Perhaps a bit off-topic for this blog, but this same dynamic was the impetus behind the faster/better/cheaper thrust at NASA. Planetary missions were becoming a once a decade event due to cost (mission costs escalated, since, for an individual planetary target, it was going to be a long time until the next mission to that target, so capabilities and requirements were added to make the most of the mission, and reliability requirements were very high for the same reason, all this contributed to even higher costs, which meant it would be even longer until the next mission...)

Not off topic at all, Sam. Space and NASA are areas we've covered quite a bit, as our Space Topic Archive shows...

People assume that programs like the Eurofighter and F-22 are evidence that things aren't working properly.

I suspect the opposite is true: These programs are extremely efficient mechanisms for transferring wealth from taxpayers to military contractors and the permanent Pentagon and Eurodefense bureaucracies. They work great.

The necessary politicians were bought long ago to ensure that large sums of money were diverted from inexpensive projects incapable of sustaining large bureaucracies towards huge boondoggles, which are.

(I believe the d-n-i guys theories roughly correspond to this, with a bit less cynicism.)

One of the guys who dedicated his life (unsuccessfully) to fighting this BS is Chuck Spinney (also referenced by the d-n-i guys).

He discusses the fundamental logic of the Military Industrial Congressional (!) Complex here:

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_spinney.html

A must read for anyone interested in goverment budget bloat.

This is, incidentally, the primary reason for my opposition to GWII -- the epic scale of the accountability breakdown in the chosen instrument. If we want to use the Pentagon system to run any more interventions, we desperately need to fix its' system of accoutability, starting with the accounting. Since it's in the interests of everyone involved for reform efforts to fail, I have no idea how this could be done.

One of the largest problems with the Eurofighter program is that, like the bulk of the EU's airforces, it was designed to be a fighter/interceptor plane. The end of the Cold War & the Soviet threat was one of the (many) reasons why the programme focus changed towards a multi-role aircraft, as the EU realised that it needed attack planes that could hit targets on the ground far more than it needed a fighter plane.

The EU's unbalanced air forces is also one of the main reasons that the US has to shoulder so much of the burden in operations like Kosovo. Until the third tranche of ground-attack Eurofighters does arrive, the EU will remain reliant on the US in this area. If the third tranche never arrives, as the article suggests might happen, then the US should expect to remain the only power capable of carrying out an effective bombing campaign for many years to come.

To address the other half of the equation:

Given the last decade or so of West-versus-other conflicts and potential conflicts, how would an well-under-budget, well-ahead-of-schedule F-22 or Eurofighter have influenced the outcome?

In, say, Gulf War I, Bosnia, No-fly-zones, Haiti, Rwanda, Serbia, Kosovo, Liberia, Zaire/Congo, Iraq, Cote d'Ivoire, Haiti again.

Right tool for the job?

Now, if the Europeans were to build a dedicated ground support plane, like the (much less expensive) A-10, the problem could be solved quickly and cheaply. They could even base it on the SU-25. But that isn't likely to happen, for all the reasons noted above.

The joke is that once you apply theories like "public choice economics" as popularized by my neocon colleagues, it also means you also have to believe in the military-industrial complex. But that's Ok.

T.J., now you grok how conservatives feel about the liberal welfare industry. It's actually not intentially about funnelling money to outside groups, and there really aren't many outright rip-offs (again, welfare state parallel here), but a broken pattern of incentives force all parties toward outcomes that are not efficient or effective. They deliver most of what they're tasked with, but not enough of what's needed. It's not a conspiracy, but it IS a problem. See the difference?

Much of the procurement costs have to do with the poltical backing behind the projects. Generals who were tank commanders want more, better tanks. The same with Fighter jocks that rise in rank. The A-10 is a poor example because it gets caught in lots of interservice rivalry since the Army loves it, but the Air Force doesn't see a need for a subsonic aircraft.

The Eurofighter also had political pressure to compete with the F-22, since the US will eventually sell the Raptor to its close allies much like it did with the F-15. In order to retain clients, the Eurofighter specs had to go up to compete with the Raptors performance. For example they had to add an expensive active stealth system.

>>T.J., now you grok how conservatives feel about the liberal welfare industry. It's actually not intentially about funnelling money to outside groups, and there really aren't many outright rip-offs (again, welfare state parallel here), but a broken pattern of incentives force all parties toward outcomes that are not efficient or effective. They deliver most of what they're tasked with, but not enough of what's needed. It's not a conspiracy, but it IS a problem. See the difference?

