Reply #104: And the only possible deterrent then is the F-22?

[NeedleCast]

Look, I'm ex-military and believe in and support financing of a strong military but that doesn't mean we need to have a huge arsenal of F-22s.

This isn't the 1930s and I'm not worried about Mexico or Columbia (or anyone else other than Russia or China) having the cash to invest in an intense jet figher program that would suddenly rival ours in a decade. Most countries in the world that are not part of the EU, China or Russia buy hand me down fighters from those countries (and us). So do I think it's likely that some coup is going to happen in Cambodia and that they're going to start producing fifth-generation stealth jets a few weeks later? No. Nor is it going to happen anywhere else in the world.

The unit price on the F-22 is insane, even if we ordered a lot of them. No one in this thread or anywhere else has built any sort of scenario in which there would be a need for us to have 300+ F-22s (plus the rest of our air force). Yes, we need to have advanced fightes, but unless you've got a compelling reason to have a whole lot of them, it's just not worth the cost. If something happens in the world that demonstrates a need to up production, then sure, we take another look at the program. Until then, you're just buying a bunch of really expensive toys that are going to sit around getting old.

Reminds me of when I showed up in Afghanistan and the Abrams started popping up...because we really needed main battle tanks to take on all that Taliban armor. This is just another classic case of generals fighting the last war (or, as usual, trying to fight WW-2 again). This is the same bullshit the conservatives push to keep military spending at ridiculous levels. You "never know" when we might need 720 F-22s (which was, I think, the original order) because the dreaded Chinese and Russians have a handful of servicable advanced figthers and they're just waiting for us to let our guard down...