Detection is always a business decision between true/false positive/negative, the costs of sensitivity that is non linear per stage (breakthrough are non predictable) and the costs of stealth.
And since science have improved at increasing detection by using distributed measures coupled with active correction the detection is getting easier and cheaper.
There is a pace at which technology are cheap and efficient. And money (especially when GPB is not growing) is really the nerve of war. Technologies should be used opportunistically according to their costs that can change faster than the design/delivery process.
The blindness on the cost efficiency and long term bets is taxing a lot the normal economy that in turns slow down and has difficulties feeding back military with useful cheap innovative realiable real innovations. We cannot predict the future. Especially when it comes to innovation.
And look: we rely on the best of our technology to build weapons, but these technologies don't seem to deliver.
Maybe the F35 story is an allegory of how our economies are in bad shape. And maybe the greatest military decision would be to diminish the defense/NASA budgets and fix the market and society.
PS I insist that these software problems are not unique to USA. Rafale, A400M, Typhoon, probably russian planes have been suffering "outstanding delays" & "budget slip" and software are often involved.
I do not think this is only a military problem. Something is rotten in the R&D department. Maybe the way we organize ourselves.