This is absolutely the best comparison. You've really gotta wonder what the under-the-table purpose of that fighter is. As if our closer allies get told "Hey, the ante for participating in PRISM et al is buying 26 of these totally useless fighters that burn up on the runway." I am going to be totally interested in whatever gets declassified about this program in the future.
Why does it need to be under-the-table? It seems pretty clear to me:
— military industry wanting more money
— deterrence
— air superiority
— hi-tech jobs, research and manufacture capabilities
Probably even in this priority order. The bottom line is that there is a lot of good in this "useless fighters", even if it's not as sexy/obvious as DSN. There may be a corruption element, but it doesn't mean that the program is "useless" for general public.
After all, I'm writing this to you using the heir of DARPA's "stupid entanglement of number-crunching machines".
You're implying these things can actually get off the ground. For what American taxpayers are spending on this project, you better believe there better be some bang for that buck. And so far it's amounted to essentially nothing but more of the same companies getting away with pillage.
According to Red Flag results, F22s are extremely effective (e.g. [1]). In fact, even if you take an article that "criticize" F22 (like [2]) and pay an attention to what article really says, it's like "okay-okay, it's the best, BUT YOU KNOW IT CAN SUCK SOMETIMES".
I understand the appeal of blaming govt on excessive spending. Being Russian, I can't agree more (our govt is way worse). However, I believe that blind and self-righteous critique like "it can't get off the ground" is destructive.
