. We have 12 carriers, mostly 100k tons, and Russia/China combined have two 50,000 ton carriers.

And the F-35 is guaranteed to be terrible at close air support. No F-35 pilot is going to slowly loiter their supersonic within visual range of their targets and without doing that they can't see exactly what they are shooting. Their gun only has 4 seconds of ammunition, the A-10 can fire much more powerful rounds for nearly 30 seconds. The F-35s gun won't even be operational for another 2-3 years.

If we need to fire miesiles from stand off distances drones already do it much cheaper. The F-35 is like the he german navy trying to load up on battleships instead of carriers before WW2, an expensive and easily avoided mistake.

[crypto5]

> Did you just say we need a $1.5 trillion dollar fighter to fight goat herders? ISIS doesn't have an air force.

ISIS potentially can have/get manpads, and MANPADS can have big advancements in foreseeable future. Also US can face contested environment in operations similar to Kosovo war, operations in Libya, Iraq, Panama, where local army had more advanced SAMs in possession with needs to suppress them.

> We literally have zero need to protect power across the globe. Our presence in the middle east is extremely costly and counterproductive to our security.

This is question of policy, and is a mess for me. I am not going to speculate about this.

> And the F-35 is guaranteed to be terrible at close air support. No F-35 pilot is going to slowly loiter their supersonic within visual range of their targets and without doing that they can't see exactly what they are shooting.

The main weapon for ground support planned to be SDB2. Also optics/targeting system is presumably much more advanced on F-35 comparing to A-10.

[valuearb]

Let ISIS fire manpads at far cheaper drones.

The SDB2 costs quarter million a pop, and the F-35 is still 5 years away from being able to field one. If used in standoff mode the F-35 is a poor choice, not only can drones deliver the SBD2, B1 can carry more than 20x more of them and loiter far longer. If used in the other modes the A-10 could be adapted to carry twice as many, deliver them just as effectively and with its huge big gun and ability to safely loiter close offers a much better follow up punch.

[BJBBB]

Suppose we stop throwing trillions at war machinery. Am not certain that any particular technology, or even social expenditures, would ever enable "love and peace".

Probably just 10% of the annual DoD budget bent towards education of girls and women and for free global birth control would stop our insane population growth. Slow growth is the only hope for the planet. Do not see how not funding weapons without the global education of females will fix anything. The root cause is not too many weapons systems, it is too many people.

[LinuxFreedom]

You seem to be very confused and your cynical words offer an insight into a state of mind I would call 'disturbed' at least.

It might be interesting for you to learn that the biggest problems we have today on this planet are produced by countries that are not "over-populated".

Also it seems logical that people believing in that "too-many-people"-ideology (that is actively spread by many military neanderthalers btw) should use their freedom to give a good example of how to solve that problem by killing themselves, not others.