2015’s Biggest Military Boondoggles: Mistakes That Are Killing Our Confidence in the Armed Forces

5. The $2 Trillion Non-Plane

Technically speaking, the F-35 screw up extends way beyond 2015. The Pentagon billed the F-35 as a combination of a stealth bomber and a fighter jet. Who wouldn’t want one of those, am I right? Unfortunately, one decade and almost $2 trillion later, the F-35 is still a piece of junk, performing worse than the current model F-16, which was commissioned all the way back in the ’70s. The brass are still moving forward with the project, though, as they didn’t bother to research a potential alternative and are now relying on the costly, underperforming machine to, “form the backbone of the future fighter jet fleet.” Good luck with that, fellas. The only people going home happy after this one are Lockheed Martin shareholders.