Honest question - do you believe F-16s with AESA and improved avionics (say the USAF adds UAE type Block 60 Vipers to its inventory) would be able to survive in a 2015/20 environment against a near-peer like, say, China? I personally do not, but I am willing to be convinced otherwise. I do think the Viper is a good and dependable airframe, but it has never been put up against true opposition (Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, etc do not count ...in much the same way that the success of the SU-27s flown by the Russians for Ethiopia against monkey-model Eritrean's MiG-29s flown by Ukranians should not count). The only case of a true near-peer between the F-16 and another airframe was between a Greek Mirage-2000 and a Turkish F-16 (Greece and Turkey are near-peers of each other), and the result was that the Mirage shot down the F-16. There have been other cases of Greek Mirages painting Turkish Vipers (as well as several of Indian Fulcrums doing the same to Pakistani Vipers), but this incident was the first that actually led to a missile shot (the pilot died).
The 2015-2020 timeframe will see the Asian region having a proliferation of advanced gen-4.5/4++ fighters, AESA RADARs, and advanced IAD SAM networks. Hence my question - while I respect the Viper, and believe against the right opponent it is near-perfect (e.g. dropping a JDAM or in the future SDB and ruining some Jihadi's day), will it really be sufficient looking at its developmental arc (the airframe is basically mature in terms of further development, unless one really went into some of the Viper prototypes like the cranked arrow F-16XL airframe with the avionics from the Block 60 ...and a new airframe like the XL would probably currently cost quite a bunch considering that the F-15SE is expected to go for around US100m) as well as what is happening elsewhere? Do you honestly believe the F-16 would be sufficient?