Think tank to Air Force: Buy hundreds of our donors' warplanes

A new think tank report is pushing for a significant increase in weapons purchases that will directly benefit the defense contractors that fund the organization putting out the report.

The report, entitled “Strategic Attack: Maintaining the Air Force’s Capacity to Deny Enemy Sanctuaries” and released today by the Mitchell Institute, says the Air Force needs hundreds of F-47 fighter jets and B-21 bombers — at least 300 and 200, respectively — to maintain U.S. air superiority, and to penetrate China’s advanced defenses to deny it sanctuary territory in case it attacks Taiwan.

But increased production of these systems, which are not yet in service, would deliver major financial gains to the defense contractors that financially support the Mitchell Institute, which in turn routinely pushes for increased defense procurement and larger Air Force budgets.

Boeing, which has a contract to produce the future F-47, supports the Mitchell Institute directly. Although Northrop Grumman, which produces the B-21, is not listed among Mitchell Institute’s supporters, Pratt and Whitney and BAE Systems, which make parts for the B-21, are. Further, the Mitchell Institute is a subsidiary of the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) — which Northrop Grumman funds.

Meanwhile, observers say these systems are outdated and expensive, and that large numbers of them would ultimately do little to enhance military readiness.

Currently in production and testing, the B-21 program could cost taxpayers over $200 billion over its lifespan, while offering little more in capabilities than its predecessor — the B-2 bomber still in use. Its supposed stealth capacities are a key selling point; however, other systems promoted along those lines, like the F-22 and F-35, turned out to be visible to some radar systems.

“The B‑21 program is a vanity project for a service whose useful lifetime passed a long, long time ago,” Dan Grazier, director of the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center, told RS.

President Trump unveiled the F-47 — seemingly named, in part, after his presidency — last year, calling it “the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft [to be] built.” But concerns mount that the program, also known as the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform, may instead follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, the F-35 fighter jet program. That program is infamous for its lagging production schedules, and only being mission capable about 55% of the time — despite an over $2 trillion program price tag.

“The F-47 is a large manned aircraft that's rising to prominence when every technological push is towards unmanned, small aircraft. By the time this plane hits the battlefield it could very likely already be obsolete,” Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, told RS.

“While this proposal would do little to enhance U.S. national security and would likely add hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to the national debt, it would be a huge financial windfall to the Mitchell Institute's funders like Boeing (which is building the F-47) and Lockheed Martin (which is building the F-35),” Freeman told RS. “I'd certainly hope that the report is accompanied by a disclaimer that its proposals would be of financial benefit to the Mitchell Institute's donors.”

"When the president says he wants to spend $1.5 trillion on the U.S. military next year, you can bet the services and their enablers will salute and find a way to spend it,” Mark Thompson, a long-time military reporter and national security analyst at the Project On Government Oversight, told RS.