Until recently, that scenario was fancifully unimaginable. The United States has long been the global leader in such vital areas as aerospace and defense electronics. Unimaginable, that is, until now.

Indeed, a recent U.S. Air Force decision may augur the advent of this kind of alternate reality. By using questionable criteria that disadvantage U.S. manufacturers to unfairly award a huge, militarily critical contract to the European Aeronautics, Defense and Space Co. -- the aerospace giant controlled by France and Germany -- the U.S. Air Force actually could be unwittingly undermining the very industrial base that has defended the United States, Western Europe and much of the free world since the end of World War II more than 60 years ago.

The competition for the $35 billion contract to replace the 1960s-era old Boeing KC-135 tankers was billed by the news media as a clash of the aerospace titans, a trans-Atlantic dogfight between U.S.-based Boeing on the one hand and the Paris-based EADS -- and its minority American partner Northrop Grumman -- on the other.

Most experts put their money on Boeing; the U.S. firm has produced 2,000 tankers over the past 75 years, while EADS/Airbus has almost no experience producing them.

The award to Boeing would have supported 44,000 highly skilled aerospace jobs, many of which could employ returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. The award to EADS/Northrop Grumman would outsource most of those jobs to Europeans.

EADS also receives some $100 billion in what the U.S. trade representative alleges are illegal subsidies designed to take the market share from Boeing and other U.S. manufacturers.

But even though EADS used $5 billion of these subsidies to finance its tanker airframe, the no-risk funding couldn't make up for the company's complete inexperience in building tanker aircraft: Its KC-30 design is 52 percent larger and 32 percent heavier than Boeing's KC-767, and is far too large to operate out of many critical military bases in Asia.

Next: How EADS used its lobbying power.

(Antonio Gil Morales is national commander of the American GI Forum of the United States. The American GI Forum is a congressionally chartered veterans organization that represents the interests of more than 1.3 million veterans of Hispanic descent who have defended the United States in almost every major war of the 20th century and continue to risk their lives in the struggle against terrorism.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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