War

The Pentagon just unveiled a new strategic bomber, the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, which is intended to replace several other aircraft — the Rockwell B-1 Lancer, the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, and the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. The expected cost of this new aircraft is around 750 million dollars, though, it could certainly be higher. There is also a cost associated with the development of the new plane; the Air Force plans to spend nearly 20 billion dollars producing the purchasing the airplane. This is a tremendous amount of money. While it is important to have defenses against foreign adversaries, this plane is replacing aircraft of similar capabilities, such as the B-2 Spirit which also had a total program cost of 2.13 billion dollars per aircraft. This amount of spending seems somewhat wasteful given the issues present in the United States at this time. Keep in mind that this spending is just a small fraction of the military budget, which is around 750 billion dollars. 25 billion could end hunger in the United States. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would cost 20 billion dollars to end homelessness in the United States, equivalent to the program cost of the B-21. With this, we must question what is more important: the military or the well-being of our citizens. While the military definitely contributes to the well-being of our citizens, it does not need to cost that much. This reminded me of the article that we read for class, “It’s Time to Rein in Inflated Military Budgets,” which stated that we needed to reconsider what national security means, and I think that sums up the issue very well. We need to reevaluate our priorities and help those that need it directly, rather than spending money on something that already has a perfectly working counterpart.