The Pentagon’s Doomsday Men

Why the Department of Defense needs a lesson in risk management.

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Top gun: The Air Force has a fondness for fancy toys of questionable necessity.

In what may long be remembered as a turning point in the Pentagon’s approach to investing in technology, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this year publicly questioned the Air Force’s commitment to its F-22 Raptor, a stealthy fighter that was built to win dogfights against a Soviet adversary.

“The reality is we are fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater. So it is principally for use against a near peer in a conflict, and I think we all know who that is,” Gates told a congressional committee. “And looking at what I regard as the level of risk of conflict with one of those near peers over the next four or five years until the Joint Strike Fighter comes along, I think that something along the lines of 183 [planes] is a reasonable buy.” ...