It seems like every day there’s a new headline about China competing with the United States.
Earlier this month, for example, the Wall Street Journal featured an article titled, “China Seeks a Quantum Leap in Computing.” If Beijing succeeds in passing the U.S. in quantum tech, it might wipe out America’s decades-long military advantage.
The Biden administration is reacting to this threat. This month it “announced its most aggressive measures to date aimed at limiting China’s access to advanced computer chips and chip-making equipment, saying that the technology is supporting China’s military modernization and even its development of weapons of mass destruction,” as the Washington Post reported.
In a white paper, the Brookings Institution wrote that “it remains to be seen if the United States will be able to maintain its dominance in the wider technology race. At stake is whether the United States and its allies can sustain the technological edge underlying American foreign policy and strategy.”
As China tried to race past us, one thing should be clear: If the American military uses Chinese parts, it would make our military vulnerable to sabotage.
Just this year, the Pentagon had to stop taking deliveries of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter after it learned that an alloy used in making magnets used in the jets’ turbomachine pumps come from China. The military tried to play down the importance of the revelation. “We have confirmed that the magnet does not transmit information or harm the integrity of the aircraft and there are no performance, quality, safety or security risks associated with this issue and flight operations for the F-35 in-service fleet will continue as normal,” spokesperson Russell Goemaere told Politico newspaper.
But apparently, contractor Lockheed Martin can’t make its signature weapon without using Chinese parts.
This is just the latest problem with the F-35. It has been over budget and behind schedule for two decades, and by now it is too late to save the plane. As the website Sandboxx pointed out, “14 years after the F-35 first took to the sky, it has still not been authorized to move into full-rate production thanks to a litany of bugs and issues that have plagued the aircraft program since its inception.”
“What does the F-35 give us? And is there a way to cut our losses?” asked the head of the House Armed Services Committee last year. “Is there a way to not keep spending that much money for such a low capability because, as you know, the sustainment costs are brutal,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., added.
Of course, the best way to avoid more problems with the F-35 is to stop buying F-35s. The Air Force is already developing a next-generation fighter that will surpass the F-35 in every way imaginable. In fact, it is already in the air. “We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it,” Will Roper told Defense News two years ago. “We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before.”
The “Air Force has already begun purchasing a slew of new old fighters in the 4th generation F-15EX, which will replace aging F-15 Eagles in the branch’s inventory,” Sandboxx adds. “Some have suggested doing something similar with the F-16; purchasing updated iterations of the famed fighter to fill roles that don’t require a stealth aircraft.”
Let’s not forget the F-35 program is already a big issue for conservatives because of the high cost. Dan Grazier wrote in The Hill in April of 2021 that over the life of this program, it is going to cost “$1.7 trillion dollars” and “as a point of reference, the American Rescue Plan Act, designed to draw the entire U.S. economy out of the COVID-19 slump carried a price tag of $1.9 trillion.” This is a massive outlay for one tool of the defense industry that does not work all that well.
It has become the “Too Big to Fail” program of the Pentagon and the taxpayers are on the hook for the program no matter how it turns out.
Amina Zeghar Campbell is an author and international policy expert. She earned a Masters of Public Health from the Milken Institute School of Public Health, a Masters in Teaching from the University of Southern California, and a Masters of Public Policy from Pepperdine University.