RSS Feed MenuIf the Obama administration shelves the F-22 fighter plane, we would be deliberately denying ourselves the cutting edge of technology. While technology is not a guarantee of victory, effective use of new technologies can be. Take, for example, artillery.
The first documented use of artillery—a sort of bamboo cannon—was in 1132 when Sung Dynasty General Han Shih-chung used them in combination with siege ladders to take Chien-chou (now Nan-yüan, Fukien Province) in a five-day siege, putting down the peasant revolt led by a “grass-headed emperor,” Fan Ju-Wei.
Several hundred years later, a component of the rise of the Ottoman Empire was their early adoption and effective use of artillery (and smaller firearms). To breach the walls of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmet the Conqueror hired Urban, a Hungarian gunsmith, to cast a twenty-seven-foot, nineteen-ton bombard capable of firing fifteen-hundred-pound stones seven times a day. At the time, it was likely the largest cannon the world had ever seen. (Here’s what it looked like — a slightly later gun of similar dimensions.) Urban’s feat remains commemorated in the Turkish name of the St. Romanus (the fifth gate from the north in the Theodosian Walls) which he successfully breached. The Turks dubbed it “the cannon gate.” The name — Top Kapõ — became attached in the nineteenth century to the “New Palace” now known universally (not least thanks to Eric Ambler and Jules Dassin) as Topkapi Palace.
In a less-known feat of arms, the Ottomans’ use of then-new artillery led to their destruction of the Safavid Persian forces at Chaldiran in 1514 and essentially established the western frontier of modern Iran.
Continuing forward, in the seventeenth century, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden advanced the project of turning the Baltic into a Swedish lake by downsizing artillery from large siege guns into small, handy cannon —particularly the “demiculverin” designed by his Urban, Lennart Torstensson. These new guns could be moved rapidly, aimed effectively, reloaded quickly, massed to fire unprecedented volley fire, and integrated with infantry and cavalry.
In none of these instances was the technological component — here artillery — the sole reason why the victors won. Constantinople was likely doomed, as the Byzantines themselves recognized, having been ready to capitulate earlier only to be forced by their Venetian “allies” to fight to the last Greek. The Ottomans had the best-trained, best-organized, best-supplied, and generally most fearsome land army on earth by the early sixteenth century. Gustavus Adolphus built what is considered the first modern army, with combined-arms doctrine, professional soldiers cross-trained in a variety of disciplines, and units treated equally, without the traditional hierarchies (cavalry on top, infantry at bottom) of late-medieval and early-modern armies.
That said, the role of these guns in their victories was considerable and noted by observers at the time — and after. Other aspects of military history show the same lesson: Cutting-edge technology employed by capable militaries can win battles — and wars.
The utility of missile-defense technology in an age of rogue states with small numbers of ballistic missiles, WMDs, and anti-American ideologies is doubtless obvious enough to the FrumForum.com readership.
The F-22, as the highest-profile item on the cut list, may not be. To establish the F-22 as the Urban’s Bombard of the day, let me briefly sketch its capabilities: it’s the fastest and most maneuverable fighter plane ever created, by a wide margin. It’s stealthy to the point where it can frequently take out large numbers of the enemy without ever appearing on their radar, and the combination of these features makes it a generational leap in fighter technology (It’s the first true “fifth-generation” fighter in aviation jargon).
As such, it is an overwhelmingly effective tool for establish air superiority, a sine qua non on the modern battlefield.
Under the Gates budget plan, the Air Force will receive 187. Is that enough? Well, considering that it was designed to replace 660 F-15s, probably not. The Air Force, when they last could speak publicly, wanted 60 more, a pretty reasonable number and already down massively from the original figure of 750. (Bumped down sequentially to 648 [1996], 442 [1994], and 339 [1997].)
Secretary Gates has stated that the Air Force “wants” only 187, but there’s at least some reason to doubt that.
One argument frequently bruited by knowledgeable people is that, with the lower-cost F-35 coming into production, the very expensive F-22 is no longer worth the money. The flaws in this argument are two. First, while the F-35 shares the F-22’s stealthy characteristics, it’s neither as fast nor designed primarily for air-to-air engagements.
