Discussion

When the world's at stake, go beyond the headlines.

softwaredoug: Increased defense spending actually makes the US less, not more, safe. Everyone we're going to fight is prepared for an asymmetric, cheap war. We're vulnerable in how much they can make us spend to wage that war. A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone, etc.

themafia: It's a camel designed by committee.On paper it looks cool.In practice it was /never/ the right plane. The contractors knew and didn't care.

philipallstar: Well yes, we have a load of taxpayer funded people to decide what to build.

consumer451: The taxpayer funding is often the smaller part the complete lifetime pay package.> A 2014 study of U.S. Department of Defense appointees showed that 28% exited to industry. As of 2023, 80 per cent of U.S. four-star retirees are employed in defense industry.[0]There are actually reasonable, rational explanations for this, but it's not a great look.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)

PowerElectronix: The F-35 is the best stealth aircraft you can have in a war against china. But it alone is not going to win that war. I wouldn't say it's the wrong jet for that war just because of that.If you put the f-35 along all the rest of the us military, the war can be won and the f-35 plays a critical role in that win.

bigfudge: There is no in winning a war between the US and China, even assuming it doesn't go nuclear. There would only be losers all over the world. It would make the current Iran conflict look like a tiny speedbump (albeit one which is likely to cause malnutrition and starvation for millions of people in subsaharan Africa within 6-12 months).

varjag: Somewhat ridiculous piece. Ukraine, 4 years after, still operates a significant number of jets it entered the war with. This is despite hundreds of attempts to eliminate them on the ground with airstrikes, drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.And naturally F-35s on that theatre would have been a game changer making mass strikes on Moscow possible. For all the dysfunctions of American military industrial complex it remains a fighter without peers (unless you count F-22) or serious AD threat.

virtue3: That is totally false.They have been getting replacement MiG-29s and Su-25s from allies and are starting to use f-16s from NATO nations."A coalition of NATO countries, primarily the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium, are providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The United States authorized the transfer and is providing training and spare parts, with deliveries having begun in 2024 to strengthen Ukraine's air force against Russia."So yes, they still have an airforce. They're just getting re-supplied.Also the Ukrainian airforce was ULTRA conservative about sorties to make sure they conserved as many fighters as possible.

BobbyJo: "A significant number of jets it entered the war with" does not mean they haven't also gotten newer jets.

tpurves: The insight here is, that in current warfare, quantity is the quality that matters. And with quantity, cost of replacement needs to be low, platforms expendable, cheap to maintain and resupply. It, and it's support infrastructure, need to not easily be detected and targeted by drones while on the ground. F35 is not these things. It's powerful but brittle, and like many US platforms, too much value packed into too few platforms. Not enough sustain in prolonged modern conflict. A one-punch military.

flohofwoe: The funny thing is that the F-35 was supposed to be a low-cost platform. E.g. what the F-16 was to the F-15.

01100011: I agree to a point.But also look at Ukraine. They are punching well above their weight with asymmetrical tactics, but Russia is not defeated.Drones and other autonomous, cheap weaponry changes a lot. Smaller states and non-state actors can inflict much more serious and expensive damage now more than ever.Large weapons still matter though. If we ever were to enter an existential battle you would quickly see how big, expensive systems can still be advantageous. I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine or the US in Iran vs, say, WWII. Modern morality prevents such scale and tactics until it does not. Then suddenly what matters are big weapons and the huge supply chains powering a war machine.Both the US and Russia are also pivoting heavily towards drones, and they've been developing them for decades. Yes we have big, expensive weapons programs but we also have a lot of stuff ready or soon to be ready which is much, much cheaper.

fpoling: Yep, apparently Ukraine still cannot affect fuel production in Russia to any significant point. Drones with less than 100 kg of explosives do not do particularly significant damage. One really need to deliver like a ton or more of explosives and for that one needs bombers that can penetrate air defenses or very expensive stealth cruise missiles or big ballistic missiles.

lanthissa: theres a lot of things to critique about the us, but the f35 isn't one of them.Over the past few years we have seen it operate with impunity over multiple countries. It astounding to me that in the 12 day war and the iran conflict there hasn't been issues from maintance alone.We dont know how well the F35 holds up against patriots or s400's, but what we do know for certain is that against virtually everything else it unstopable.More so when you realize the us has 600 and is making another 200 a year, and in a real war, you would lose some but theres rough parity between the number of s400 systems that exist, and the number of f35s that exist, and all those s400's will never be in teh same war or same place.

anon84873628: The article isn't critiquing the F-35, in fact describes how "exquisite" it is multiple times.

xd1936: Opponents of the Dragon Tank point to it's 10-Million-Dollar fangs and 35-Million-Dollar prehensile tail and say this is somewhat excessive... But developing new technology is essential to maintaining America's military advantage.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxJLUZWPEb8(Re-Upload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8__8--YAm4)

jleyank: The world has changed in many ways. Countries might now consider having weapons systems that are less-dependent on the US/China/Russian triumvirate. And much of the defensive threats don't require stealth - they require availability on short notice and the ability to work in various conditions (cold/hot/etc).

aftbit: I think the insight is that you need a high-low mix. Some threats call for top of the line capabilities (like early days of the Iran conflict with stand-off munitions and top-spec interceptors being used against Shahed drones and cheap cruise missiles). Some threats can be more economically serviced by a less capable, cheaper, and more available system.

Sol-: Also seems that having a very capable military that lets you project power around the world also invites that power to be used. See for instance the Iran war. Quite pointless by all accounts and wouldn't have happened if the US didn't have aircraft carriers to send around the world.So perhaps thriftiness in defense spending would also invite a prioritization in actual defensive capabilities?

bawolff: I think the likely result would be more war. It wouldn't be with america, but without anerica providing protection to its allies in the region, the various countries in the region would probably be emboldened to fight it out themselves (im assuming in this scenario that russia and other great powers are also incapable of force projection. Obviously russia is busy right now, but historically they were knee deep in the middle east and much of us involvement now is a legacy of the cold war)

zitterbewegung: The premise that it is built for the "wrong war" is two fold. Design by committee didn't help the aircraft and made cost overruns and timelines worse but, the bigger premise or problem doesn't take to account that we still have other aircraft that fulfills other roles.Also, the collaborative combat aircraft is being developed with the F22 and F35. Arguably though the collaborative combat aircraft is a bigger challenge than the F35 program as a whole and it is still in development whether it can be completed. We could downsize the F35 fleet or provide it in military aid but, I don't we can truly say wrong war it will still be available when a different war occurs and Aircraft have a long shelf life.

aftbit: F-35 cost overruns are mostly solved. The cost of first-of-a-kind is always ludicrously expensive. Nth-of-a-kind, they're not so bad.

slibhb: He keeps citing China but the US isn't at war with China. For the wars that the US is fighting, i.e. against Iran and similarly equipped adversaries, the f-35 seems to be performing well.

