Reader’s Digest version?
Destroying the tooling for F-22 to get funding for the F-35. If true, that kind of stupidity is, just stupid.
I have always been a proponent of numbers, and numbers are our enemy. Both the F-22 and F-35 numbers can’t stand attrition in battle. That kind of falls on F-15 and 16, with little in between. Old vs new. As time goes by the old are getting older, and their numbers are also reduced by age and technology. Where is the fighter that can fight, not a suicidal battle, but on even equal terms with the enemy. To be technologically superior requires more money than is practical to maintain the numbers necessary for battlefield attrition.
One very important part of the equation, is how and what the future air superiority is going to look like. Just what will it take to control the sky you wish to control. Is it airplanes, is it Satellites, is it tech and comm, or the expensive combination of all?