With the DOD planning to stop the purchase of additional F-22 fighters, it's likely that the production line for the F-22 will close. When a weapons production line closes, there is little likelihood of ever restarting it in the event of a war.
At the same time, we can't afford to keep the production line open ourselves. Unlike previous times we've shutdown fighter programs, there's no replacement programs planned in the immediate future. The 6th generation technology for a purely unmanned fighter is a decade, and, probably more, away from being a practically deployed weapon.
There's no reason why this fighter can't be sold to our closest allies like Australia, Japan, Great Britain, and Germany. These allies are essential to a stable, democratic world and have proven themselves responsible with safeguarding advanced technology in the past. We've even shared ICBM technology and nuclear weapons technology with Great Britain; Great Britain's main nuclear deterrent force consists of US made Trident II-D5 SLBMs with warheads developed through joint nuclear weapons technology partnerships.
Given the risk to the world posed by rogue nations and terrorist groups, it's important to keep those close allies well equipped, militarily. In the event of a war, their help will be essential. The US can't financially afford the costs of being the world's sole policeman.
As far as the fear of the inadvertent release of stealth technologies, I'm sure that every intelligence agency worth their paycheck across the world already has access to the F-22 technology. F-117s with 1st generation stealth technology have already been lost in combat.
From a purely financial perspective, exporting the F-22 would help create jobs in the US and help our trade balance. We can use the revenue generated though exports to help build the 6th generation fighters, which will probably be unmanned.
Tactically speaking, by the time the first planes are exported and crews trained to fly them, we will already have a trained and experienced F-22 fighter pilot pool. We will also probably be very close to production of a 6th generation fleet of planes. The risk of letting this technology go offshore at the end of the US order production run is pretty low. After all, the F-22 is a late 1980's technology.
By allowing the export of the F-22, after US orders are filled, we can keep the production line open, create jobs for US workers, improve our trade balance, and generate much needed revenue for the development of the next generation of fighter aircraft. At the same time, we are strengthening the allies we need to stop rogue nations. Japan, especially, is in need of advanced fighters to counter potential threats from North Korea and China.
Comments (3)
We need to keep our options open to restart production of F-22s in the event of war.
War is over,THE ONE is here now
We also need to keep our close, democratic allies strong.
In the new world order our allies are not democratic.THE ONE is here now.
Give them to Israel so we can see what they can do...the B1 bomber and stealth fighter too. I would love to see them used to attack North Korea, and Iran...or any other dumb sunsabitches that want to keep up these threats of war and terrorism.
Kill em all, and let God sort em out!
Democracy:
A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is comunistic-negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate. whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.
A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: " A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."
A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.
Republic:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.
Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.
Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.
A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.
Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.
A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:
an executive and
a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create
a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize
certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."
A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise.
Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:
Democracy:
a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences
Republic
a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.
b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.
Democracy and Republic are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. Whilst in both cases the government is elected by the people, in Democracy the majority rules according to their whims, whilst in the Republic the Government rule according to law. This law is framed in the Constitution to limit the power of Government and ensuring some rights and protection to Minorities and individuals.
The difference between Republic and Righteous Republic is that in the Republic the Government rules according to the law set up by men, in the Righteous Republic the law is the Law of God. Only in the Righteous Republic it can truly be said "One nation under God" for it is governed under commandments of the only One True God and there is no pluralism of religions.
Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered.
Mobocracy: 1. Political control by a mob. 2. The mass of common people as the source of political control.