On Sunday afternoon, a crisis unfolded in the sky over South Carolina: An Air Force F-35 pilot was forced to eject from the plane because of a “malfunction.” Strangely, however, the plane didn’t crash, as you’d expect — instead, the plane’s autopilot led the Department of Defense on one of the most sophisticated games of hide-and-seek in recent memory. Though a spokesman for Joint Base Charleston has stated that the plane is no longer flying, and a crash site has been identified, for nearly 24 hours, the Pentagon was reduced to issuing what might as well have been “missing” flyers stapled to telephone poles. What a way to spend the Air Force’s 76th birthday.
The American people were justifiably shocked by the news. As the Air Force took to social media to ask for the public’s help locating the fifth-generation stealth fighter, social media was replete with questions: How could you lose an expensive piece of equipment like this? Why did the pilot eject if the plane was in no danger? Is our air defense system so lacking that an F-35 can waltz across South Carolina completely undetected? The answer is entrenched, avoidable incompetence. (READ MORE: Ukraine Critics’ Fallacy of Equivalence)
The Department of Defense would like you to believe that this is another random incident in a world where few things go as planned. However, anyone paying attention knows that this is another data point for a Department of Defense trending in the wrong direction. Multi-billion-dollar accounting errors. Mismanagement of Army pilot contracts. Chronic safety issues. Poor communication during the Chinese balloon crisis. Consistent audit failures. Declining public trust in the military. An ongoing recruiting crisis. All of this points to a Pentagon in decline.
Over the last few years, we’ve witnessed a series of events that have shaken our confidence in the leadership of the U.S. military. The disorganized withdrawal from Afghanistan left many questioning the decision-making of the Pentagon. A Chinese balloon drifted unchallenged across the continental United States, leading to public confusion and concern. And now, an F-35 goes AWOL in American airspace. These are not isolated incidents but rather recent symptoms of institutional rot, which has undermined the credibility of military leadership when we are facing significant international challenges from countries like Russia, China, and Iran.
The Pentagon’s response is lacking in the face of every crisis. The Marine Corps plans a two-day safety stand-down to discuss the “fundamentals of safe flight operations.” On the surface, this may seem like a responsible reaction to the F-35 crisis, but it is more of a Band-Aid than a meaningful strategy to tackle the root cause of systemic decline. The question that looms larger with each passing headline is: Why were these fundamentals lacking in the first place? Can two days’ worth of discussions really lead to substantive change in an organization that has committed such consistent mistakes? (READ MORE: The American Military Has Lost Its Soul)
History shows that these brief pauses in operations have not resulted in lasting improvements. If these stand-downs were truly effective, the Pentagon would not be grappling with a recurring pattern of operational failures and a declining public trust. What these stand-downs are, in reality, are public-relations moves designed to divert the public’s attention from the barrage of negative headlines. That ploy works only so often; Americans aren’t buying it anymore.
The cumulative impact of these repeated errors and lapses in judgment is devastating. Trust is not a renewable resource. Once the American people write off their military leadership as a farce, they will not regain that respect without tremendous reform or a major war.
Our national defense apparatus is at a crossroads. This goes beyond any individual crisis, as damning as each is. Instead, it’s about the degraded credibility of one of the most crucial institutions in American history. If we can’t trust the Pentagon to keep track of its assets and manage its affairs competently, what does that say about our readiness to confront the challenges of an increasingly complicated and hostile world?
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