TimorousBestie: A potential Chinese-American hot war is the conflict that today’s USAF and USSF should be preparing for.Winning sub-peer conflicts is fine for projecting hard power (when it works...) and protecting allies (when you have them...) but it doesn’t really budge the needle on national security.

slibhb: Fighting a war against China (presumably over Taiwan) doesn't seem like it would have much to do with national security.That aside, people are simply not able to model how the next peer conflict will be fought ahead of time. All sides will be learning as they go. Building complex systems like the F-35 seems like a good way to maintain engingeering/technology culture that can be adapted when the time comes.Also, I'm fairly skeptical of China's military. They keep purging people, and the human element in war seems underrated.

freediddy: I think ultimately the real weapon of mass destruction will be long-range drones the size of a DJI drone, each holding a small but extremely powerful explosive.And then send millions of them, with specific single targets. Each AI controlled to target single weakpoints in buildings, bridges, or even specific people. You can't stop a million of them even with EMPs because you can just end a million more. You can destroy entire cities with a technology like this. If each drone costs $10,000 and you send a million of them that's only $10 billion for a war and complete destruction of your enemy.

XorNot: You could also just write "magic" and say we should invest in wizards.No DJI sized drone using any available or near future technology is going to have a range of more then whatever 20 to 30 minutes of well-below subsonic flight time can get you.

freediddy: You could drop them from B2 bombers and they could fall to the ground en masse at hundreds of miles an hour and then the propellers could open up as they get closer to the ground.Or you could launch them in massive containers like in Infinity War and these containers filled with thousands of them would land on the ground and open up and release the drones.You're just not imaginative enough to solve the problem you described.

XorNot: So you know. Glide bombs. Which already exist and are already used and have a range of about 130km for a high altitude launch and a lot payload.Or some absurdly heavy ballistic missile...which would be worse then existing ballistic missiles and is the type of target for which Patriot is specifically designed for (along with a number of other systems now).This is an amazingly unserious post to the point I hope you're trolling. Or just twelve.

xkcd-sucks: > Think of a violin made by a master craftsman: beautiful, precise, capable of extraordinary performance, but impossible to produce quickly or cheaply. It takes time, rare expertise, and materials that cannot be sourced at scale. You would not equip an entire orchestra with instruments like that.Kinda lost me at the first sentence with this metaphor; you can and do equip an orchestra with instruments of similar caliber to the violins. Woodwinds are expensive. Bigger strings are expensive. Percussion is expensive. Maybe brass is cheap idk but there aren't many of them in an orchestra. In fact the plurality of instruments in most orchestras is violins.

_kulang: I think they mean that everyone in the orchestra does not get a Stradivarius

expedition32: The US not going full in on drones reminds me of the British ridiculing submarines.The Chinese are going to spam literally MILLIONS of drones all over the Pacific...

Terr_: > designed by committeeI've seen an argument--which I don't have enough expertise to advocate for--that the F35's broad but shallow appeal ("jack of all trades, master of none") has an indirect strength: A wider base of demand goes with a manufacturing and supply chain that is constantly active and can be ramped-up if needed.Speaking of military hardware in general, I can easily imagine there are cases where "best for logistics" completely trounces "best for the job".

Jtsummers: > A wider base of demand goes with a manufacturing and supply chain that is constantly active and can be ramped-up if needed.Except it can't really be ramped up. It's enormously expensive to build a single F-35, let alone maintain them, and the geographic distribution of the effort only makes that worse.And then they made it worse again by making many parts of the F-35 F-35 specific. You can't just drop in the same radio LRU from most other airframes and use it with the F-35, it has its own and its own maintenance cycles. The thing was designed to be expensive, it was not designed for manufacturing efficiency.

dralley: > Except it can't really be ramped up. It's enormously expensive to build a single F-35This is completely wrong, though. It's cheaper to build an F-35 than it is to build a Eurofighter, Rafale or Gripen, which are significantly older and less capable platforms.

wredcoll: I don't know if you've looked recently, but the pacific is, likev pretty big. Maybe even bigger than that.The primary problem with killing carriers is, has been, and will be, finding the things.[1]Drone strikes on oil refineries work because, with few exceptions, the refineries rarely move. You can literally program a drone to go x miles in a specific direction and then drop a bomb.It's also considerably harder to hide things like drones in big empty spaces.If loitering drones became a serious threat (as opposed to the, you know, literally super sonic missiles the navy has spent the last 40 years planning for) itms pretty easy to imagine anti-drone planes/ships/drones sweeping a large radius around your carriers.[1] Satellites can definitely do things, but they're not magical and people can track where they're looking and just... sail in a different direction. Also if someone was actually using satellites to target american carriers with munitions the americans would probably just destroy the satellites.

jandrewrogers: > A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone...I guess it is a good thing then that this isn't something they actually do.They use cheap weapons to shoot down cheap drones. Their primary anti-drone missile was developed in the 2010s and costs less than a Shahed.

bayindirh: Yet these cheap and effective weapons failed to protect high value targets, esp. radars.

jandrewrogers: That's a question of deployment, not capability. They've been used widely in the Middle East against drones since the 2010s with considerable success.

patrickmcnamara: Which system are you talking about?

jandrewrogers: APKWS.The US took the old Vietnam-era unguided rocket pods (Hydra 70), of which they produce hundreds of thousands every year, and slapped a dirt-cheap guidance kit to the front of each rocket. Supposedly 90-95% effective. A bunch of countries are developing their own clones of the concept.A single F-16 can carry 42 missiles. They've been rapidly expanding the number of platforms they can attach these to.

ericd: So we’ve made a small number of exquisite King Tigers, and they’re making huge numbers of Shermans?

tehjoker: Yes, if you keep your carriers out of striking range they are invincible! lmao

phainopepla2: > Satellites can definitely do things, but they're not magical and people can track where they're looking and just... sail in a different directionI know nothing about this really, so forgive my ignorance.Assuming a carrier is found and tracked by a satellite in the ocean, how could it possibly escape the satellite's detection before being targeted by a drone or some other type of munition? If the ship starts sailing in a different direction, the people (or AI) tracking via satellite would notice and adjust, right?

