Romney wants to buy more F-22s

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Saturday he would buy more F-22 Raptors as part of his plan to reverse many of the defense cuts planned by the Obama administration.

Romney told a Virginia Beach, Va., television station he would not include the military in the spending cuts he is proposing to cut down the U.S. deficit.

“Rather than completing nine ships per year, I’d move that up to 15. I’d also add F-22s to our Air Force fleet. And I’d add about 100,000 active duty personnel to our military team,” Romney said in the interview. “I think the idea of shrinking our military to try and get closer to balancing our budget is the wrong place to look.”

He’s repeated his plan to increase ship building from nine to 15 ships per year and add 100,000 active duty troops to the military’s end strength. However, this is the first time he’s mentioned any plans to buy more F-22s.

F-22 production was famously ended by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates after the Air Force had fought for the U.S. to buy more fifth generation fighter jets. Air Force leaders wanted to buy 243 F-22s, Gates halted production at 187. Originally, the Air Force wanted to buy more than 750 Raptors.

The last U.S. F-22 rolled off the production line in 2011. The Raptor program has since come under scrutiny after a string of pilots have suffered hypoxia-like symptoms and struggled to breathe in flight. Air Force officials claim to have found the cause, but it has repeatedly grounded the F-22 fleet the past two years and continue to impose flight restrictions.

Air Force leaders pushed to build more F-22s to add to the fleet because they warned a fleet of 187 would be insufficient to defeat an enemy with a top line air force like China. Former Air Force Chief of Staffs Gen. Norton Schwartz and Gen. Michael “Buzz” Moseley argued the costs of re-opening the production line would be too costly to build up the fleet if Congress changed its mind and wanted more F-22s.

If Romney wins and follows through on his plan to buy more F-22s, it would cost at least $900 million to reopen the F-22 production line, according to Loren Thompson, a consultant for Lockheed Martin and other defense companies.

In 2010, Japan discussed buying 40 F-22s from Lockheed Martin, builder of the F-22. Lockheed officials then told Japanese leaders it would cost $900 million to re-open the production line. Thompson said the cost would surely increase when considering two years have passed and the production line was still “semi-warm.”

The cost to reopen the production line would come in addition to the per aircraft price tag to manufacture each jet. That per aircraft cost is harder to decipher. When factoring in development and manufacturing, the price tag per jet totaled the U.S. more than $370 million. However, the flyaway cost — the cost of manufacturing one jet — equaled $137 million per jet.

Re-opening the production line in Marietta, Ga., would take at least two years, Thompson said. Lockheed would be slowed by re-establishing supplier networks and re-training employees.

“In a rush, you could do it in about two years assuming all the other workers weren’t on other projects like F-35,” Thompson said.

He didn’t expect the problems with the F-22’s oxygen system to hold a Romney administration back from following through on buying more F-22 plans.

“It wouldn’t be a problem, Thompson said. “If there are still issues with the oxgen system they could just switch over to another supplier like Cobham.”

There are also questions about whether further F-22 buys would affect the acquisition schedule for the F-35. The Defense Department plans to buy 2,443 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

That's a nice essay.

A. I did not say that we aren't in an economic war with China. I did say that the Chinese constitute an enormous strategic threat. China's economic policies are one part of the total strategic threat, but one that I chose not to address on a thread about military hardware. That said, it is suspicious that you absolutely preclude the possibility of military conflict with China. Our Pacific allies have no such illusions.

B. The proper use of the nuclear arsenal is deterrence not combat. I find it suspicious that you consider the 1980s-era technology of the F22 to be hopelessly outdated and yet believe that our 1980s-era nuclear arsenal retains full deterrent value. It is a hollow force, and increasingly vulnerable. Over half of our warheads (and all or our multiple-warhead missiles) are concentrated in 14 1980s-era submarines. Much of this force could be neutralized before launch by conventional and asymmetrical means. It's not deterring China or Russia much now, and a decade from now it won't deter them at all.

C. Finally, what are you suggesting? Disbelieve in the military threat and do what? Cue the Ron Paul talking points?

That said, it is suspicious that you absolutely preclude the possibility of military conflict with China. Our Pacific allies have no such illusions.

With the exception of Taiwan, our allies are much more concerned with North Korea. Even with Taiwan, everybody knows that an invasion of Taiwan would be far too costly for China, militarily, diplomatically, and economically, and under the Chinese way of thinking, it's simply not worth the risk. China is a country that invaded a fully militarized Vietnam to make a point and then quickly pulled out rather than risk heavy losses or getting dragged into a war or proxy war with the Soviets. China wasn't willing to take on the Soviets over Vietnam, and they aren't willing to take on the US over Taiwan or South Korea or Japan, even before they began intertwining their economy with our economy.

The reason why it's not worth the risk, and the reason why I preclude the possibility of military conflict with China is that China has invested far too heavily economically in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and yes, even Taiwan, albeit indirectly.

Chinese investments in the US are not the actions of a country looking to go to war with us, but if China wants to hurt us, they can do so, right now. Here in September of 2012.

They could devastate us without firing one single missile or launching one single fighter.

They don't need their stealth fighters. They don't need nukes and ICBMs. They don't need their crappy Russian aircraft carrier or their cruise ships turned troop transports. They could up and try and pull out all of those investments they've made in the US and in US companies over the past 20 years out. They could cancel all of the partnerships that Chinese companies have forged with US companies. They could stop shipping goods to us.

That would devastate our economy. People just think our economy is bad now. We would look back fondly upon 20% unemployment. 10% unemployment, our grandkids would think we were just fibbing them.

As for 1980s nuclear weapons and 1980s fighters, the Chinese can easily work on countering our fighters, and they have been. Nukes though, as you say, are a deterrence, and the Chinese cannot counter them, because nobody wants to risk a single nuke getting through.

What I am suggesting is that it's kind of useless for us to spend the large amount of money trying to get the F-22s back in production, when if this is about aerial superiority, we should be looking at the next generation of Chinese and Russian fighters and not the Russian fighters that we originally designed the F-22 to handle.

But that's assuming that China wants a war with the US. They don't. Evey billion they sink into the US economy is yet another billion reasons why they won't go to war with us.

I think Romney is just playing politics as well.

I suspected this was all about how China really isn't a threat. "China's the greatest power the world has ever known and they cannot be stopped. We should make nice with them so that they will still let us play ball when they own the field."

I still suspect it was Romnney playing election year politics.

I don't think Romney was trying to play down the threat of China, because anybody who thinks that China doesn't mean to replace us as the predominant power in the world is a fool, living in a dream world.

Like I said, right now, China makes the cheap crap you buy in Wal-Mart or our cheap electronics. What happens in 10 or 20 years (or less), when they make the expensive stuff that Boeing or GE makes, and they win contracts with other countries? It's bad enough we've lost our manufacturing base for many cheaper things. Start putting aerospace/defense companies out of business or nearly out of business, or forcing the taxpayers to prop them up even more than we normally do, and you're going to see some real problems in this country.

The really sad thing, and you or somebody else mentioned this, but we are cooperating with them! There was a thread here last year that discussed a deal that Boeing had struck with a Chinese aerospace company. Even as Boeing was partnering with them, the Boeing CEO was saying that within 20 years, Boeing's biggest competitor would most likely be a Chinese company! The computer industry - same thing 10-20 years ago.

Top it all off with a White House and Congress that don't want to really play tough with China when it comes to international trade, even while China protests its companies, and things are going to get really bad.

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