Since the 1970s, the Air Force has had what they call a “Hi-Lo” mix of fighters: expensive cutting-edge air-superiority fighters (the F-15 in that current role) and less-expensive lower-tech planes (currently the F-16) designed for attacking things, mostly on the ground, other than fighter planes.
The F-35 was designed primarily as a replacement for these attack planes, the Air Force’s F-16, the Navy’s base-model F/A-18, and the Marines’ AV-8/B Harrier, multi-role planes that have decent, though mainly defensive air-combat capabilities with ground-attack weaponry. In consequence, to do the same job in terms of covering the same amount of sky, you need to buy significantly more F-35s and/or divert them from multirole duty to full-time air-superiority.
One analyst calculates that, given the speed and air-combat design differences between the planes, you need ten F-35s to do the job of six F-22s, 66% more. At a current unit cost (inflated by the shrinking divisor of planes bought) of $137.5M, six F-22s cost $825M. At a projected $83M fly-away cost (in 2011), ten repurposed F-35s will cost $830M. If this analysis is correct, the cost issue is a wash, and the F-22’s significant technological advantages should carry the day.
Another argument made for killing the F-22 is strategic. As Barney Frank (D-MA) put it in typically blunt terms, “We have an airplane, the F-22, that is designed to defeat the Soviet Union in a war, and I think we can save billions.” Ignoring the fact that Congressman Frank has called for cutting the military by a quarter and his arguments against the F-22 might consequently be simply the means to his end, the argument that the U.S. may not require a high-quality air-superiority fighter given the absence of a Soviet-style rival isn’t trivial.
But it’s wrong. Ever since Les Aspin and Donald Rumsfeld became enamored of the budgetary and gee-whiz appeal of the “Revolution in Military Affairs” (i.e., the application of information technology to war fighting), there has been a push in the Pentagon for a smaller, “smarter” military. It’s one of the reasons that the military came up against troop constraints in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Because of the nature of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, where relatively straightforward campaigns were overshadowed by years of counter-insurgency fighting (COIN), there has also been a strategic rethinking about the use of the Army, away from a large-scale instrument to fight Soviet-sized enemies, to a more flexible force designed to combat insurgent-type forces.
Last, the Air Force and the Navy, not having had much of a role in the Iraq and Afghan aftermaths, have found their stock at a low in terms of budget and vision.
The combination of the RMA theory, the COIN doctrine, and the Air Force and Navy‘s slipping, not to mention Sec. Gates’ condemnation of “next-war-itis” have all left the U.S. military looking a lot like we’re brilliantly prepared to refight our last wars. While that’s great for producing budgets, since you know your needs, history teaches that’s a bad place to be. Sec. Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns” lurk regardless.
One wants as many options at one‘s disposal as possible. And just as our conventional invulnerability encouraged terrorism and other tactics on the part of our enemies, the new shape of our military will encourage them to develop their capabilities to hit us where we are weakest.
China is the obvious military threat on the horizon, with its official (understated) military budget having risen from $15B in 2000 to over $70B in 2008 (chump change in U.S. terms, but getting massive for a power that has only one real theater it’s currently interested in). China continues to develop anti-satellite weaponry, good fourth-generation fighter planes, and plans to develop an aircraft carrier (which, like missile subs, is a purely offensive, power-projection platform).
Russia remains probably the highest-technology opponent the U.S. has, fielding fourth-and-a-half generation fighters like the Su-35, and attempting to build a fifth-generation one (under the rubric PAK FA), though there are questions as to whether they can do it, particularly in an era of low oil prices. (The PAK FA is projected to cost in the neighborhood of an F-22, probably around $110M-$120M.)
And, of course, there’s the usual rogues’ gallery of over-armed thugs, particularly Iran and North Korea, which often possess very substantial air defenses (requiring the attention of planes like the F-35).
Fighting any one of these states likely wouldn’t require more than the current complement of F-22s, but given that all these states know that they’d lose any one-on-one military challenge to the U.S., it’s much more likely that they’d loosely coordinate whatever aggressions they’d want to make in order to spread U.S. assets as widely as possible. Just to pick a few at random, say, the Russians decided they wanted the Baltic States back, China figured it was an opportune moment to grab Taiwan and the Spratlys, and North Korea and/or Iran executed some act of nuclear terrorism — setting off a dirty bomb in the U.S., or lobbing a ballistic nuke at Israel or South Korea, the U.S. — especially with lots of troops still in Afghanistan and to some extent Iraq — would be very hard pressed to respond effectively with the military we have.