TheOtherHobbes: No one was going to launch mass strikes on Moscow. Russian nuclear doctrine would have treated that as an existential threat.The psychology of Ukraine's drone campaign as a response to Russia's original drone launches is very interesting. It's a classic boiling frog move.Drones are seen as an improvised amateur threat. Unlike a bombing campaign, which is seen as "proper war", drones are an annoyance. They're fragile, cheap, unglamorous, unsophisticated, easy to shoot down, and wasteful, because you need tens or hundreds to make sure a few get through.That gives drone campaigns a huge advantage. You can do a lot of damage and your enemy doesn't quite get what's happening.Psychologically, there's a Rubicon-level difference between someone dropping bombs on Leningrad from a plane and a drone swarm attacking the same targets.In practice the threat level is similar. Drones have absolutely become an existential threat to Russia.But psychologically, they're not seen as such.

ceejayoz: > Russian nuclear doctrine would have treated that as an existential threat.They claimed that with basically every little sprinkle of new aid for like two years, until everyone realized it was a bluff.Putin is many things, but actively suicidal looks like a no.

fsckboy: Russian stated nuclear doctrine has been treated by the Russians as an existential threat to Russia.

eek2121: Tell that to the folks on the front lines, along with folks on both sides, military or not, who have had to deal with it.Russia would never nuke Ukraine to begin with. They know that by doing so, most of the world would unite against them, and many, including Putin, would be on the chopping block.

bayindirh: Every instrument (brass, woodwind, even a simple triangle), past a certain threshold is expensive, and their sound is different to their lower priced peers, and yes, you can't equip every violinist with a $2MM violin, just because.Also, saying that instrument X is higher caliber to instrument Y is completely wrong. They all needs immense workmanship to produce, and immense effort to play. This effort can't be compared. A double bassist's finger spread for the first three positions is almost equal to whole keyboard/fretboard of a violin, but a violin can play 8x more notes with a bow when compared to the double bass. Momentum is a strong adversary when you try to change direction with a full size German bow.You might think woodwinds are easy. A French horn player needs to play adjacent notes with small lip movements. That's an unforgiving blade's edge. A tuba player needs lungs of a whale to keep that long notes, etc. etc.Also, just because viola, cello and double bass looks like a violin is borderline insult to all of them at once, and ignoring the other heavy lifters like clarinets, oboes and fagots.Like how the article outlines. An expensive violin is good for a solo performance, but loses its importance in an orchestra. Like how F-35 becomes the wrong thing when the theater of war calls for different conventions and operates with completely different dynamics.P.S.: Yes, I have played double bass in a symphony orchestra.

wredcoll: > Also, just because viola, cello and double bass looks like a violin is borderline insult to all of them at once, and ignoring the other heavy lifters like clarinets, oboes and fagots.I don't think that last bit translated well.Beyond that, what on earth are you talking about. Frankly what is the grandparent talking about? $2m violins cost that much because they're rare and famous and have a story, not because they somehow have a higher quality than a modern equivalent. Sort of like the mona lisa.

bayindirh: > I don't think that last bit translated well.I don't think so. It's a good analogy how F-35 needs a good ground crew and logistics chain to keep it flying. Like how an orchestra needs these instruments to create subtle but extremely important pillars of sound, even if they're rarely or barely heard.Also, not al $2MM violins cost that much because they have a story, but they're built by distinguished builders and built to order, for the person playing it, with old-stock woods and whatnot.Yes, they don't cost that much, but you pay for the craftsmanship and the privilege. Price is an artificial construct after some point.

space_fountain: Some quick Googling implies China has satellites capable of tracking shipping via radar from geostationary orbit. I'm not really convinced that aircraft carriers can hide these days?

fooker: The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets that we can use to win wars. Similar to how NASA's purpose is not to make large rockets that send things to orbit for cheap.It is to investigate new technologies (i.e. how do we control a thousand drones) and preserve domain knowledge in a large number of engineers spanning multiple generations. If all these engineers go work at $BIG_TECH optimizing ad revenue for watching short videos, we'll have to rediscover basics the next time.When we have to fight the next serious war, we are not going to primarily use F-35 jets built twenty years ago, it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized. All major wars between comparable powers were fought with technology hot off the assembly lines, not billion dollar prototype models developed twenty years ago to bomb caves in deserts.If you look at it from this angle, all the idiosyncrasies make sense. There's of course the inefficiency of defense contractors skimming off profits at multiple layers, but if you find a solution to that while preserving productivity, you'd win the economics nobel tomorrow.

ceejayoz: > When we have to fight the next serious war, we are not going to primarily use F-35 jets, it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized.That is, to some extent, what the F-35 is; the mass-produced plane that incorporates what we learned from the F-117 and F-22 and whatnot. We've already made 10x as many as the F-22's production run.

fooker: Mass produced means something very different when it comes to wars between comparable powers.There are barely more than a thousand F-35s, the number of US aircrafts used in WW2 was about 300,000.If China produces 100 times or 1000 times their current numbers (and they can), marginal differences in capability are not going to matter.

wredcoll: > If China produces 100 times or 1000 times their current numbers (and they can), marginal differences in capability are not going to matter.If china somehow learnes magic and produced 10,000 f16 equivalents and got into a major non-nuclear shooting war with the united states... they'd lose 10,000 planes. At some point there is such a qualitative difference that numbers don't really matter.

