Hey CaptainCrunch, what are your thoughts on
this article?
The author is critical of the proposed F-35 purchase, but not for the usual hippie anti-military-spending reasons we normally see. His thesis is that if the new fighters suffer a cost overrun beyond The Harper Government's projections (quite likely), then there may be a shortage of future defense money available for equipment purchases required by other branches of the Canadian Forces.
Quote:
We are essentially taking the F-35 on faith. It's still just undergoing test flights, and despite government assurances, it's hard to predict what its off-the-assembly-line price will be. We don't know what we might have gotten had we gone with a plane from a competing manufacturer, because we haven't pushed to find out. This might be the greatest single budget gamble Canada has ever taken in peacetime.
That's why it's a mistake to keep talking about the F-35 in isolation. The greatest risk here may be to Canada's aged navy, which is desperately in need of rebuilding. Any slowdown in ship replacement – quite likely if the F-35 goes well over budget—threatens to cripple this country's single most important strategic asset.
[...]
How ironic, then if the rush to get the F-35 by 2016 leads to an enormous budget miscalculation that comes to overshadow and damage what is almost certainly an even more important and far-reaching naval initiative.
That's why it's not just civilians upset that the planes could end up costing more than $100 million each, but it makes a good many people in uniform nervous as well.
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