Next, We'll Buy Our Bullets From China.

So Boeing lost the bid, subject to appeal and political posturing.

An European company is going to be getting gobs of US taxpayers' cash ($100B-ish, total, probably) to build the next generation of mid-air refeuling tankers for the USAF. Some folks say it doesn't matter because they'll be assembled here. They'll be "made in USA of foreign and domestic components", as it were. Sort of like the Toyotas rolling out of San Antonio.

The next logical step, of course, is to have them assembled there and flown here. It's commercially advantageous as well, because you don't have to fly them to European and Middle Eastern purchasers from the USA. You know, why don't we just outsource our entire military manufacturing infrastructure to China, because it would surely be low risk and way cheaper. Political prisoner slave labor is way cheaper than US American Union labor after all.

Reductio ad absurdum? Unfortunately, not to some strict internationalist capitalist types.

We need to be able to make our own military hardware. What happens if we are at war with the companies making our war machines? We have been at war with Germany before, and some of the parts for this plane are from there (for example). If we STOP making stuff here, then NEED to make stuff here, we won't be READY to make stuff here when we NEED to.

Can you say defeat through attrition? I knew you could.

I heard a caller to a radio show who couldn't understand why it were a bad idea to make electronics critical to US national security in China. He just couldn't get the idea thru his thick head that China is only our friend until they are an enemy. Also it seemed hard to grasp that an enemy wouldn't necessarily sell us things required to kill them, no matter how much we were willing to pay. (no mention of the fact that we probably would be borrowing the money from them in the first place).

You're not like that, are you? You do see, don't you, that we need to be able to make our own hardware which is critical to defending our country, in case we end up enemies with the other States which make the hardware?

or did you also go to government school?