F-35 is redundant. Kill it.
The last Air Force secretary and Air Force Chief of Staff were fired on the same day, a historic first.
Putting all of one’s eggs into one basket is strategically questionable.
Pair down the program, stretch it out, phase out JSTARS and keep AWACS. You’re going to need it against China one day.
Ping.
What’s interesting is that this fighter’s production would be done in many different nations including TURKEY....Islamist Turkey. Hmmmm. Interesting. And troubling!
Funny, I’ve never heard about an AWACS being taken down by the enemy. AWACS and JSTAR play a huge part in combat management. An F-35 can’t coordinate mid-air refueling, or identify enemy movement, or, I doubt, be able to determine what’s going on in the air and on the ground over an expanded surface of Earth. I once saw a graphic taken by JSTAR at night during the early part of the first Iraqi war. JSTAR lit up everything moving. Thousands of Iraqis and equipment were headed north, away from Kuwait. Cool pict.
I don’t know if getting rid of JSTARS would be a good idea, until you can find an aircraft that can cover such a large area such as JSTARS, there will always be a need for intelligence on ground movement, even with China. Furthermore, taking any part of the iron triad (AWACS, JSTARS, RJ) would be detrimental to U.S. ISR capabilities (a very potent capability that not many countries can duplicate, even China and Russia).
On the other hand many countries are very capable of producing/training fighters (aircraft/fighter pilots). Throwing money into something that we do not have an obvious advantage over is not wise. Investing in just fighter aircraft that can be equipped with ISR pods is very short sighted strategic planning (it would be like looking through a soda straw on those aircraft) ISR ops is the unique capability that the U.S. does and does better than any country at this point in time, cutting these would equate to shooting ourselves in the foot.