F14/Phoenix was a fleet defense weapon -- horribly expensive and intensive to operate, intended to stop long-range Soviet bombers from griefing the carrier batt

F14/Phoenix was a fleet defense weapon -- horribly expensive and intensive to operate, intended to stop long-range Soviet bombers from griefing the carrier battle groups (Tu-22Ms and Tu-160s with Moskit or similar supersonic anti-shipping missiles are a carrier captain's nightmare). Once the cold war went away there wasn't really anyone left who offered that kind of credible threat, and attempts to turn the F14 into a bomber were more expensive and less effective than the F/A18. Today, there is one aicraft/missile in service with roughly comparable performance to the F14/Phoenix -- the Eurofighter Typhoon II when equipped with the (similar range to Phoenix) Meteor missile. This isn't an accident. One of the major purchasers for Typhoon is the UK, satirically renamed "Airstrip One" by George Orwell in 1984; because it's basically an unsinkable aircraft carrier off the coast of Western Europe, and in event of a conflict with Russia it'd be a major NATO logistical resupply target for the aforementioned TU-23Ms and Tu-160s. The Typhoon II was delayed into the 21st century but basically it started as a cold war solution to the exact same problem as the F14, minus the cats and traps.