Instead of discussing the points pro and con, a number of folks tried to discredit the article because of where it was published on the claim that CDI is a "communist" publication especially because of its association with the the now long retired Gene La Rocque.
However, Sprey, and another author of numerous publications on this cite, Chuck Spinney, have rock solid credentials, and so that line of attack is not legitimate, if it ever were, both being very much advocates and developers of many of the systems, concepts and doctrines that underpin modern defense strategy, whether or not those who think they are guardians of the RMA flame would accept them as full fledge members of the RMA crowd.
Thus, my argument, instead of the ad hominems, ad communismums, ad intelligentium extremum, ad phonia and other kinds of ad hocos pocos is that the JSF should be debated on its merits, as it should in any case, and not by efforts to smear, as somehow dishonerable, the individuals who have taken a stand against it.
Well, if you go back and read my comments, you will see that I have confined my arguments entirely to the merits of the issue, and so as between us your post is an evasion of the point on the merits that I’ve made several times now.
So have at the merits already.
The historical record does not permit you to cast the reformers like Sprey and Spinney as the fathers of the RMA - they were diametrically opposed to the systems and technologies that constitute the RMA.
It is a valid substantive point that events appear to have proven them dead wrong, because if their analysis was deeply erroneous before, then the same analysis presented now with respect to the F-35 is also likely to be wrong and for the same reasons.
None of this ultimately proves the F-35 is a good program, or that the Air Force is in good shape. It is a question of whether Spinney and Sprey got it right this time after getting it wrong so many other times, and when they give no credit to the RMA capabilities of this system. Instead, they analyze it strictly according the criteria of visual range dogfighting with guns, as if that were the entire air combat envelope.