Quadrennial Defense Review To Propose Cutting JSF Numbers

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/12/09/qdr-likely-kills-two-carriers-efv/

Word on Capitol Hill is that the Quadrennial Defense Review should result in the demise of two Navy carrier groups and the Marines’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. On top of that, the Joint Strike Fighter program is likely to lose a so-​​far uncertain number of planes and the Air Force looks to lose two air wings.

Maybe they will bring back the F-22!!!!! :p

On the Joint Strike Fighter, one congressional aide said a cut to the F-35’s overall numbers would not be surprising given the program’s rising costs and the tightened budget situation the country faces for 2011.

The larger strategy debate would seem to embrace such cuts, or at least make them easier to propose. Gen. Hoss Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in July that the venerable two major theater war strategy was dead.

“The military requirement right now is associated with the strategy that we are laying out in the QDR, and it is a departure from the two major theater war construct that we have adhered to in the past and in which this aircraft [the F-​​22] grew up. I mean it grew up in that construct of two major theater wars, and both of them being of a peer competitor quality,” Cartwright said.

Maybe Obama could propose that the Chinese could build two carriers and use them to patrol the Pacific in place of the two American ones which get cut.

The sad thing is the US is facing budget crises for years to come…. but I don’t think some of the current president’s priorities (job summit?) are really that useful.