A question to ask is: As long the west (the US) only goes to war with nations whose military is vastly inferior (like Iraq or Afghanistan). Then why do we need the F-35?
An F-16 will do just as well against someone armed with an AK-47.
An F-16 will do just as well against someone armed with an AK-47.
1. The lack of war against our international rivals is in fact a huge success, indicating our powerful military is an effective deterrent. If we didn't have the F-35 we'd all be speaking Russian right now /s
2. Preparing for the last war is a perpetual problem for the military. That's how we ended up in Afghanistan with high-speed air superiority fighters, but no IED-proof vehicles. We should counter this known bias by buying stuff that would have been completely useless in our last major wars /s
2. Go ask Ukraine about fighting rebels with AK-47s... who might occasionally get Buk missiles from a friendly slav on vacation.
That's not to say anything about F-35, or F-16; just about the reason why keeping the birds up to date makes sense.
And Ukraine does not have F-35s and will never have.
Israel handily destroys syrian pantsir systems with f-16s or loitering munitions, and turkish made drones 'damaged' two pantsir systems in the 2020 nagorno karabakh war.
I don't think we've seen the results for longer range systems like the S-300 but I'm not sure russia wants to see the results either.
My point about Ukraine was that the "non-advanced” militaries can mysteriously acquire very hi-tech anti-aircraft systems.
Like the Donbass "rebels" who shot down MH-17 out of the sky with a Buk missile which they weren't "supposed to" have (and have no capacity to produce, obviously).
On the other hand, Russia's "vacationing" tank drivers are going to be dodging US-made Javelins should they decide to make a detour through Ukraine.
The point being, if a weapon exists, you might as well assume your opponent on the battlefield has it, no matter how much they are tech-wise.
1) For posturing. One reason others might not want to fight the US is the presence of a large and very well equipped force that apparently trains for just such an eventuality.
2) The military-industrial complex is how the US economy stays ahead and yet pretends to be capitalist and free-market. If you pump domestic technology companies with trillions of dollars of tax money in the name of defence, they might just produce something valuable (say like the internet).