Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Stealthiness and the F-35, Harper style

Back here, Dave asked:
Why is the coward bearing the title "prime minister" so hell-bent on sole-sourcing the F-35? BECAUSE HE'S MADE A DEAL HE HASN'T TOLD YOU ABOUT. He's hiding something - he always is!
Now Bill Sweetman at Aviation Week asks the same after some delicate words regarding the results of the new fighter secretariat's review in the context of the Harper government's handling of the whole affair.
One way or another, it seems Canada’s fighter procurement is headed for the competition that Ross and others maintained in 2010 would be a waste of time. If the Harper government had started a competition then, it would have a decision by now, and that does raise an interesting question. If Harper and his colleagues thought the F-35 was so great, why didn’t they want to prove it through an open contest?
The F-35 could be a photo of an Airfix model by this point and the Harper government would still be gaming it from the cupboard.

Why?

9 comments:

lungta said...

the harper cupboardment
finally a description of him i can relate to
and because justy and tom don't have the diplomatic skills to phone each other
prepare for 4 more years

Anonymous said...

Could the reason that Harper pushed the F35 be that he never intended to order it. Just as with the ice-breakers, veterans affairs cash and high EI payments.
Maybe his promise to balance the budget in order to be re-elected is part of his "starve the beast" policy and he can't continue this policy if he doesn't get re-elected.
So in order to balance the budget and appeal to the one-issue losers who think this single issue is all that matter, he has sacrificed spending on large items to make it happen.
Of course he might just view any public spending as an impediment to future corporate tax cuts and might have no intention of purchasing any of these high cost items ever?

Scotian said...

harebell:

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you are entirely correct. Given who his political role models and inspirations are it would be entirely in keeping with their basic premises.

Purple library guy said...

Nah. These "Small Government" types never mean small military, police or prisons. To the contrary, overspending on these things helps them say the cupboard is bare so they can cut social spending.

Guess he was playing his multidimensional chess and one day accidentally moved a couple pieces to spaces that don't exist in our three dimensional universe. Suddenly us ordinary mortals had him in check--who'd have thought? Really, Harper isn't as smart as people tend to give him credit for. He's not stupid, but he would have a lot more trouble if the media were less pliable, and every time it shows signs of independence he does indeed have trouble.

His government also ends up the victim of the Con ideology (government is the problem and doesn't matter, so we don't need to do a good job. Institutions, traditions, democracy don' matter, so we can break them to serve our momentary needs). That kind of thing leads to bad governance. Add in Harper's personal qualities as a leader (allow in nobody of a calibre that could pose a threat, which means mostly dunces in cabinet, and then micromanage something way too big to micromanage effectively) and you have a recipe for governmental blunders.

gingersnap said...

Harper's FIPPA with China? I had read China will have a, massive resource project in the High Arctic. If this is indeed true? Harper wouldn't need a military up there?

Beijing York said...

Merry ho ho and all that jazz to you and the rest of the gang at TGB, Boris!

Simon said...

hi Boris...happy holidays and all the best in 2015, to you, Edstock, Dave, and any others at the great Galloping Beaver blog, still going strong after so many years. May the New Year be the one that brings us the Day of Liberation...

Steve said...

Good thing no PM in history has ever taken a bribe to buy airplanes. Otherwise I would suspect the fix.

The Mound of Sound said...

The F-35 wasn't ready for a competition back in 2010 and it still isn't. The operational logistics still aren't worked up because the aircraft remains in testing. Could you imagine trying to generate three sorties a day under adverse conditions? From what I've read I'm not sure it could fly missions on consecutive days.