Bengo
I think you are correct that this comes from politicians, but that does not make it ok.
The public would be upset about an aircraft piling through the roof, yes, but not half as upset as they will be if we end up speaking German/Russian/Swahili etc because we had an ego military that looks shiney in peacetime but can't do the business because we forgot how to live with risk.
Incidentally, in the bad old days before flight safety was invented and the skys were full of crashing aircraft, how many piled into cities causing mass loss of life?
When doing a risk assessment, one should take into account not just the consequences of something happening, but also the chances of it happening.