I really am getting sick and tired of the machinations of the fighter pilot Mafia.

Yes, General Bruce Carleson, who has raised insubordination to an art form, is saying that, “Air Force officials must develop and buy new aircraft or risk the service becoming irrelevant”.

In any likely conflict for the next 20 or so years, we are looking at a few weeks of the “kinetic” phase, followed by months or years of peacekeeping, where it does not matter if you are flying an F-16, F-22, or for that matter, a WWII era piston engined A-1 SPAD.

You are bombing and rocketing insurgents from a position of absolute air supremacy.

The Air Force as a combat service is largely irrelevant. What might be important is airlift, and there was just a 30+ billion award made on that a 2 weeks ago.

To the degree that you might need to exert “dominance” if challenged by a real air threat, the critical issue will be situational awareness and communications, which can be handled through system upgrades.