How Political Interference is Gutting United States Airpower

7 min readJan 30, 2025

The pause of the NGAD program isn’t just a case of budget reallocation or technical reevaluation — it’s another catastrophic example of politicians tripping over their own shoelaces while pretending to be military strategists. Every time Congress, bureaucrats, and elected officials get their grubby hands on military procurement, the result is delays, cost overruns, and technological stagnation — all while China laughs and steamrolls ahead. Let’s break down how political meddling is crippling NGAD and United States airpower at large.

1. Politicians Deciding on Military Capabilities They Couldn’t Explain to a Fifth Grader

Congressional Budgetary Power vs. Military Expertise

The biggest red flag of political incompetence is when elected officials — who couldn’t explain how a jet engine works if their lives depended on it — start dictating military procurement decisions. This is exactly what’s happening with NGAD.

The Biden administration requested $2.75 billion for NGAD’s research and development in FY2025.
Congress has the power to approve, modify, or reject this request, meaning a pack of political dinosaurs with zero aviation expertise are calling the shots on the United States’s next-generation fighter.
Instead of listening to the Air Force, some lawmakers are screaming about cost, despite this being the same idiotic logic that killed the F-22.
This delays funding, stalls development, and leaves the United States military bleeding while China builds fighters like they’re Happy Meal toys.

The Problem: Why are elected officials with no aerospace engineering background, no military strategy expertise, and no combat experience deciding what the Air Force needs? That’s like letting a group of toddlers decide how brain surgery should be performed because they saw a YouTube video about it.

2. The Classic Congressional Blunder: “It’s Too Expensive!” — Said the People Who Wasted Trillions Elsewhere

The Hypocrisy of Political Budget Concerns

One of the most maddening aspects of political interference in defense programs is how these morons constantly sabotage efficiency and then whine about inefficiency.

NGAD is projected to cost around $300 million per aircraft — which, when adjusted for inflation and technology, is par for the course.
The same politicians clutching their pearls over cost are the same ones who added mountains of bureaucratic nonsense that made these programs expensive in the first place.
The F-22 was supposed to have 750 units, but thanks to Congress pulling the plug like a bunch of clueless accountants, only 187 were built — which drove costs up and left the Air Force scrambling for replacements.
Now, these same politicians are running the same scam again, pretending that pausing NGAD will save money, when in reality, it’s sabotaging national security.

The Problem: If Congress gave a damn about cost savings, they wouldn’t have gutted the F-22, forcing the Air Force to spend even more money playing catch-up with NGAD. Their idiocy created the problem, and now they’re sabotaging the solution.

3. The “F-22 Mistake” and Why Politicians Have the Memory of a Goldfish

The Pattern of Political Shortsightedness

Other defense analysts point out that NGAD is repeating the same political clown show that doomed the F-22 program. But why does this keep happening? Simple: politicians think in election cycles, not military timelines.

The F-22 program was slashed in 2009 because Congress wanted to “save money”, completely blind to emerging threats.
They shut down the production line, assuming the United States would never need air superiority fighters in large numbers again (a mistake so dumb it should be criminal).
Now, in 2025, China has the J-20, J-35, and is already working on a 6th-generation fighter, while the United States is still stuck in the bureaucratic Twilight Zone.
This isn’t history repeating itself — it’s political stupidity on an endless loop.

The Problem: Congress doesn’t think ahead. They care about reelection soundbites, not military readiness. Their shortsighted budget cuts create massive capability gaps that cost far more to fix later, but by the time the disaster unfolds, they’re already retired, writing books about how much they “cared.”

4. The Slow Death of United States Military R&D: Death by Bureaucracy

How Political Red Tape is Strangling Fighter Development

A critical observation is made: The United States used to develop fighters in 5–7 years. Now it takes decades. Why? Because political bureaucracy has metastasized like a cancer.

F-15 and F-16: Developed in the 1970s in 5–7 years.
F-22: Took over a decade from first flight to operational service.
F-35: Started in the 1990s — still receiving upgrades in 2025.
NGAD: First discussed in 2014 — now stuck in Congress’ bureaucratic swamp in 2025 with no clear timeline.

The reason? Political meddling forces endless studies, delays, and cost revisions, bloating the procurement process beyond recognition.

Congress demands more oversight → Oversight creates delays → Delays increase costs → Costs become an excuse to kill the program → Repeat until the United States is strategically screwed.

The Problem: China doesn’t have this problem. Their fighter development is fast and ruthless, while the United States is suffocating in political micromanagement.

5. The Ultimate Consequence: China Wins While the United States Debates Itself to Death

What Happens If NGAD Gets Stuck in the Political Meat Grinder?

If Congress and these short-sighted political parasites keep interfering, here’s what happens:

China keeps building new advanced fighters while the United States stagnates in procurement hell.
The Air Force is forced to rely on aging F-22s and overburdened F-35s, while China fields 6th-gen aircraft in overwhelming numbers.
United States deterrence in the Pacific weakens.
Future conflicts (e.g., Taiwan) become harder to deter because the United States’s airpower advantage vanishes.

The United States could lose its air dominance — not because of enemy superiority, but because of the self-inflicted stupidity of Washington, D.C.

6. Conclusion: The Death of Strategic Thinking

Political interference in military procurement has reached a critical failure point. The inability of decision-makers to separate budgetary politics from national security priorities has crippled innovation and put the United States on a trajectory toward losing its technological advantage.

The stakes are clear: either politicians step back and let experts handle military procurement, or the United States will watch its dominance in air superiority erode while its adversaries surge ahead. The next great power conflict won’t be won by the country that debated the longest — it will be won by the one that actually built and deployed its weapons.

Washington needs to wake up before it’s too late.

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