jjk166: > Meanwhile, modern conflict, from Ukraine’s drone war to naval engagements in the Red Sea to Iran’s own mass missile and drone salvos, increasingly favors systems that can be produced at scale and replaced when lost. The F-35 is a masterpiece. But a force designed around a masterpiece is not designed for long, protracted wars, and U.S. adversaries know this.The problem is that the F-35 was intended to be the low cost, mass produce-able workhorse for long protracted wars against technologically inferior adversaries where extremely high performance would be unnecessary. Yes it incorporates advanced stealth and electronics that make it a very capable aircraft, especially when it's going up against F-4s, but these weren't driving the cost. The US had already developed these technologies, and once you have them putting them on another aircraft isn't too expensive. And in particular the main focus was on lifetime cost - keeping flight hours reasonable and maintenance down compared to a higher performance aircraft like the F-22. This plane was designed around exactly this sort of conflict.The problem was horrific project mismanagement. Building factories before the design was complete, delays due to development operations being done in parallel, making essentially 3 different aircraft with radically different requirements use a common design - the initial program cost skyrocketed and the only way out was to keep upping the order quantity to keep unit costs low. Cost per flight hour was supposed to be $25k, it's now $50k. Engine maintenance time was supposed to be 2 hours, it wound up being 50. And the issues didn't stop after initial development - with each successive iteration there have been new issues resulting in further delays, with airframe delivery on average still being 8 months behind schedule. None of that had anything to do with the F-35's core capabilities. For comparison, the F-35 has lower production costs than the non-stealth F-15EX which is based on a 50 year old airframe, but it has a 30% higher flight hour cost, and the program cost is 100X for 20X airframes.This sort of botched procurement has caused terrible issues for multiple military projects, such as the Navy's failed Constellation-class frigate program, or the Army's immediate cancellation of the M10 Booker. These aren't masterpieces built for the wrong war, these are failures at producing what was intended. One has to wonder how you can mess up Epiphone guitar production so bad you accidentally wind up with a Stradivarius. It does not bode well for the orchestra.

varjag: Then it's fine, as conventional bombing of Moscow is not an existential threat.

pharos92: America hasn’t faced a peer-level, modern military since the Korean War. For seventy years, it has specialized in "wars of choice" against overmatched opponents, mistaking uncontested airspace for actual invincibility.U.S. weapons supremacy is increasingly exposed as a marketing facade. Despite a $1T annual budget, the industrial base is so brittle that strategic missile stocks were nearly depleted within a month of engagement with Iran. To keep the gears turning, Washington is now cannibalizing the stockpiles of its own allies.You could make the case that the F-35 isn't a weapon; it’s a sophisticated wealth-extraction tool designed to fleece the American taxpayer. While it excels at deleting defenseless targets in lopsided conflicts, its primary mission is maintaining the flow of capital into a bloated military-industrial complex that prioritizes contractor profits over combat endurance.Yes, the U.S. possesses the most lethal tactical hardware in history, but its industrial backbone is currently ill-equipped for a prolonged, peer-to-peer war of attrition. - Korean War (North Korea/China) - Rating: Competent - Note: North Korea began with a well-equipped, Soviet-backed armor force; China followed with massive, highly disciplined infantry waves that effectively fought the UN coalition to a stalemate. - Vietnam War (North Vietnam/Viet Cong) - Rating: Technologically Incompetent - Note: While technologically outmatched, they demonstrated elite level unconventional warfare, logistical persistence (Ho Chi Minh Trail), and sophisticated anti-aircraft defenses. - Invasion of Grenada (Grenadian Military) - Rating: Poor - Note: A very small force with limited heavy weaponry and minimal organizational depth. - Invasion of Panama (Panamanian Defense Forces) - Rating: Poor - Note: Though professionalized to an extent, they lacked the hardware and air defense to resist a modern concentrated assault. - Gulf War (Iraq) - Rating: Competent (on paper) / Incompetent (in execution) - Note: Iraq held the world's fourth-largest army at the time with modern Soviet equipment, but failed significantly in command, control, and air superiority. - Intervention in Somalia (Local Militias/Warlords) - Rating: Poor - Note: Characterized by decentralized "technical" vehicles and light arms; effective only in urban ambush scenarios rather than conventional warfare. - War in Afghanistan (Taliban/Al-Qaeda) - Rating: Incompetent (conventionally) / Competent (insurgency) - Note: Zero conventional capability (no air force/armor), but highly capable at sustained, low-tech asymmetric warfare. - Iraq War (Ba'athist Iraq) - Rating: Poor - Note: By 2003, the military was severely degraded by a decade of sanctions and previous losses; it collapsed within weeks of the conventional invasion. - Military Intervention in Libya (Gaddafi Loyalists) - Rating: Poor - Note: Largely reliant on aging Soviet hardware and mercenary units; unable to project power against NATO-backed air cover. - War against ISIS (Insurgent State) - Rating: Poor (conventionally) / Competent (tactically) - Note: They lacked a traditional air force or navy but utilized captured heavy equipment and "shock" tactics with high psychological impact.

fsckboy: >China followed with massive, highly disciplined infantry waves that effectively fought the UN coalition to a stalemate.just to clarify what "effectively fought" means, the Chinese entered the war when the ROK+US+UN forces had reached as far as the Yalu River, and yes their "infantry waves" response, i.e. lightly armed human waves, pushed the anti-communists back but at very, very high cost:"North Korean casualties are estimated at around 1.5 million, including both military and civilian losses, while Chinese military casualties are estimated to be around 400,000 to 600,000.""South Korean military losses during the Korean War were approximately 137,899 dead, with additional casualties including 24,495 missing and 8,343 captured. The United Nations forces, primarily composed of U.S. troops, suffered around 36,574 deaths, with total UN losses estimated at about 210,000 dead and missing."that's about 2 million or more killed vs 210,000

carefree-bob: Drones have a limited range and limited capacity to inflict damage. Yes, they are effective at hunting infantry, but you can't reach across an ocean and strike the US with "millions of drones".Relatedly, aircraft carriers are great for beating up on small powers, but they are vulnerable and would not be effective at reaching across the ocean and bombing China.Plus, both nations have nukes, so the idea of either China or the US "winning" a war against the other side is easily cancelled out.What you are left with, is a lot of posturing about superpower wars which is a waste of time. All sort of people thumping their chest, wargaming things out, as if any of this nonsense isn't immediately squashed with the nuclear trump card.There will be no superpower wars.There will, however, continue to be wars against smaller states, and the F35, aircraft carriers, etc, are really effective at those kinds of things. That is, effective at waging the wars that will actually happen. Nukes and the pacific ocean stop any war of consequence against China.

tempest_: A carrier battle group can easily be seen and tracked by commercial satellite constellations.At minimum they travel with 6 or 7 ships and leave a wake a mile long and they only go tens of miles an hour, it isnt a speed boat.Here is an Indian carrier on google maps and the US ones are large https://www.google.com/maps/place/14%C2%B044'30.3%22N+74%C2%...I think people forget how many satellites are pointed at all parts of the planet. They are used for crop reporting and weather and all sorts of shit. It isnt the 1960s where only the super powers have them and they drop rolls of film.

analog8374: we could do a moonbase for 2 trillion

carefree-bob: But why? I'm not against the idea in principle, but there has to be a motivation beyond "It's possible". Even the search for knowledge, which is a good reason to invest in R&D, but how much would we learn on the moon for that 2 trillion that we couldn't learn more cheaply through other means?

dinfinity: > I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine [...] vs, say, WWII.They have been bombing civilian infrastructure, abducting children, torturing and executing civilians and POWs, executing deserters or wannabe deserters the entire fucking Ukraine war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russo-Ukrain...Restraint, my unbleached asshole.

