Morning Joe: Exposing Flaws in Missile Defense & the F-22

Stories we're following today:

Premier U.S. Fighter Jet Has Major Shortcomings - Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post [link]

• The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential Pentagon test results show.
• "It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7 hours before it gets a critical failure" that jeopardizes success of the aircraft's mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane who is not authorized to speak on the record.
• Lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more than 40 states, and [Pierre] Sprey -- now a prominent critic of the plane -- said that by the time skeptics "could point out the failed tests, the combat flaws, and the exploding costs, most congressmen were already defending their subcontractors' " revenues.
  • See also "More Bad Publicity for the F-22" by Abu Maqawama [link], a blog from CNAS.

Talks could lead to cut in UK's nuclear stockpile, says Gordon Brown - The Guardian [link]

• Britain's nuclear stockpile could be reduced after multilateral talks next year that are likely to flow from a global summit on nuclear weapons, Gordon Brown indicated yesterday.

Post's Krauthammer Pushes Dangerous Fantasy - My analysis in Huffington Post [link]

• Washington Post senior columnist Charles Krauthammer wants Russia to build more nuclear weapons. Why? Because he thinks we can shoot them out of the sky like clay pigeons. This is simply not true. The Post's promotion of this fantasy could lead to global disaster.

Strike-Anywhere Missile Plan Could Get Hypersonic Boost - Danger Room [link]

• Last month, the Pentagon modified a $12-million contract, to allow Lockheed Martin’s ultrafast FALCON Hypersonic Test Vehicle project to become a component of an Air Force effort to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles at America’s enemies.

A View from the Dark Side

Plumage, But at A Price - Krauthammer in the Washington Post [link]

• We could today terminate all such negotiations, invite the Russians to build as many warheads as they want and profitably watch them spend themselves into penury, as did their Soviet predecessors, stockpiling weapons that do nothing more than, as Churchill put it, make the rubble bounce.
• This is important for Russia because of the huge American technological advantage in defensive weaponry. We can reliably shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile. They cannot. And since defensive weaponry will be the decisive strategic factor of the 21st century...