A Case for Scrapping the Joint Strike Fighter?

Photo: Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images

Cato’s Tad DeHaven and Think Defence each have good posts on the future of the increasingly troubled Joint Strike Fighter. Costs have risen by 50% since 2001 and the plane is already looking like it will be delivered years late. Since the main justification for the JSF was that it was going to control costs this is a problem. The Americans will stick with it, but does that mean we have to? At present we seem to be heading for the worst of all possible worlds. As Think Defence puts it:

It does not take a genius to work out that volumes will be reduced and we all know where that ends, a procurement death spiral where increasing development costs have to be spread over fewer and fewer production orders driving the cost up and so on.