01100011: No one is fire-bombing cities yet, despite Ukraine pulling a WWII Japan and distributing weapons production amongst residences.

torlok: Russia is keeping their expensive equipment in the back since years now because they're afraid to lose it. They would be fire bombing cities if they could. Russia already used white phosphorous in this war. The only reason they're not killing more civilians with missiles and drones is because they can't build more of them.

dmix: The same issues with fighter jets procurement infect everything these days. Public transit, space, government software, etc.

Rover222: Yet so many people clamor for govt to take a larger role in industries and wipe out the evil billionaires building highly efficient companies.

bawolff: In the intro:> Meanwhile, modern conflict, from Ukraine’s drone war to naval engagements in the Red Sea to Iran’s own mass missile and drone salvos, increasingly favors systems that can be produced at scale and replaced when lost.In the conclusion:> The lesson of the Iran campaign is that the F-35 performed superbly in exactly the kind of fight it was built for. The lesson for force designers is that the next war may not be that fight.What a weird article. It starts out by saying f-35 is not fit for modern war. Concludes by saying it works perfectly in modern war.The middle part talks about combining f-35 with drones to get the best of both worlds, but isn't that what people already are doing? Iran war allegedly had lots of drones on both sides.And of course blowing up iran is going to be totally different from some hypothetical war with china. Will the f-35 work well in a conflict with china? I have no idea but the article didn't really make any convincing arguments about it.

dinfinity: > I have no idea but the article didn't really make any convincing arguments about it.It did.It pointed out that the bases from which the F-35s would have to operate in a war with China would be very vulnerable:"The concentration of high-value equipment and personnel at each operating location makes the F-35’s basing problem qualitatively different from that of simpler aircraft. The loss is not just one jet but the capacity to generate sorties from that site."It pointed out that you can't produce F-35s at scale, which fucks you in the long run:"At over eighty million dollars per airframe, with Lockheed Martin delivering fewer than two hundred aircraft per year across all variants and all customers worldwide, there is no surge capacity waiting to be activated and no precedent for accelerating a program of this complexity on wartime timelines. When one side can produce weapons by the hundreds and thousands — missiles, loitering munitions, and one-way attack drones — while the other relies on small numbers of exquisite platforms, the advantage shifts toward the side with scale."The key message of the article is simply this (which should not be "weird" to anyone):"The corrective is not to abandon the F-35 but to redefine its role. A smaller fleet should be reserved for the missions that truly require its unique capabilities — penetrating advanced air defenses, gathering intelligence in contested environments, and orchestrating distributed networks of unmanned systems. The marginal procurement dollar should shift toward platforms that are cheaper to build, easier to replace, less dependent on vulnerable forward infrastructure, and expendable in ways that manned fighters are not."

2trill2spill: > "At over eighty million dollars per airframe, with Lockheed Martin delivering fewer than two hundred aircraft per year across all variants and all customers worldwide, there is no surge capacity waiting to be activated and no precedent for accelerating a program of this complexity on wartime timelines. When one side can produce weapons by the hundreds and thousands — missiles, loitering munitions, and one-way attack drones — while the other relies on small numbers of exquisite platforms, the advantage shifts toward the side with scale."The article gets this wrong as well, the f35 can be built at scale, no other fighter aircraft is produced in such high numbers, its also significantly cheaper on a per airframe basis vs Gen 4 aircraft and its more advanced. This article is nonsense and the author doesn't know what they are talking about.

dinfinity: > the f35 can be built at scaleReally? Can you indicate how many can be produced yearly?

rjsw: When did Britain ridicule submarines?

amluto: I would like to see the government (at all levels) have more in house capabilities and less absurd degrees of outsourcing.I’m currently watching an 8-figure park remodeling project happening near home. Instead of hiring one or two competent construction managers for a few hundred thousand dollars, the city seems to be spending several million dollars for outside management to oversee this one project. (Never mind how much they’re overpaying for the actual construction.)

_DeadFred_: Reminder that half of our government (Republicans) have had an ongoing policy for over 40 years of starve the beast, cause damage to the government/make it ineffectual and incapable to operate, all in order to sour the public on government because that party puts their anti-government policy/agenda higher than the health of our nation. They are also the ones who push the huge military budget/complex (could it be part of the same agenda?).I'm not sure how you get a better outcome when half of the government would rather actively and explicitly sabotage government in order to meet a political agenda than chose making the country better.

dinfinity: > No one is fire-bombing cities yetThat was mainly the Americans, British, and the Germans, not the USSR.Also, what makes you think they could in this war? Do you think they can send bombers over Ukranian cities and drop a shitton of ordnance?The Russians aren't deploying nukes; that is the only actual 'restraint' to date.

nradov: Ukraine has already launched several mass strikes on Moscow.https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/moscow-comes-under-one-of...https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/russia...Even if Russia sees a particular tactic or weapons system as an existential threat it's questionable whether they even have the capability to escalate further. I mean they can threaten nuclear strikes on Ukrainian population centers but would anyone believe that the threats are credible?

fsckboy: > - Invasion of Grenada (Grenadian Military) > - Rating: Poor > - Note: A very small force with limited heavy weaponry and minimal organizational depth.> - Gulf War (Iraq) > - Rating: Competent (on paper) / Incompetent (in execution) > - Note: Iraq held the world's fourth-largest army at the time with modern Soviet equipment, but failed significantly in command, control, and air superiority.> - Iraq War (Ba'athist Iraq) > - Rating: Poor > - Note: By 2003, the military was severely degraded by a decade of sanctions and previous losses; it collapsed within weeks of the conventional invasion.the lesson of those wars to the US is, like sports teams, we need to deploy our forces in kinetic actions regularly or we lose our edge, lose touch with the battlefield and capabilities of opponents.peace is better than war, of course, but you need to look at the progress of history as a stochastic process, and if you skip all the little wars because you have a choice, you will be ill-prepared for the big wars when they are thrust upon you. maybe call the little conflicts "friendlies", we need to compete in the friendlies to be ready for the unfriendlies.