Precisely. We are in total agreement. "Conspiracy" is certainly the wrong word here. It's institutional logic.

Imagine a system of bureacracies (USG, GM, GE, etc.) Each bureaucracy in the system has systems and procedures (some written, most not) which govern its behavior. These systems and procedures mutate over time. Those bureaucracies whose procedures enhance their access to system resources will grow faster and eventually dominate the system.

It's a simple matter of selection pressure. Those bureaucracies which can systematically avoid oversight, expel whistleblowers, co-opt external sources of accountability, etc. will grow and grow, eventually overwhelming responsible systems.

This process by no means has to be conscious. I bet 95% of the people working on the B-2 program are absolutely convinced that the B-2 is vital for national security. That's because anyone whose rational mind allowed them to think otherwise has been weeded out of the program long ago. If they hadn't been, the B-2 program would have lost it's funding to a more corrupt program.

This effect should go all the way to the top. The selection pressures on the leadership are much stronger than those on the peons. We would therefore expect the leadership to be the most heavily indoctrinated and the most incapable in thinking in ways that might interfere with the growth of the bureaucracy they "control."

The growth of unaccountable bureaucracies within a system is limited by the total resources of the system. Hence corruption that interferes with the ability of the system to gather resources is quite self-limiting. Cancer kills the patient and then the cancer, while large benign tumors can stick around for a long time. Corrupt corporate bureaucracies can leech away all the profits from the hapless investors by subverting upper management, but if they try and screw the customers, market accountability will ruin the corporation (thereby ending the corruption.)

The growth of government bureaucracies is limited only by the ability of the overall government to tax citizens, borrow money (really the same), and print money (also the same). Hence we should expect governmental bureaucratic growth to continue until the underlying economy on which the bureaucracies feed is totally ruined.

It's nice to see some of John Boyd's thinking in more mainstream places.

Wow, T.J., that's a very insightful analysis, even if depressing.

I've gradually developed the view that the power of natural selection in human affairs is greatly underappreciated. You give one example, that of bureaucratic growth, but the same general principles can also be applied to such diverse areas as technological advancement, business organization, and religious doctrine.

Regarding the destructive bureaucracies we're talking about, one could at least imagine reducing their potential corruptive effects by developing other self-perpetuating systems that exert negative selection pressures on the original corrupt systems. Of course, then you may get a new set of problems; to some degree, you have to believe in the usefulness of progressive refinement. I'm sure biological systems have had to deal with similar issues many times.

In any case, we should be pushing social scientists to start thinking in such evolutionary terms.

Oscar, we've been fans of John Boyd for a looong time here. Run a search on "John Boyd" in our engine and you'll see what I mean.

T.J., there are countervailing pressures in any bureaucratic system, but in general your depressing conclusion neatly capture how neocons and libertarians righties feel feel about government, deep down. The Pentagon is not immune to this dynamic.

As for the contractors, they do their best to provide what's in the yeards-long specifications. They do private development on occasion, but the system doesn't take it well. Northrop's poor experience with the F-20 fighter, Cadillac-Gage's 22-ton "Stingray" light tank, et. al. are cautionary tales. Again, as you point out, it's the result of a larger system.

In the military, countervailing pressure usually comes from the merciless verdict of war... and some programs thought to be total duds (M-2 Bradley, and recently the B-2) have ended up being reassessed more positively. Other "can't miss" ideas have sometimes fared less well.

The question is how to shorten, improve or even pre-empt that feedback loop. Some of that is going on, and exercises like "Urban Warror" got some surprising result (big winner? those walkie-talkies you can buy for your family). We've also covered Sgt. Romero's impact on Army equipment post-Afghanistan.

On the macro-level, however, it seems the procurement spiral is very much with us.

What to do about it is a question that should be preoccupying both Democrats and Republicans - but this would require the Democrats to rebuild a solid cadre with a clue about defense (or care much beyond making sure the issue doesn't give them bad optics), and it would require the Republicans to potentially bite some of the hands in their constituency.

My prediction? Like many serious debates these days, it will end up being an intramural discussion on the right. But I hope I'm wrong.

Interesting. My understanding is that the A-10 has largely been functionally replaced by the AC 130. Is that a fair statement?

I thought I would mention, briefly, the JSF/F-35 program, which was developed as a tonic to the F-22/Eurofighter problem. (Credentials: Worked in the JSF Program Office 1999-2001 and wrote my Master's thesis on defense industry industrialization.)

The JSF international program was designed to gain both international money and design input as early as possible in the design process. This prevents costly engineering change proposals late in design or even production while at the same time allowing foreign militaries to input their funds early in the process, lowering the U.S. tax burden and preventing foreign militaries from paying costly per-aircraft development costs.

I encourage you to take a look at www.jsf.mil and see what is being done at the very frontier of defense program foreign integration. For the first time in U.S. history, European militaries are contributing not only monetarily but also with their engineering expertise.

asdf, afraid it's not so.

The A-10 can't do the huge AC-130 gunship's infantry support job of flying around the battlefield and pouring massive amounts of gunfire into a small area (much more than the A-10 can manage, incl. a 105mm howitzer!). An A-10 could do something like the Spectre's job, but much more poorly in all categories.

Nor can the "Spectre" do the A-10's close support job with guns and missiles in the face of heavy air defense, against both infantry and armored units. An AC-130 simply couldn't survive in that environment, and wouldn't be much help against the tanks.

Bottom line: they are different planes for different missions.

I'm not sure the word "corrupt" as it's appeared in this discussion is the right one.

At Enron or Parmalat, we can imagine corrupt executives doing things they know or ought to know are fraudulent, illegal, or immoral. Setting up straw-man subsidiaries, mischaracterizing investment as income, engaging in conflict-of-interest schemes.

By contrast, participants in this Military-Industrial-Congressional complex aren't (necessarily) behaving contrary to the ethical norms of their professions. To the contrary, the problem is that non-corrupt adherence to those norms doesn't change the system's characteristics and solve the problem. The "problem" as seen from the citizen's point of view, that is; as TJ Madison pointed out, some of the other involved parties will ask, "what problem?"

Not to say the DoD can't do things better but here goes some counter arguments.

Multiple missions does increase complexity but so does increasing performance. And try to merge different design constraints, such as stealth and performance, can cause costs to skyrocket. High maneuverability and stealth do not mix well. And a lot of missions do complement each other or don't cost that much to add. In the design phase, it doesn't cost all that much to add the capability to carry external stores to a fighter design and to add the capability for the electronics doesn't add that much either. It may even increase the capability of the fighter.

Boeing took seven years (I think) to design and build the 777. It took the DoD about 12-15 (I'm not sure when the contract was awarded) to build the B-2. You can't tell me the B-2 wasn't twice as hard to design and build as the 777.

The most effective close air support aircraft in Afghanistan wasn't the A-10. It was the B-1 or the B-52. Precision guided weapons allowed them to strike targets that only fighter-bombers or CAS aircraft could hit before. And it is a good thing the A-10 can take a hit, cause it can't avoid very many. Wouldn't it be better not to be hit at all. Who knows maybe there is a better way.

And don't list to Col. Ricionni from POGO. He may have been in the Air Force, but he doesn't know anything about stealth or aircraft performance. When he can't argue with a particular point, he changes the definition. Personally, I'm not sure he was a pilot either.

Engineers have a saying about "Faster, better, cheaper". Choose two because you can't do all three. I think NASA proved this pretty well.

I have two problems with Chuck Spinneys interview. First of all while he describe how the DoD works with the contractors and Congress pretty well he doesn't mention this how all agencies work with contractors and Congress. In fact the DoD is doing better than some (How is that for poor performing) My other complaint is at the end of the interview when he starts talking about how the military should be equipped. From what I can tell, he hasn't the foggiest idea of how the procurement system works. Any of it. Or of how long it takes.

>>I'm not sure the word "corrupt" as it's appeared in this discussion is the right one.

Some ad-hoc definitions:

I'm defining "corrupt" to the extent that an bureaucracy is acting at odds with efficiently completing its assigned objectives. Nazi death camps had very low corruption. :-(

I define "responsible agents" to be those individuals or groups who attempt to force bureaucracies to become less corrupt. When the responsible agents succeed the bureaucracy is said to be "held accountable" to them.

"Dictatorial accountability" is when responsible leaders hold the bureaucracy accountable. "Internal accountability" is when well-meaning workers within the bureaucracy keep things on track. "External accountability" is when another bureaucracy has this one by the balls and can force it to behave. "Market accountability" is when the bureaucracy has to convince other individuals to voluntarily give it resources to continue operating.

All forms of accountability except for market accountability are very vulnerable to perverse selection pressure. Leaders and manpower are selected for their tendencies to put bureaucratic growth above all other considerations -- divisions within a bureaucracy which don't operate this way lose out to those that do. Outside organizations are vulnerable to subversion: Arthur Andersen and the Military Industrial Congressional Congress are prime examples.

Good News/Bad News:

Often corruption is at odds with system growth. Organizations that are smaller than the optimum size for their task will tend to have low corruption for this very reason. The real trouble comes when an organization reaches the point of diminishing economies of scale. At this point responsible agents will try and keep the system from growing. Now corruption becomes very strongly selected for.

Mutations in a bureaucracy that enhance secrecy and decrease transparency greatly increase the odds of corruption. Responsible agents have to know what is going on in the bureaucracy order to be able to control it. The larger the bureaucracy, the more energy the responsible agents must spend on data collection/analysis. This is why once a bureaucracy starts growing out of control it becomes progressively more difficult to get it back under control.

(This is why organizations with high secrecy like the NSA and CIA are so dangerous. The costs of figuring out what these organizations are doing so that they can be kept on track are essentially infinite. We should therefore assume that corruption of these organizations approaches total.)

I propose that once a bureaucracy reaches a critical size it becomes essentially impossible for responsible agents to understand the bureaucracy sufficiently well to solve problems with it -- including how to check its growth.

Ex: The CATO institute, who of all the think tanks is most concerned with government growth, cannot even begin to keep up with the rate at which new regulations are added to the Federal Register. If they tried to read every new regulation, that's all they would ever do.

Personally, I'm quite certain that the USG will become progressively less accountable to the population it nominally services as time goes on. It's not worth John Q's time to do the information processing needed to figure out what's going on. It's also very easy for John Q. Public to be bought off. And if efforts to cotatedntain the national debt were such an abject failure during the boom years, things will be much worse during a bust cycle, when the population will demand that the government support them in the lifestyle they've become accustomed to.

My advice: we need to move as much of the economy, science, and culture as we personally control out of the (very large) blast radius of the USG bureaucracy before it implodes. More on this later.

>>T.J., there are countervailing pressures in any bureaucratic system, but in general your depressing conclusion neatly capture how neocons and libertarians righties feel feel about government, deep down. The Pentagon is not immune to this dynamic.

Neocons don't think this way. Observe that they have committed an organization with very poor accountability (the Pentagon system) to a series of missions far away, where accountability can degrade even further.

As long as the Pentagon system is only operating in the US, they remain subject to "democratic accountablity." By this I mean that if the Pentagon system does something really awful locally, (shooting US civilians at random, etc.) the population will rise up and overthrow them, with ballots if possible, with bullets if necessary. As a result, such abuses are rare except when they can be easily covered up and hidden from public view.

Once deployed in Iraq, Afganistan, etc. this accountability greatly diminishes. Iraqis, etc. don't vote in US elections. Their only options in the event of USG abuses are "revolutionary accountability" and the hope that they can appeal to the US citizenry's ethics through winning a propaganda campaign.

We should expect that overseas interventions, what ever the intent of the orignators, would evolve into a mechanism whereby tax dollars are "reflected" off of Iraq, Afganistan, etc. back to the military contractors serviced by the Pentagon system. Note that institutional logic here favors a long, drawn out campaign. A quick victory puts an end to the flow of resources into the bureaucracies formed to administer the occupation -- this will be strongly resisted.

This is why we still have military bases in Germany, for instance.

>>Boeing took seven years (I think) to design and build the 777. It took the DoD about 12-15 (I'm not sure when the contract was awarded) to build the B-2. You can't tell me the B-2 wasn't twice as hard to design and build as the 777.

Boeing is a massively bloated system of bureacracies, much like the government. Here the primary victims are the shareholders. The longer 777 development takes, the longer the development team can milk the overall system for resources. Once development has dragged on long enough, "sunk cost" arguments can be used to drag out development even longer without the program being cancelled. This form of extortion works because management isn't willing to admit that a program which has used up so much money was a bad idea. So the program continues.

>>Engineers have a saying about "Faster, better, cheaper". Choose two because you can't do all three. I think NASA proved this pretty well.

NASA proved that NASA could not do all three. If NASA succeeded in doing all three, NASA's budget would decrease, because responsible Congressmen would conclude that NASA could do more work with less money. This could not be allowed. The failure of the "faster, better, cheaper"
missions means that more resources can be allocated to existing money pits with entrenched bureaucratic defenses, like the Space Shuttle and Space Station.

Aside: Hopefully the new Space Blimp/Ion Engine technology will pan out, but even if it does, NASA will never use it. It's too cheap to implement.

T.J., Neocons do think this way.

For instance - just because we see serious problems with the liberal welfare state in practice, doesn't mean we want to stop all social programs. You use what's there, with a clear understanding of its limitations, and with a commitment to implementing better control mechanisms over time (preferably evolutionary or market-related. The key is hitting the incentive patterns not the structure, but with a recognition they'll never be perfect.

Sometimes, the limitations make a course of action unwise, or the data does, or you can suggest a totally different approach - in which case you draw the connection and say so, explaining why. But the underlying societal problems remain, and must be dealt with on some level or we're out of the debate.

Second, T.J., I'll also note that your definition of "corruption" does not match conventional definitions... but since you've defined your terms precisely, it's now possible to have a good conversation anyway. Thanks.

Third... with regard to the foreign intervention dynamic. This is actually a good application of the concepts we've been discussing, and certainly clarifies some of the logic behind the U.N. and UNSCAM, for instance. If Iraq becomes the model for a succession of foreign interventions, the dynamic T.J. describes is quite possible (these things do take time to grow).

Bottom line? If we expect our militaries to do global social work, then yes, they will pick up the negative aspects of that assignment as well as the benefits - and add those to their own institutional issues.

----
COROLLARY: An "armed global welfare industry" of sorts is a very possible neocolonialist development, with strong roots in the approach and behaviour patterns of the present-day left as well as the right. It also flows directly from Lee Harris' concept of "neo-sovereignty". We'd do well to consider the implications and possible responses now, while there's still time.
----

My specific reply re: the U.S. military is threefold, but it begins with the recognition that the U.S. military is going to operate globally, period, especially post 9/11. The Pentagon WILL BE and MUST BE on many missions far, far away, though the nature and locations of those missions is up for legitimate debate. So:

[1] The dynamic T.J. describes (an international welfare industry that adds large contractors/ corporations to its constituency and uses soldiers as its police/enforcers) may be the lesser evil, just as the growth of the military-industrial complex was a lesser evil vs. being inequipped to fight the Cold War against what can truly be called an "evil empire."

Purity is impossible - we have to live in the world and make choices, and the need right now is compelling, so we either need better choices or we're going to bite the bullet;

[2] One obvious reaction if this becomes a problem could be to remove the reconstruction requirement - America goes in to deal with the regime, installs v2.0 whatever that looks like (new regime, partition, whatever), and promises to come back even harder if we see X, Y, or Z there again. Historically speaking, that's a more 'normal' approach. Poof! dynamic gone.

Other "short circuit" and/or "problem transfer" approaches may also exist, in order to reduce or remove the institutional damage to the U.S. military and government;

[3] Another approach would be to enhance the "democratic accountability" factor abroad by empowering the locals, though this runs into some obvious potential problems and quasi-ridiculous scenarios. Still, there are thinkers out there like Kanan Makiya whose thinking might serve as the basis of a workable approach.

As always, other options may exist. The important thing is to start the debate, and get them out into the open.

This is all a bit off topic from the defense industry thread per se, but I thought it was a worthwhile digression as an illustration of how one might use some of these ideas about governments and human decision-making to look ahead rather than behind, decide what trade-offs one is prepared to make, and try to manage some of the consequences proactively.

>>For instance - just because we see serious problems with the liberal welfare state in practice, doesn't mean we want to stop all social programs.

Well, why the heck not? :-)

Seriously, most social programs seem like they have negative utility: ad-hoc solutions implemented by private individuals would likely solve the problems better anyway.

Almost nobody pays any attention to opportunity costs anymore. If the welfare state costs, say, 2% in absolute economic growth, that's a HUGE sacifice in the long run for short-term alleviation of problems.

>>1 The dynamic T.J. describes (an international welfare industry that adds large contractors/ corporations to its constituency and uses soldiers as its police/enforcers) may be the lesser evil, just as the growth of the military-industrial complex was a lesser evil vs. being inequipped to fight the Cold War against what can truly be called an "evil empire."

This is indeed possible. I don't consider it likely, but I might be running on biased data.

IMHO, we the taxpayers get very little return on investment for the massive amount of resources sunk into the MIC. But that's just MHO.

>>Other "short circuit" and/or "problem transfer" approaches may also exist, in order to reduce or remove the institutional damage to the U.S. military and government;

Yes, these should certainly be investigated.

With the Eurofighter/Typhoon there are general lessons about "specification bloat" and the problems of over-complex "multi-role" designs.

But there are also some very specific ones for us British relating to the political/corporate problems of pan-European projects.

The initial consortium including the French was sunk when it became clear that France was only interested if it was, in effect, a project for funding a new Mirage with "euro" badges on it.
After they left, there was continual strains between the UK, which was mainly after a fighter back in the 80's (having the Jaguar and Harrier for attack roles) and German desire for a multi-role plane.
As Germany was at that time, going to buy most, it got it's way. It also insisted on a lead role in various systems. According to various UK aviation experts, the German companies were not up to the job, and eventually the British partners quietly redid most of the work. Delays.

At the same time, project specifications were repeatedly modified. More delays.
Then the German govenment came close to cancelling the whole project. More delays. More respecification.

The situation ends up with a British order of 232 planes, a German order of 180, and British Aerospace with only a third of the contract value. While EADS, the German-French-Spanish consortium (yes, Aerospatiale are back, and grinning) gets 46% of contract value.

The lesson is, if Britain had gone solo from the start, we could have had the plane we wanted, ten years earlier at least, and a lot cheaper.

Or maybe done a deal for liscensed for production of the F-15 with BAE avionics, and built our own next generation lower cost attack plane (based on an upgraded BAE Hawk?) with plenty of export potential.
The damage done to the British aerospace industry since 1945 by political vacillation and lack of self-confidence (and resulting "euro" projects) is a sorry tale.
Hopefully the deal for a BAE share in production of the F-35 JSF will be a happier story.

John Farren: Or, the UK could have upgraded the still capable Tornado ADV :)

With regard to the military-industrial complex:

T.J., if the military start doing long drawn out engagements, eventually it will overreach and suffer defeats on the battlefield (Not Tet nor Fallujah, but rather something like the Bataan death march.) That is a natural constraint on the system. In addition, if the military stays overseas for too long, something like Subic Bay or the Panama Canal will happen. The locals will rise up and peacefully eject the GIs from their land. Therefore, on a macro scale, we don't need to worry too much about Pentagon growing overseas.

On the problem of industrial base and military-industrial complex not producing enough A-10s:
Gen Zinni (ret) and many others have the bright idea of taking the budget authority away from the services and giving it to the CINCs. Therefore, Air Force and the others have to sell their products to the CINCs. For example, if CENTCOM does not need F-22s, they will not "buy" F-22s for the Air Force. Instead, CENTCOM will give money to the AF to pay for R&D and O&M of A-10 squadrons. Without enough customers for the F-22 program, the AF cannot buy as many F-22s as it wanted.

Jimmy

>Neocons don't think this way. Observe that they
>have committed an organization with very poor
>accountability (the Pentagon system) to a
>series of missions far away, where
>accountability can degrade even further.

Actually the DoD has the highest levels of accountability of any American government bureaucracy.

It has the test of reality called "the battlefield" 1-3 times a generation and there is no lying about the results. Dead and shattered bodies are what they are.

The American Liberal Welfare bureaucracy by way of comparison never had that sharp, harsh, high contrast, reality check until Republicans took over the Congress in 1994 and induced an opportunistic Democratic President to apply reality, AKA welfare reform, to the system.

Please note how hard the media is trying to ignore that raging coservative policy success.

I don't know if somebody else mentioned this in one of the comments but recently Britain announced that the much touted Joint Strike Fighter, the STOVL fightter set to replace the sea harrier and the US Marine force Harrier 2 is 3000lb over weight and that if it tries to land with any of its bombs and more than an almost empty fuel tank, its landing gear will buckle.

With the Eurofighter debarcle this leaves Britain with Ageing Tornadoes and Harriers and an increasingly overstretched airforce that is dependant on The USA for most attack capabilities.

Add to this the mothballing of English Apache helicopter gunships because their pilots aren't trained to fly them, and the change in the worlds military front to favour urban warefare, Britian seems to be going nowhere very fast.

Oh and the Royal Navey needs new aircraft carriers because the existing ships are too short to accomedate the overweight Joint Stike Fighters requirements for a longer strip.