When President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States would move ahead with a long-debated project to build a stealthy next-generation fighter jet, the message to China was clear: The United States plans to spend tens of billions of dollars over the next decade, probably far longer, to contain China’s ability to dominate the skies over the Pacific.
But here on Earth, the reality has been very different.
As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) roars through agencies across government, its targets have included some of the organizations that China worried about most, or actively sought to subvert. And, as with much that Elon Musk’s DOGE has dismembered, there has been no published study of the costs and benefits of losing those capabilities — and no discussion of how the roles, arguably as important as a manned fighter, might be replaced.
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