F-22 and a nation in decline

Mark Helprin--novelist and conservative--has written a devastating critique of America's defense meltdown in today's Wall Street Journal. Ostensibly it's a defense of the F-22 Raptor, but in a larger sense it's a broadside at a people and a government that would rather bail out General Motors and the United Auto Workers than properly equip its armed forces. It begins:

Cancelling the F-22 Raptor, the most capable fighter plane ever produced, is yet another act in the tragedy of a nation that, bankrupting itself, embracing moral decline, and apologizing to its enemies, is losing the will to prevail. In pursuit of false prosperities that have failed even the economy, America for three presidencies and an entire generation has diminished its arsenals, unbalanced its military, and forgotten its genius for strategy.

I'm not so sure about that last bit: when did the US ever have a genius for strategy? (Tactics, yes, and even operational art, but grand strategy seems always to elude us.) But for the rest, I think I'd rather live in a country guarded by the F-22 than not. Read it. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford