First blog post in 2014: Fighter costs

I'm still not blogging as much as I was when I started out - and it's partially due to a family emergency over the holidays. So, quick update: I just read a new article in The Diplomat that caught my eye: "Why Do Fighter Aircraft Cost So Much?" Highlights:

• "in many cases, governments only pretend to care about the expense of their fighters. Money spent on cost overruns for F-35s doesn’t just disappear; it makes defense contractors wealthy and generates jobs across the country. Representatives from districts that produce expensive fighters have literally no incentive to hold costs in line. The same goes for more authoritarian systems in which different power brokers use military spending to favor specific communities and interest groups."
• "An under-mentioned point in defense procurement debates is that the purchase of advanced fighter aircraft is often less about national defense than national identity. Both civilian and military leaders tend to resent the idea that neighbors and rivals will own and operate more capable, advanced, and expensive aircraft. Moreover, states don’t simply buy advanced fighters 'off the shelf,' as advanced aircraft have historically required long term deals for training, maintenance, and spare parts. Buying a fighter means buying a political relationship."
• "the advent of 3D printing may well mean that customers will have the opportunity to carry out much needed maintenance and repairs without relying on the sellers as much as they have in the past.  The days in which the Soviet Union could use MiG-23 airframes as a loss leader for jet engines, or in which the United States could use long-term maintenance agreements as a club to encourage additional purchases, are coming to an end."

Also, I've been paying way less attention to cyberwar and cybersecurity lately, but Peter Singer was recently quoted in a new Popular Mechanics article on the topic where (among other points) he draws attention to the continued business cultural ignorance of cyberspace at the higher levels - a problem I would argue the business community still shares with the military community:

• "As far as the actual surveillance activities that Snowden disclosed, I personally don't think that senior political leaders would have authorized many of them if they had understood the full ramifications. The discussion would have been fundamentally different if people had been able to connect the dots...Seventy percent of business executives, whether they're in car companies or defense companies, have already made a cybersecurity decision for their firm in some way, shape, or form, despite the fact that no major MBA [Master of Business Administration] program teaches this as a regular course of business management."