F-35 in flight. Photo: Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen, US Air Force.
“Whenever a fight occurs, airpower will be presupposed for projecting unmatched combat power, from the long-range strike capability of strategic bombing, to support for ground combat. If the necessity of a substantial support infrastructure is an argument against the F-35, what of an aircraft carrier’s large enveloping group of support vessels?”
– George F. Will, “Why the F-35 is a vital U.S. asset in this menacing era.”Washington Post, May 28, 2026.
Thirteen years ago, I made the case against the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. My argument was based on overall cost (“the most expensive program in our military inventory”), the large number of aircraft proposed for the U.S. Navy (“absence of any other navy with a global presence or a power projection capability”), and the obsolescence of manned aircraft (“the next generation of pilotless armed drones as well as hypersonic cruise missiles have more uses than several thousand sophisticated fighter aircraft”).
If I choose to update National Insecurity, I would emphasize that exorbitant spending on defense limits the funding needed for a prosperous economy and a healthy society. I would also add that Russia and China now field complex, multilayered air-defense systems that stitch together a variety of advanced sensors and surface-to-air missiles.
George Will bases his defense of the F-35’s substantial support structure on the aircraft carrier’s “large enveloping group of support vessels.” What Will doesn’t acknowledge is the fact that the aircraft carrier like the battleship has become obsolete. Second to the worst-case costs of the F-35 nightmare is the worst-case cost for the next generation of aircraft carriers. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s most expensive warship, ran billions of dollars in cost overruns under a contract that obligated the U.S. Navy to pay 90 percent of the cost of overruns. In view of the limited strategic utility of aircraft carriers and the Chinese success in developing anti-ship missiles, the debate should be about the desirability of maintaining these floating arsenals and not whether it justifies the arguments for the F-35.
But Will and the mainstream media in general are taken in by the advertising campaigns of the military-industrial community, particularly Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35 and the greatest beneficiary of the Pentagon’s largesse. Moreover, Congress didn’t want to let go of the F-35 because Lockheed Martin relied on 47 states for spare parts and construction. Members of Congress look at these exorbitant programs as job programs for their constituents and not as defense necessities. No federal agency does a better job of public relations for its programs than the Pentagon.
The mainstream media also ignores the culprits who are responsible for these decisions regarding defense spending and legacy weapons systems. Last week, for example, the New York Times credited Robert Gates, our 22nd secretary of defense, with “railing against weapons that did too much and cost too much throughout his time in two presidential administrations.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Again, 13 years ago I wrote that Gates “claimed to want a debate on defense spending…but consistently dodged the issue, especially when appearing before Congress.” There were no savings during Gates’s tenure, and the stock values of all major defense companies soared during his stewardship.
The military is much too big and the defense budget is now out-of-sight. Too much of the federal budget is allocated to defense and not to domestic requirements. International agreements to limit military requirements such as a series of arms control and disarmament measures and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty have been rejected by Presidents George W. Bush and Trump. And now we are in a war with Iran that the Joint Comprehensive Agreement of 2015 would have prevented, if it had not been thrown away by Donald Trump in his first term.
The decades of war with Iraq and Afghanistan made no sense and we have nothing to show for it in terms of U.S. national security. We spent more for reconstruction in Iraq, for example, than we did on the Marshall Plan for Europe after World War II. Finally, what has air superiority done for the United States, Russia, and Israel—the world’s most militarist nations—in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza, respectively?