[rlmorel]

True...there could have been some kind of unforeseen turbulence, a hardware or software failure, that kind of thing.

That is an expensive mistake, but that is the world we live in.

I often wonder, if we get into a real shooting war with an enemy bent on attriting (not even sure if that is a word) us and capable of doing it, would we be able to draw from the boneyard?

I mean, hell, an F-18 from the boneyard may be better than nothing, even if there are 5th Gen fighters prowling around. They can’t be everywhere...

[Veggie Todd]

at·trit (ə-trĭt′)
tr.v. at·trit·ted, at·trit·ting, at·trits or at·trit·ed or at·trit·ing
To weaken or reduce in number by stress or military action: "attriting enemy forces faster than they could be replaced"
(Lewis Sorley ).

[Gen.Blather]

I spent 33 years in the industrial side of the military industrial complex. In an absolute pull-out-all-the-stops-we’re-all-gonna-die emergency, we could probably turn around a weapon’s program in a year. It would be colossally expensive. But refurbishing an f-18 is possible, but it would probably take a year for each one. (Naturally, you would start on a whole bunch at once.) The normal cycle from development to delivery is ten years.

Most likely if we are getting attrited (yes, it’s a word) we would not need a huge number of fifth generation planes. Most likely what has happened is someone is building massive numbers of drones of all sizes and our size and technology advantage is not as great as it is now. That’s the nature of warfare. Someone develops armor which gets more expensive and elaborate and someone else develops a gun or the long bow and the armor, which previously ruled the battlefield, is now useless. Also drones will get cheaper and more capable and they are almost impossible to defend against.

If we’re talking planes I suspect the thing to do would be to ramp up the production of the very capable propeller planes the AF is buying for special purpose low intensity theaters now.

The thing that has made America a super power is not so much technology, but an economic model that consistently beats all the other models. Capitalism. The way to defeat the US is to destroy, one, capitalism, and, two, the family, and, three the education system. All of those destructions are underway. Trump is the fist president to fight back. I think from that perspective he is better than Reagan. Although, Reagan had other more pressing issues, which he handled well.