It’s not often that I feel compelled to write about current events, but this one hits particularly close to home.
Basically, the US Air Force has awarded its $40B contract to a company that is affiliated with the European plane maker AirBus. For shame. What have we come to in the country when we are practically outsourcing our national defense? Granted, the company that was awarded the contract, Northrop Grumman, has agreed to build a manufacturing plant for the tankers in Mobile, Alabama. But the frames they use are manufactured by AirBus, in plants outside the US. Not only that, but how much defense information will they potentially share with foreign companies? And shouldn’t a certain degree of national solidarity outweigh any differences in budgets? Can you imagine the uproar if our police and public servants began driving nothing but Toyotas and Hondas simply because they were cheaper?
Obviously, I have a personal interest in the situation. My father has worked for Boeing for 31 years. Our family has tightened belts through strikes, crossed our fingers through each period of layoffs, put aside our personal needs when he works 14 days in a row, but everything has come out right in the end. I am proud of the contributions my father makes to the largest exporter in the US, a company that is one of the components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. To our family, and any other American manufacturer, this news is like a slap in the face.
Despite all this, it is sometimes hard to reconcile how it feels to be a part of the company that simultaneously builds machines which bring people together and also wage war. I have to remind myself often that machines are only tools, and the purpose to which they are used is decided by humans. I would be happier if the company my father worked for only made airplanes for commercial purposes, but even I can recognize that a peaceful world without the need for standing armies is a utopian dream probably beyond human grasp.
