Numbers Matter: Strategic Consequences of F-22 Termination
7th November 2013
When the US Air Force launched the F-22 program over two decades ago, it sought to deploy around 750 of these multirole fighters, to replace over 600 F-15 variants and 60 F-117A stealth fighters. At that time the F-22’s stealth capabilities and performance were specified to defeat a projected future Soviet air defence threat. Two decades later that exact threat capability has materialised – exactly as then predicted by USAF technological strategists – but on the global stage, rather than the territories of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
The common catchcry of F-22 critics that the aircraft is “designed to defeat an non-existent Soviet threat” is little more than a convenient deception: these threat capabilities do now exist but are being exported globally, making it very likely that the US will have to soon confront them in combat, as compared to the defunct scenario of fighting WW3 against the Soviets.
Food stamps buy votes, advanced fighter jets don’t, although the latter are an essential function of government and the former are not.
This is what happens when you let politicians run your government.