Moreover, the strategic analysis also neglects the fact that, even were the F-35 95% as effective as the F-22, that five percent can make the difference in a war, and with the F-35 a multi-nation program, envisioned as being sold even beyond its development partners, its technology will be (indeed, is) far more available to be stolen or copied.
As we cut our budgets and technology, the gap between our military and our enemies’ shrink. The entire F-22 program, gold-plated and overpriced as it’s been dubbed by its critics, has a cost of about $65B dollars. And another 60 would cost $9B. That’s a heck of a lot of money. It’s also about three tenths of a percent of the three trillion dollars in “stimulus” spending, or slightly more than half of the money that the government initially flushed down the GM-Chrysler rathole to ensure the U.S. remains a world leader in poorly-built cars and union job banks.
Whatever one considers the merits of the F-22, that the military should have to entertain these kinds of dramatic cuts at a time when we’re literally printing money to cover outlays on far more frivolous things is appalling.
Congress should ignore the administration’s request and buy at least the sixty more proposed. If cost is really an issue (in this insane spending environment), the unit cost can be driven down quickly by selling several dozen to our top-line allies whose security we trust. Japan, Australia, and Israel already want the F-22, but we’re forbidden to sell the plane by law (another reason to suspect that the capabilities gap between the F-22 and F-35 is greater than often advertised).
We can’t know what the future holds, and we have a superb weapon in the F-22. To prepare to phase it out in favor of inferior (as yet unproven) technology is to ignore a large lesson of history: that if a great military advances the technological state of the art, it remains very, very hard to beat.
Si vis pacem, para bellum goes the adage, and no advantage we have over those who would love to end today’s “unipolar” pax Americana is as significant as our application of high technology. The F-22 is the incarnation of this advantage when it comes to owning the skies, which in turn makes winning on the ground and the seas much, much easier. Shelving it seems to court peril unnecessarily.
Midwest // Apr 13, 2009 at 1:31 am
Nicely Written Article — too bad you took a Cheap Shot against US Automakers. Was the Cheap Shot about US automaker quality relevant to your points about the F-22? And do you have any experience with US cars in the Last 5 years or so to Justify it? GMs recent product is Very High Quality. Perhaps a Website that wants to make a New Conservative Majority can skip cheap shots that will be remembered longer by those who disagree than those who agree?
krove // Apr 13, 2009 at 7:52 am
The defence budget is being increased by 6%. How that is a cut I don’t really know. Sure sounds like an increase to me.Gates knows what he is talking about. He has decided to put more money into areas where we currently have shortfalls. Insurgency and smaller country problems. Unconventional warfare. And less in these super expensive platforms that may never be needed. It’s not as though we don’t have F22’s We do.The defence lobbyists will be working overtime to kill this plan so maybe it won’t happen and we will end up with these planes sitting in mothballs for years.
bloodstar // Apr 13, 2009 at 8:30 am
Personally I’m Meh on the F-22, we’re reaching the point of diminishing returns when it comes to an aircraft with Air to Air Combat. You can argue that the F-35 is only 60% as effective as the F-22, but then that’s only 60% effective as a fighter. Which doesn’t include the benefit you receive from the F-35 in the other attack roles (close ground support, Tactical bombing… etc). In addition your 60% effectiveness is a WAG, so you’re saying that the F-35 would only shoot down 60% of the planes that the F-35 would shoot down? given 10 F-14s flown by Iran, would the F-35 only shoot down 6 of them versus an equal number of F-22s? I’m dubious.At this point the Russians are having to work with India in order to begin development of a 5th generation fighter. The Chinese aren’t even going to begin test flying for several more years (and from there it will take 5 – 10 years before any production begins). You have interesting arguments, but you haven’t shown a compelling need to continue production of the F-22 over the F-25.
ottovbvs // Apr 13, 2009 at 8:32 am
The defence budget is being increased. What’s changing is the ordering of priorities. Ultimately the guy making this decision is a very experienced middle of the road Republican who impresses the hell out of me. Lined up against him are the “my state or no state” members of congress who don’t care who or have no understanding of the relative merits of weapon systems required for the defense of the country over the next 20 years…..all that matters is that their state keeps getting it’s pork….the list of these includes Democratic semi pacifists and Republican spending cutters. Then there are the weapons manufacturer’s themselves who just want to make more money at the public trough. Next come the military men themselves who just want more money for their service. And finally there are the extreme nationalists who don’t think 54% of the total world defense expenditures is enough they want it to be 100%…or better still 125%. They are not very interested in efficiency or effectiveness either. At the end of the day the only guy in possession of all the info is Gates and his immediate advisors. I’m willing to trust his judgement over the know nothings and porkers.
