One reason why the DOD budget is so large

The epitome of the Air Force’s self-image is the F-22 fighter. At $355 million for each of the 184 purchased, it is history’s most expensive fighter aircraft, but it is yet to fly its first sortie in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it likely never will. As an air-to-air fighter, it is irrelevant to those conflicts. It may even be a gigantic flop against the non-existent major conventional air force it is designed to fight: too few are affordable to deal with such a foe; it is an aerodynamic performer that on close inspection is a huge disappointment; and it relies on a radar-based “beyond visual range” air-to-air combat hypothesis that has failed time and time again to deliver meaningfully effective results in real air combat.

uh-oh. Somebody stepped in it big time.  Building massive flying weapons is not the same as building practical weapons that do what they are intended to do.

 Each of the military services deem themselves free of any pretense of restraint by budgets approved by the president and secretary of defense, but the Air Force has put itself in a category all its own for its unbridled lust for extracurricular money.

Nowhere has the Air Force’s sense of self-entitlement been more obvious than in the unending scandals surrounding the acquisition of new air refueling tankers. Its 2001 plan to “lease-purchase” Boeing 767 airliners as tankers at costs well above the price of just purchasing them came to a demise only after Sen. John McCain. R-Ariz., and the Justice Department found an Air Force official colluding with a Boeing corporate manager (both were subsequently jailed).

uh-oh.  Spending money because they can, not because it is the wise thing to do.

So now you have one reason why the DOD budget is larger than the rest of the world combined:  ignorant Air Force generals choosing super weapons that are not useful and too expensive.