Original title: frequent US military accidents cause trust crisis

　　 In late April, the US Navy's aircraft carrier "Ford" cruised in the Asia Pacific region.

Recently, foreign media have successively disclosed negative news about the US military in many fields, including worrying about the quality of fighter jets and the impact of corruption scandals. Its spillover effect is unlikely to be eliminated in the short term.

Fighter accidents occur frequently. In early May, an F-22 fighter plane of the US military had an accident due to landing gear failure during a public performance, which was the second similar accident of the F-22 fighter in the past two months; Not long ago, one F-35C carrier based fighter was exposed to have failed to land during training and fell into the sea, which caused the aircraft to be grounded for testing; At the end of April, an F-16 fighter plane crashed near White Sands National Park in New Mexico due to failure.

There are problems with equipment quality. The US media revealed that the US military rejected the new fighter planes produced by Lockheed Martin, resulting in these fighters being piled up on the tarmac. It is said that the reason for rejection is that the performance of these fighters failed to meet the expected standards of the US military, and the upgrading of these fighters has been delayed for one year.

The United States Government Accountability Office disclosed that the F-35C and F-35B fighter planes had security problems such as "aircraft fuel contamination" and "wrong parts installation". Previously, the agency had exposed 966 technical problems with F-35 fighters, and also said that only 55% of F-35 fighters had mission capability.

Recently, the US Department of Defense and Boeing signed a military purchase order with a total amount of more than 7.4 billion US dollars, which again aroused domestic doubts in the US. Public opinion believes that Boeing has been blacklisted by some customers at home and abroad due to serious quality problems of its products. Under this circumstance, the US military still chooses to cooperate with Boeing, which will increase the safety risk.

In addition, the military floating dock built by the United States in the Gaza Strip with more than 1000 US marines at a cost of 320 million US dollars collapsed after only nine days of operation due to wind and waves. The US landing craft, which is responsible for salvage of wreckage, hit rocks on the coast and was trapped together with the floating wharf components that were blown away.

The flow of defense funds is questioned. The US media analyzed the audit results of the US Department of Defense in 2023, further studied the flow of defense funds, and found that half of the assets of the US Department of Defense could not be recorded through combing the US Department of Defense's US $3.8 trillion assets and US $4 trillion liabilities.

After the fermentation and diffusion of the media, the spillover effect of the US military's negative news continues to spread. The F-22 and F-35 fighter planes have suffered a series of accidents, leading to the grounding of the US Air Force's overseas deployment plan. For example, the US military plans to hold large-scale air combat training in the Asia Pacific region, and has deployed 70 fighters, including F-22 and F-35 fighters, in Japan, South Korea, Guam and other places. However, due to security factors and the pressure of external requirements to thoroughly investigate accident hazards, the training scale has shrunk significantly, and finally only F-35B fighters originally stationed in the region will be arranged to participate in the training, and some third-generation aircraft will be sent to temporarily "make up".

The US aircraft carrier strike group is also directly affected. Among the four batches of aircraft carrier strike groups carrying out cruise missions, three batches used F-35C carrier based fighter planes, which grounded the aircraft carrier strike group and reduced its deterrence. The "Ford" aircraft carrier strike group plans to go to Europe to participate in joint maritime exercises recently, but the F-35C carrier aircraft wing carried by the ship at present cannot pass the qualification certification due to early safety accidents.

In addition, the "difficulty of conscription" of the US military has further intensified. At the beginning of this year, a survey released by a US research center showed that more than half of US citizens under the age of 30 had negative views on the US military. It is reported that since this year, the US Department of Defense has taken many measures to recruit personnel and claimed to achieve full or even overstaffed operation within three years, but the successive negative problems will drag down this plan.

In the face of external doubts, the US military intends to restore its image, but the results are not good.

Secretary Kendall of the US Air Force explained the flow of defense funds at the congressional hearing and was repeatedly held accountable. Some legislators said that the utilization rate of funds for F-35 and other fighter planes was too low, and the actual value of parts purchased by the US Department of Defense for 90000 dollars was less than 100 dollars. Kendall could not explain the specific situation of "sky high price parts". As for the disintegration of the military floating dock in Gaza, the News Office of the US Central Command explained that it was caused by extreme special weather, but the domestic media in the United States believed that the basic reason was the poor design and quality of the project.