A.B. // Apr 13, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Nice to hear from you, JMB. I think a good comparison might be the F-4 “Phantom,” and the problems with multi-role aircraft design in the generation prior to the F-15. (Not that I don’t enjoy a good artillery story; Batteries Hearn and Smith weren’t much use on Luzon, in 1941/2, but that is a contrary metaphor…) The point is, I think, about having to relearn lessons learned, the hard way, about aircraft design. That said, I’m not convinced, I don’t know enough about the F-35, except that it has problems…
ADPL // Apr 13, 2009 at 2:20 pm
This issue is actually probably the most important issue the Republican party is dealing with right now, so I think I’m going to try for a longish post here to get the point across. The party has lost two elections because its military policy is stuck, and it needs fresh new ideas to build a new majority. Some of these ideas may be distasteful, but it is important for American conservatives to sit down and recognize the truth and always attempt to be true to reality.First, the F-35 is a bribe to NATO “allies” to maintain a dead alliance decades after its use has ended. It is no more relevance to our military needs then Canada has a vested interest in fighting a land war in Asia. The plane isn’t terrible either. It isn’t meant to win a war, but then again neither is the F-22. In the most likely scenario the vast majority of the F-35s never see combat. And if they do, we have already reached a point where nuclear war is inevitable. Their actual capabilities really don’t matter all that much.The problem isn’t between the F-22 and the F-35, or F-22s and keeping F-16s. The problem is between winning the war in Afghanistan or have a couple hundred more F-22’s? And I’m not saying that we could win the war in Afghanistan with more money, but a lot of people in this country want to try to win that war and there is a trade off here. We are in a time where our military is actually fighting wars today. Not the possible future-wars of tomorrow, but the wars of right now. And due to incompetencies of our government and leaders, these wars have not gotten the resources needed to result in peace. Gates is facing an ultimatum, and for the price of one more F-22 over DC or New Mexico for the next 10 or 20 years, you could probably easily protect ten villages in Afghanistan for the remainder of this war. When faced with that choice, can we blame the President for pushing this policy?So which would you rather have, the one more F-22, or another regiment in Iraq? The FCS, or Armored vehicles for troops? Missile Defense or adequate funding for health and wages and guarantees for soldiers, who have been forced to keep fighting tour after tour because we didn’t hire enough troops to replace them?The F-22 is an amazing fighter plane. It is a representation of the America’s military, technological, and industrial achievements and symbolizes the our greatness of our super power. As a peacetime tool it would be phenomenal in making us feel adequate in our dominance, act as corporate welfare towards our defense industries, and also could be used in fighting a low (American) casualty war that we like so much. Something like the first Gulf War with its 100 days of bombing. Or if nuclear weapons are abolished and they’d help win a small scuffle with China or Russia. (cont)
ADPL // Apr 13, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Sorry I just realized that the posts go up, this is the second half.–We all need to recognize we are fighting in two wars that we’re not winning and it’s costing us a lot of money just to be where we’re at in those wars, let alone trying to build stable nations. And at the end of the day, trying to win those conflicts is more important to this administration then paying out the nose for essentially the modern version of dressage.If the Republican Party is prepared to make the case that dressage is more important then trying to win Afghanistan, I’d be shocked but I could see it. Building a few hundred more F-22s is more important in the long run, and more consistent with Reagan conservatism, then escalating a war in Afghanistan. If the Republicans are prepared to make the (probably true) case that the Wars on Terrorism are not winnable (therefore, we should spend our defense budget on more useful things like super-awesome jet fighters and lasers), couldn’t a liberal come along and just claim that the money that goes into a F-22 could go into feeding children or medicine to old people? I fail to see how any of these outcomes end well.Oh… you probably want both (Win the war and cool Jets) don’t you. Are you prepared to raise taxes to build these planes? Are you prepared to transfer billions of dollars from working Americans to the stakeholders of Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, and all the others just so you can have your nice and modern military-industrial complex. Or just do what Bush did and issue more debt so that future Americans can have less so we can have nice cool toys today.You need to get over the Bushian ideas that are poisoning the party. As David Frum argues, the policy ideas of Conservatives worked too well for solving the problems of the past, and now they have no new ideas for today’s problems. Large do-nothing defense budgets is in this sense like tax cuts. Really great in the 1980’s and today it’s a broken record panacea given out by silly ideologues. Perhaps the party should get in touch with its real conservative roots. Maybe it’s time to be the party of Eisenhower. Try to be the party that says no to corporate welfare to defense firms. No to never-ending unfunded wars and conflicts. No to weapons we don’t need to fight in wars that are unnecessary and avoidable to maintain an empire that we don’t want.How about instead of spending tens of billions of dollars to build a weapon designed to poorly fight a war against nations like Iran, we seek to liberalize trade with them and try to reopen diplomatic relations. Preserving peace seems to be a much cheaper option in the long run, and that should be the stance for conservatives to build their new majority.
sinz54 // Apr 13, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Here is a chart showing national defense expenditures as a percentage of GDP:http://tinyurl.com/dndeasAs you can see, the percentage of U.S. GDP going to national defense is lower today than in any period between 1962 and 1993. And here is a chart comparing the trends in defense spending vs. non-defense spending, by the Federal Government, over roughly that same time period, in inflation-adjusted real dollars:http://tinyurl.com/clnlbdAs you can see, defense spending has bobbed up and down with perceived foreign threats or the perceived lack of same. While non-defense spending has been rising in an upward trend; the Federal Government is now spending TWICE as much (in inflation-adjusted real dollars!) on non-defense as it did in 1965.These charts prove that the notion that “we can’t afford to spend more on defense” is a myth. During the Reagan Administration, the U.S. spent 6% of its GDP on defense. If we were spending that percentage today, we could have all the F-22s we wanted, and lots more besides, as well as fully funding the Afghanistan war.The reason we’re not spending that percentage today is ideological, not economic. Obama has other uses for Federal dollars, like day-care and other such trivialities.
sinz54 // Apr 13, 2009 at 3:52 pm
ADPL: Air supremacy (or at least air superiority) has been the mainstay of U.S. military power since World War II. It was air superiority that broke the back of Saddam’s armed forces in both 1991 and 2003. Air superiority is what enables America to win wars without huge standing armies, armies that would require a military draft.Today, that air superiority is being challenged by the latest fifth-generation Russian fighters, being sold by the bushel to our adversaries like Venezuela. They have wiped out the qualititative advantage of our F-15s and F-16s–in war games and in simulations, our F-15s actually *lose*, with slightly more F-15s downed than enemy planes. Beyond that, our F-15’s are *old*–they’ve been dogfighting since they were built in the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, some of them have crashed due to metal fatigue.SecDef Gates said that the U.S. really does need a fifth-generation fighter, and he’s right. I believe he went with the F-35 simply because to cancel it would destroy our relations with our allies who are also building the plane. (If we don’t need it, why do the supposedly “pacifist” Europeans want it so badly? And if the F-22 and F-35 don’t add anything to our Air Force’s capabilities, then why does the Israeli Air Force want *both* planes so badly?)At the very least, the U.S. ought to buy just enough F-22s each year to keep the production line open and keep the engineers and technicians from being forced to seek employment elsewhere. If another, well-armed adversary rears its ugly head somewhere in the world, we’re going to regret not having those F-22s.
pampl // Apr 13, 2009 at 8:49 pm
The problem with your examples is that you’re only looking at the successful uses of technology. While the Ottoman empire was conquering its neighbors (using military tech already proven successful by the West) its Middle Eastern targets were investing in forging the pinnacle of sword technology. That’s what the F-22 looks like to me.
ottovbvs // Apr 14, 2009 at 5:58 am
sinz54 3:52 PM”It was air superiority that broke the back of Saddam’s armed forces in both 1991 and 2003.”…..These were colonial wars against a fourth rate powerAnd now the air force have now announced they don’t want any more of these planes.
ottovbvs // Apr 14, 2009 at 6:00 am
“It is a representation of the America’s military, technological, and industrial achievements and symbolizes the our greatness of our super power. As a peacetime tool it would be phenomenal in making us feel adequate in our dominance,”…….Sounds like Ceasescu’s palace in Bucharest
sinz54 // Apr 14, 2009 at 10:04 am
ottovbvs: Gee, that’s not what you liberals were saying in the months leading up to the Gulf War. Ted Kennedy voted no on it, claiming that we would suffer over 10,000 KIA.I’m really sick and tired of this revisionism.FYI, military theory is that to successfully invade another nation, you need to have decisive numerical superiority ON THE GROUND. Before the Gulf War began, Iraq had the fourth largest army in the world–much larger than the U.S. Army and Marines combined. And they could take punches–they fought Iran for years.General Schwartzkopf used air power brilliantly to degrade Iraq’s armed forces so that the U.S. Army would only then have that numerical superiority.In short, you need to learn something about how wars are actually fought. And you also need to learn that NO ENEMY is “fourth rate” until after they’ve either surrendered or been killed. They’re always dangerous until then.
sinz54 // Apr 14, 2009 at 10:06 am
ottovbs: I notice you didn’t address my other point: Fighter jets that have been flying in combat conditions for 30 years are reaching the end of their useful service life: Pull heavy Gs and they may just come apart due to metal fatigue. That’s already happened with a few of our F-15 jets.Tell me something: Do you drive a 30 year old car?
ottovbvs // Apr 14, 2009 at 11:24 am
sinz54 10:04 AMa) I’m not a liberal but a pragmatist and I never thought it was anything other than a colonial war whatever Ted Kennedy thoughtb) I’m not against the use of airpower so no need to give me all the motherhood arguments but it’s all relative. The airforce seem to have settled the argument by saying they don’t need any more of these planes but want to increase purchases of other types so they won’t have to drive 30 year old planes.c) Your arguments would have more weight absent the exaggerations.
pampl // Apr 14, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I guess the Gulf War was a colonial war, in that Iraq was trying to occupy Kuwait to extract its natural resources as if it were a colonial power. Kind of a loaded way of describing it though
Howard432 // Apr 14, 2009 at 3:29 pm
You are mostly correct re; F22 but it is pretty well agreed that dog fighting aircraft is over. It’s now a launching rockets and stuff to get the other planes thing while remaining largely invisible to radar. Just because Russia has the SU whatever, a plane that is close to the F22 in performance is no reason to go crazy for the F22. We are constantly being abused by zero tech assholes with not even a kite for air power (the Pirates, Al Qaeda, etc.). Just a thought: is the F22 necessary?
Clarence Darrow // Apr 14, 2009 at 9:46 pm
I don’t buy all of this, The F22 is pork at this point in my mind.
sinz54 // Apr 15, 2009 at 8:01 am
Howard432: “….while remaining largely invisible to radar.” The F-22 is stealthy, while none of our current fighters is stealthy. (The famous F-177 stealth fighter was recently retired from service.)
sinz54 // Apr 15, 2009 at 8:02 am
ottovbvs: Kuwait was a sovereign member of the United Nations. It was invaded and occupied in violation of the United Nations Charter.If the U.N. cannot protect a member state from outright invasion by a foreign army, what good is it?
sinz54 // Apr 15, 2009 at 8:05 am
ottovbvs: I recall that prior to Obama’s sharp total defense cuts, the Air Force very much wanted the F-22. But when Obama grandfathered the Iraq and Afghanistan wars into the baseline defense budget, while holding the baseline to a mere 4% increase, he basically whacked the services to a tune of tens of billions of dollars.The Air Force was faced with a choice between the F-22 and having to sacrifice operations and maintenance.
gibberish // Apr 15, 2009 at 9:32 am
As far as I can see the argument of this article is that is the US wanted to go to war with Russia, China and Korea at once and deal with a 2nd 9/11 at the same time then 60 more F-22s would make a differenceWhat nonsense and does the US taxpayer what to pay to be able to fight everyone at once? Already paying as much as the rest of the world put together….