Selling In Circles

Lockheed Martin does work, as my friend Pete might say:

Right now, the Pentagon is paying Lockheed billions to build a new fleet of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters. The Air Force and Navy have justified the program, which has become something of a boondoggle, by pointing to the spread of U.S.-built F-16 and F-18 fighters around the world. Indeed, a few years back, Lockheed was circulating a promotional pamphlet for the F-22, which stressed the need to maintain U.S. "air superiority" by pointing to countries around the world that were either adversaries or potential adversaries. It turned out that most of those countries were worrisome because they had... fleets of U.S.-built F-16s. Arms sales really are the gift that keeps on giving.

Excellent. It seems to me that the role of defense contractors in pushing policy in a bad direction gets weirdly neglected.