gherkinnn: The ideas that I as a civilian was sold over the past decades don't appear to hold up any longer.As someone a while back put it, Russia lost several Bundeswehrs worth of equipment and keeps on grinding. Neither side is able to mass large forces, in a large part due to drones. And Iran can punish the US despite being comically outgunned.Modern equivalents of Sherman and T-34 tanks over burdensome Tigers and a population willing to support heavy losses.

loglog: A Bundeswehr worth of equipment is so little nowadays that Bundeswehr itself lost several Bundeswehrs worth of equipment while being at peace for the last few decades.

scottyah: The F-35 is a massive success. It is a common design that brought together what would have been three to five different planes into one. Costs doubling is further proof of how amazing it is- inflation has basically outpaced that. Cost per flight hour has more to do with data analytics and the Socialism within the DoW (it's a jobs program) than actual need. A lot of delays were quasi-on purpose. It has crazy supply chain logistics, and has greatly strengthened ties with our allies, and helped boost their engineering and manufacturing capabilities.

von_lohengramm: > like in Infinity WarReferencing Marvel movies in one's description of proposed military hardware is not only immediately discrediting but also a good sign that self-reflection is in order.

einpoklum: > Russia would never nuke Ukraine to begin with.Russia is not fighting Ukraine, it is fighting NATO in Ukraine. And, IIANM, it has the capability of hitting non-Ukranie NATO targets in various places around the world - with cruise missiles and such. The assumption that "oh, Russia will never do this" is actually quite reckless and dangerous; and I don't just mean dangerous to whoever would get attacked, but dangerous for people all over the world, as we may find ourselves in a nuclear exchange with multiple blasts in multiple locations with radioactive matter spread far and wide.Regarding the drones - definitely agree with you that drones have completely reshaped the experience on the front lines of this war. I understand that in a recent exercise with NATO forces, a Ukranian unit of drone operators essentially "took out" a couple of battalions:https://www.krone.at/4046529

scottyah: Pawns are the only piece that matter on a chess board?

analog8374: "what could we learn?". that's an interesting question. something unexpected I'd guess.but that's rather beside my point.

aftbit: Shot exchange is indeed a problem, but it's far more complex than this makes it sound. The opportunity cost of _not_ shooting down the drone isn't the cost of the drone, it's the cost of whatever it's going to destroy if you don't shoot it down.Sometimes it makes sense to use a million dollar missile to destroy a $5,000 drone, if that drone would otherwise destroy an even more expensive air defense radar or energy production facility. This says nothing about the cost and value of the lives that might be lost in an enemy strike.We would not be safer if the enemy had cheap drones and we had no weapons capable of fighting back.The main problem is that air defense interception is incredibly challenging and expensive primarily because a mid-course defensive interceptor needs considerably greater capabilities than the weapon it is intercepting, because it needs to catch up to the incoming missile or drone mid-flight.Sure, this can lead to massive overkill problems. Yes, the US should invest more in the low end of the high/low mix. But no, this does not mean there's no place for the high end, or that they should never be used to destroy lower end targets if that's all that is available.A more interesting challenge, if you ask me, is in the naval domain. Imagine a capital ship has two options for defending against incoming threats - either fire an expensive and limited stock interceptor missile with a 99% kill chance, or wait until the threat is inside the range of a cheap cannon or laser system with a 95% kill chance. There's a real command level tradeoff to be made here. If you shoot every drone with interceptors, you lose shot exchange badly, and you just run out of interceptors. But if you let every target through into the engagement range of your close range systems, you run the risk that one makes it through to your ship, potentially causing damage and casualties.The future of war is going to be wild one way or the other.

LorenPechtel: I disagree on air defense inherently being very costly.Old school was guns. Price per round was cheap. But the expensive missile kills the platform holding the cheap gun, you have to go with missiles. But the drone war is a different beast entirely. Drones can't shoot back. Thus the answer is guns. How well will their light drones fare against a Cessna armed with an automatic shotgun? How would the jet drones fare against a WWII warbird?Lots of cheap, mobile guns. No meaningful self defense but doctrine is to always depart after shooting.The naval one is much harder because you're not free to disperse your ship into many pieces. But, still, consider your cannon. Let's step down a bit, cheaper cannon with a 90% kill rate--but you put several of them.

loglog: There are videos on the internet of drones being shot down with an assault rifle out of a 50 year old training plane, 1914 style.

titzer: The total cost of the entire program over its projected lifetime is $1.7 trillion. The F-35 is made by one company, Lockheed Martin (with some pieces made by a couple others). This entire program is a massive transfer of taxpayer money into one company.Another data point is that it's estimated that all student debt in the US combined is $1.7 - 1.8 trillion.No wonder America keeps falling behind.

scottyah: > The F-35 is made by one company, Lockheed Martin (with some pieces made by a couple others)This isn't even remotely true, who is paying you to post this drivel?

vanviegen: It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario.Of course I understand wanting to be prepared even for grim scenarios such as these. Military strategists should of course continually be refining such plans. But casual discussions like this, without even so much as a disclaimer about it being a hypothetical and extremely undesirable outcome, may pave the way towards it through normalization.

vdqtp3: > an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario.Most modern military planning considers it a foregone conclusion. Whether that's accurate or not is arguable, but approaching discussions of military spending from a perspective grounded in current planning is certainly reasonable.

kansface: Just because he hasn’t pulled the trigger doesn’t mean there isn’t an actual red line.

