US Navy Admiral Questions Expensive Stealth Platforms

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US Navy Admiral Questions Expensive Stealth Platforms

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 31, 2012 @02:10PM from the doesn't-see-them-being-useful dept.

Trepidity writes "United States Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert stirred a controversy by questioning much of the thinking underlying current U.S. defense technology. He argues that stealth technology is unlikely to retain its usefulness much into the future, and so focus should switch towards standoff weapons. In addition, he criticizes the focus on expensive all-in-one platforms such as the F-35 fighter, arguing for a payload-centric, flexible approach he compares to trucks rather than luxury cars."

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Cut military spending. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 14:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

We spend entirely too much money on our military. We are so far ahead of the next country in terms of dollars spent it's not even close. We keep bases all around the world, protecting everybody, so that they don't have to spend their own money on a military and instead can spend it domestically. It needs to end. It's no longer 1955.
1. Re:Cut military spending. by Darkness404 · 2012-07-31 14:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Exactly. We need diplomacy, not bombs. We need to stop trying to be the world's "policeman", stop propping up dictators, stop propping up the rebels to take down the dictators we earlier propped up, and slash military spending. Consider Switzerland, for example.
  
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  Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
2. Re:Cut military spending. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 14:27 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Awkward moment when even the military is calling out excessive military spending
3. Re:Cut military spending. by 0123456 · 2012-07-31 14:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Many of those countries 'use you as a proxy army' because the US government didn't want those countries to be military competitors post-WW2. While that may have been a sensible policy, you can hardly blame them for something the US government itself encouraged.
4. Re:Cut military spending. by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-07-31 19:39 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Really? What has diplomacy EVER solved?
  Not getting nuked during Cold War was a fairly nice achievement, if you ask me.
5. Re:Cut military spending. by AmiMoJo · 2012-07-31 21:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  his is stupid beyond words. We HAVE diplomacy, and always try diplomacy first, Democrat or Republican in office.
  One of the main criticisms of the Iraq invasion is that you didn't give weapons inspectors time to do their work (and surprise surprise it turned out their failure to find any weapons was because there were not any), and did not exhaust diplomatic options. Not only did you fail to properly negotiate with Iraq, you failed to properly negotiate with the UN and started the war on dubious legal ground.
  
  Further, this kind of thinking completely ignores the fact that the US has intractable enemies that won't be swayed from their national interests by any amount of diplomacy.
  
  We used to think that about the IRA, but when we finally stopped fighting them and actually sat down and worked it out the situation was resolved. Afghanistan looks like it will be the same, with peace ultimately depending on a negotiated resolution with the Taliban.
  
  Russia is always going to see the US as an adversary. China is always going to see the US as an adversary.
  If the US were not trying to Team America World Police I think you would find their attitudes towards you quickly soften. Saying "never" is almost stupid beyond words when you look at how many countries have reconciled. How about Britain and the US? Or Japan and South Korea? France and Germany?
  
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  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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And by 'controversy', I think they mean ... by pipedwho · 2012-07-31 14:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

'interfere with the military industrial complex gravy train'.
Re:The scale is totally different nowadays.... by ColdWetDog · 2012-07-31 15:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

During WWII, they cranked planes out by the 1,000's if not 10's of 1,000's. Nowadays, the number of high performance jets is measured in the hundreds. If there were to be a conflict, due to the complexity of today's aircraft, there is no way to crank out new aircraft by the 1,000's or hundreds or even tens. There may certainly be a need for a much simpler aircraft that can be easily mass produced in significant quantities.
Those are called drones (and cruise missiles which really are a form of drone). The idea is that meatbags don't get to see the action up close. That's for the video gear.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Next 17 countries combined. by nedlohs · 2012-07-31 15:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

What sort of moron wants a fair fight if they can have an advantage?
Re:NObama 2012 by Black+Parrot · 2012-07-31 16:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

Will Hussein listen to his OWN generals? Hell no.
What *actually* happens, as you would know if you've been following the current case of the M-1 and a hundred like it before, is that the Pentagon decides that they don't want to spend their money on something that they don't think will help them accomplish their mission, and the the defense contractors who will lose funding run screaming to their congresscritter, who the goes screaming to the public that the {commies,terrorists,aliens} will win if the Pentagon is not allowed to spend all those billions of dollars in their district, so Congress puts in the defense budget even though the Pentagon doesn't want it.
'Cause we got to keep that pork flowing.

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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade