The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers
As a former Navy F&#x2F;A-18 pilot, I have strong opinions on this and generally agree with the analysis.  A few thoughts:<p>1. The services are building what the defense contractors want to build more than what the war fighters want.  Knew a lot of pilots who didn’t like the F-35 and would have preferred more, cheaper planes specialized for specific roles.  This defense contractor capture is a big problem.<p>2. The services waste these ‘big war’ resources on our insurgency campaigns.  F&#x2F;A-18s were about 10k per flight hour and perform worse than platforms such as the Super Tacono[1] when supporting war fighters on the ground.  We spent hundreds of billions more than we needed to on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because when the game starts everyone wants to play to justify their budgets.  Programs such as the Super Tacano were shut down to protect and justify the massive expenditure on fighter jets.  Funding for different types of wars needs to go through different sources to prevent this enormous waste of money.<p>3. I’d be for a submersible carrier that could surface to launch and retrieve drones that act as missile trucks for both air-to-air and strike missions.  I wouldn’t go all in on unmanned aircraft though, since I would also assume the possibility of totally denied electronic environment where signals are jammed and space assets are unavailable.<p>4. To force military leaders to focus on the services and not themselves, I’d support a ban on senior level leadership (O-7 and above) from accepting board seats or contractor &#x2F; full-time positions with defense contractors.  Too many leaders make decisions while in service influenced by their personal outcomes when they get out.  This behavior reinforces a system that supports the status quo.  Senior leaders have great retirement packages and can do things other than maintain an incestuous relationship with the military-industrial complex.  Although sometimes other jobs seem to result in more bad behavior such as pressure to look the other way on Theranos and its questionable product.[2, 3]  Does look like their board has gotten a bit better with the only remaining military &#x2F; diplomat being General Mattis.  Glad to see Admiral Roughead and Secretary of State Kissinger are no longer there.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano</a>
[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techinsider.io&#x2F;emails-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-us-military-2015-12" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techinsider.io&#x2F;emails-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-u...</a>
[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theranos.com&#x2F;leadership" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theranos.com&#x2F;leadership</a>