Sabinus: The red line is an invasion of Moscow or a strike on Russian nuclear capabilities.Everything else is just an order for preemptive suicide.

gozucito: But what would you rather have? 2000 Shahed/Lucas drones or a single F35? Same cost for both.The saying "Quantity has a quality all of its own" is not obsolete in 2026.

rawgabbit: I believe satellites are usually in an orbit. They can’t follow an carrier for example. The satellites may be in a constellation that can track the carrier. That is why anti-satellites weapons have been developed. E.g., a jet fighter flies straight up and then fires a long range missile.https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Ty...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

peterfirefly: Do you think a carrier can very far in the couple of hours it takes for a satellite to orbit around the Earth?

nradov: A carrier can likely get far enough to generate a miss. Missiles and drones have very limited sensors so in order to hit anything another platform has to cue them with a fairly precise target location. In other words, an adversary like China would need to have enough satellites, submarines, and/or patrol aircraft to maintain a continuous target track long enough to make a decision, launch the weapons, and have them fly out to the target. Current thinking is that China could probably do this inside the first island chain but would struggle to put the pieces together further out in the open Pacific Ocean.

spongebobstoes: $25k per flight hour is a lot more than what drones cost

ExoticPearTree: > It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario.The last few wars started by the US were based on scenarios that looked good on paper and in reality they did not went so well.Look at the Iran war: "we're gonna kill their supreme leader and the regime will fall". Almost two months later nothing changed in any significant way despite bombing it relentlessly.Coming back to your concern, I'm pretty sure some people at the Pentagon believe the US can fight China using an expeditionary force and somehow win.

wahern: The Iran War never looked good on paper. The only people who thought it would succeed were Trump and the cast of characters he surrounded himself with. I doubt if many congressional Republican chickenhawks thought it would succeed.The only way to oust the regime is with ground troops, ripping out the Revolutionary Guard and its tentacles. For all its corruption, Iran is far from a failed state, and there aren't factions waiting in the wings, ready and willing to take over the government with force. (There are political factions, to be sure, but they're already integrated into the government, though without leverage over the Revolutionary Guard.) The only armed group remotely capable of even trying would be the Kurds, but the US and in particular Trump screwed them over in the past, multiple times. Even if they thought they could go it alone (which they couldn't), there was zero chance they were going to enter the fray without the US committing itself fully with their own invasion force (i.e. success was guaranteed), because failure would mean ethnic Kurds would be extirpated from Iran, and might induce Iraq and Syria to revisit the question of Kurdish loyalty to their own states. And, indeed, Kurdish groups took a wait and see approach, assembling some forces but waiting to see how the US played their cards.

Cider9986: It does seem that way based on this article[1].[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa... https://archive.ph/gaHnu

wahern: It's just so ridiculous. Nobody is going to be writing books about the mistakes or hubris of US intelligence, military strategists, or political scholars and analysts. Even the most diehard American proponents of regime change in Iran, at least those with any competence, could have predicted (and did predict) this outcome. This was 100% a Trump fiasco, though the whole country shares some culpability for this kind of epic failure by allowing someone like Trump to win the presidency... again.It's a little ironic that its due in part[1] to Trump's reticence to commit ground forces that we've come to this pass. I hesitate to criticize that disposition, but at the same time it's malfeasance to start a war without being willing and able to fully commit.[1] Assuming the war had to happen, which of course it didn't.

janalsncm: The more I read about it, the more firmly I believe it is in the U.S.’s best interest to avoid military conflict with the world’s only manufacturing superpower.Not that we could afford wars with non-superpowers either.

jasonfarnon: " many, including Putin, would be on the chopping block."I think that's the above comment's point. Attack moscow -> existential threat -> they're already on the chopping block -> nukes.

foota: I don't believe parent is right, but satelites don't stay in one place unless they're on the equator, because otherwise they have to be moving. This means that you need many satelites to maintain coverage of a single spot.I don't know how many military satelites China has, but I would have assumed it would be sufficient to cover the pacific sufficiently to find an aircraft carrier. (the obvious caveat here being clouds, which are fairly common over the ocean)

nandomrumber: > but satelites don't stay in one placeWhat?> unless they're on the equatorWhat?> because otherwise they have to be movingWhat?

KumaBear: There are no consequences and those who produced the product still get rich and can still maintain the product with more fees on top. It’s by design

antonymoose: It’s not as if Democrat run California can build a railway these days…This problem is beyond parties and trying to play partisan politics about it only prolongs the hurt.

usrnm: That's not a new idea, it's the same thing Germany learned about tanks in WWII.

dmos62: I heard it argued that Germany didn't have the raw resources and production capacity to go for quantity. Especially later in the war. So quality it was.

the_af: That's not true. They could have standardized on a few rugged platforms -- and in fact, some in Nazi Germany advocated for that -- but their industry and engineering were generally self-sabotaging and a mess.

einpoklum: "So what is the last resort? Piccadilly?"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkUVIj3KWY

jfengel: A general war against China is impossible. But a "limited" war fought over Taiwan isn't beyond the realm of possibility.Which does take it into a kind of Schroedinger's realm. The US takes it seriously, so it develops technology for it, and China doesn't invade. But would China have invaded if the US hadn't prepared for that war? Quite possibly, but you can never know.

0cf8612b2e1e: In the quite likely scenario that Iran goes on any longer, the US will become so war exhausted that we will be unable to provide any support for Taiwan.

carefree-bob: The Iran war is a skirmish by any reasonable measure. It does not exhaust either the US Navy or the Airforce, and the Army isn't even participating.Now I understand it has a large impact because of oil prices and the closing of the strait of hormuz, but don't confuse the economic impact of the closing of shipping lanes with something that "exhausts" the US military.Remember this is the military that spent two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq, using considerably more resources. Those were actual wars, followed by occupations that lasted two decades. And that didn't exhaust the US.In terms of the Naval cost, it is occupying 15% of ships, with zero ships sunk or damaged. I believe there were 13 soldiers killed during strikes on bases in the area. Those bases have been manned for decades and have not exhausted the US Army. Let's maintain some perspective.

0cf8612b2e1e: I would dispute the depletion of expensive munitions, but I still believe that is largely irrelevant next to political exhaustion.I do not think most Americans would care to defend Taiwan, even against the China boogeyman. The practical realities of losing Chinese goods would be a devastating reality few are prepared to face.

isubasinghe: Hmm, this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_an...indicates what the author said is true.The majority of these losses are on the ground.

chrisss395: I would just point out that 10-15 years ago Defense executives were talking about drone warfare (search "The Third Offset Strategy"). I recall an executive client being obsessed with this, and in fairness back then they had lost major contracts because their components (think electronic warfare) were designed for max power, i.e., max size and weight. The issue was when I was working with the defense weapons folks.Again, this was 10-15 years ago. Now with the Ukraine war everyone acts like it is obvious...and I agree, it has been for awhile. We just never had a theater to test this stuff in. I suspect US defense contractors were on-board for Ukraine and Iran to advance development efforts significantly.

carefree-bob: I agree, political exhaustion is the real constraint.I personally would not be willing to do anything to defend Taiwan from China. But then again, I don't support any of the wars we fought in the middle east, either.

marklar423: Just want to drop this link to the excellent https://acoup.blog/2026/02/13/collections-against-the-state-... which discusses the different costs of war, including how significantly weaker powers can win by increasing political costs.

Rury: I blame the four horsemen of project management: Brooke's Law, Metcalfe's law, the Ringelmann Effect, and Parkinson's law.

sp4cec0wb0y: > Russia is not fighting Ukraine, it is fighting NATO in Ukraine.If that is the case they are doing a poor job at doing so, without even fighting the full might of NATO.

gozucito: Do you know what percentage of THAADs have been used in Iran?

nradov: Russia has been attacking Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones since the beginning of the conflict. But Russia simply lacks the capacity to fire-bomb cities on a large scale. They only have a handful of operational heavy bombers left and no real ability to manufacture more so they're unwilling to risk them.

0xbadcafebee: [delayed]

angry_octet: The alternative future, of just producing non-STOVL, is particularly relevant now. The USMC needs some organic aviation, but it doesn't need an F-35C. Organic drones would be an excellent fit for Wasp class ships and beach head forces.Of course it was all tied up with needing allies to buy to increase order size, and the UK Bukit the STOVL bits, so naturally they had to buy all STOVL jets to increase British industry buy.It's a rat's nest of everyone trying to please all their stakeholders. It is, eventually, a great jet, but it could have been a better, cheaper jet, delivered sooner, and already past Block 5.Oh yeah, did anyone mention how long it takes to integrate a new system onto the F-35? Fracking years. All of which has to be done by LM, forever. Because the F-35 is not a jet, it's a Master Contract.

0cf8612b2e1e: JP Morgan is predicting $5/gallon gas. Apparently gas prices are one of the best indicators to predict presidential support. In normal times, this seems unfair-lots of external factors can influence gas prices. Rare that you can so directly point towards administration action causing an effect.Every day this conflict continues is going to have devastating political outcomes. I largely subscribe to the belief that Kamala losing was a reflection that people were mad at inflation.

lantry: aka the preparedness paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox

cyberax: Neither Ukraine nor Russia are using manned aircraft in any significant ways. They are at most used to lob gliding bombs from far behind the front lines.> And naturally F-35s on that theatre would have been a game changer making mass strikes on Moscow possible.And then what? Kyiv has been under relentless strikes from drones and missiles for 5 years. And Moscow was hit by Ukrainian drones several times.You'll need to suppress all the anti-air defenses first, and it will likely be too costly.

varjag: > They are at most used to lob gliding bombs from far behind the front lines.You write that, and literally quote my point about F-35 making deep strikes against dense air defense possible in the very next sentence.

cyberax: It remains to be seen how well F-35s actually perform in that role against an adversary with modern anti-air defense and with modern drone-based tactics.Both Russia and Ukraine learned to avoid concentrating forces, so what are you going to strike? Use an F-35 to attack a single Jeep with a mounted machine gun? F-35 has limited range and carries very limited armament, so you can't just carpet-bomb everything. At some point, you'll need to use much less survivable heavy bombers.

nradov: Strike the stuff that can't move: government offices, factories, bridges, dams, power plants, ports, logistics hubs. The heavy B-2 bombers are themselves quite survivable, and were in fact used in the initial strikes.

cyberax: Government offices are hardened against strikes, and they are going to be located beyond the reach of F-35s anyway in case of a war with Russia or China.> bridges, dams, power plantsA war crime, btw. Bridges and dams are also notoriously hard to destroy.> The heavy B-2 bombers are themselves quite survivableThey are, but less so compared to lighter aircraft.

angry_octet: It was obvious to many, and it was obvious also that air forces would oppose this because it was a massive shift in thinking.They have only come around a little at present. US Army is still buying Apache.The US primes were caught napping in Ukraine, all the new tech is indigenous. They haven't deployed anything new successfully. The traditional exquisite weapons could win the war early, but of course Biden held them back because he's an idiot, and Trump spent them against Iran. Now they are gone. In the mean time, Trump cancelled the infrastructure to design and build armaments during DOGE cuts, now he wants to scale back up, but the money will be wasted because industrial capacity is not there.

rawgabbit: [delayed]

fooker: You are absolutely right.If the US keeps maintaining a several decade technology lead forever. That has never really happened in history, so good luck I guess.

greedo: The Booker was a perfect fit for the Army reqs, and filled a genuine need. But it didn't have a sponsor that was willing to pay for it. The Armor Branch didn't like it, and the Infantry Branch, which is the real user couldn't muster enough support in the DoD.The Connie is a good ship and the two under contract will be fine vessels when they're commissioned. Frigates are no longer "cheap" ships, and the sticker shock was higher than expected despite the obvious changes that were going to be made to the FREMM design. But it's cancellation has more to do with dysfunction at the top of the Navy (and DoD) then the program of record.Also, you're overestimating the flight hour costs of the F-35. Even the B model doesn't hit $50k. The other variants are closer to $35k/hour (adjusted for inflation) than $50K.

gozucito: The reality of losing TSMC is no joke either. I remember Covid times when many G20 leaders went to Taiwan begging for some chips so that they could keep exporting cars and other things that need computer chips.

carefree-bob: What do you mean by "losing TSMC"? It's not ours.Do you know what does belong to the west? ASML. What makes TSMC actually work.

ceejayoz: > If China produces 100 times or 1000 times their current numbers…They get sanctioned and/or hit by B-2s long before the factories to do so are even completed, let alone producing a hundred thousand fighter jets.

fooker: If you read my comment (or the article!) a bit more carefully, you'll see I mentioned comparable opponents.Yes, if you can bomb your opponent without retribution you can indeed get away with what we have now.This is what the F-35 and the modern US airforce is built for. We're likely not going to be fighting desert nomads forever.

moralestapia: >mass strikes on MoscowOh yeah, I'd like to see you try that.Maduro was a clown. Iran is two orders of magnitude above Venezuela and the US (plus friends) are already struggling.Russia is at least one order of magnitude above Iran.I have no doubt that the US would win at the end, but at a massive cost of life and money. You cannot afford that, you cannot even afford a 1/10th of that.I live in America, I'm obviously pro-America, but losing touch with reality will only make things worse.The world is not like your RTS games.