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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

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.

FairlyInvolved 5y ago
I think that's well-understood and the existence of the F-35 evidences the perceived threat from nations with more advanced militaries.
codeduck 5y ago
Not when the person next to the person with an AK-47 also has access to a modern man-portable surface to air missile.
romwell 5y ago
1. The air force is (one of the reasons) why the US has only been going to war with vastly inferior nations. 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.
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  The west is explicitly not going to war in/over Ukraine. Because as you implied it would be a war with Russia and that would be too much. And Ukraine does not have F-35s and will never have.
  - paganel 5y ago
    Not the OP, but it would have been interesting to see how well a plane like the F-35 handles ground-to-air missiles. My bet would be on the missiles, but maybe that's just a subjective take on my part (certainly not based on any concrete facts as I'm not an expert in this domain), but I'm thinking that if the Serbs of the 1990s managed to bring down a F-117 then the Russian technology of today (in theory much better up-to-date compared to what the Serbs had) should be quite a match for this plane.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      It depends what missiles. 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.
  - romwell 5y ago
    Sigh 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.
fsloth 5y ago
Western Europe has an ongoing security issues with Russia and China is pushing things in the Pacific. The best result is of course that there is no war, but there certainly are enough antagonists around. And then there are the sales to allies/third parties who have situations within their middle-power domain that need credible modern air support.
gampleman 5y ago
I can think of 2 reasons: 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).
wongarsu 5y ago
Most countries have militaries not for the fight they want to fight, but to discourage all likely aggressors from attacking. The US is very unusual in how much active use they get out of their hardware. Still, if they only made hardware for the wars they want to fight that would leave them wide open for attacks from larger powers like China.
michaelt 5y ago
The traditional justifications are: 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
- andrewnicolalde 5y ago
  Why /s?
  - michaelt 5y ago
    In both examples the second sentence is exaggerated for comic effect: Nobody really believes Russia would have invaded the USA if not for the F-35. And nobody thinks the F-35 is a forward-thinking design; it's the greatest plane of the Cold War, delivered 30 years late.
  - dwighttk 5y ago
    Like we could all learn Russian that fast…

FairlyInvolved 5y ago

I think that's well-understood and the existence of the F-35 evidences the perceived threat from nations with more advanced militaries.

codeduck 5y ago

Not when the person next to the person with an AK-47 also has access to a modern man-portable surface to air missile.

romwell 5y ago

1. The air force is (one of the reasons) why the US has only been going to war with vastly inferior nations. 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.

throwaway4good 5y ago
The west is explicitly not going to war in/over Ukraine. Because as you implied it would be a war with Russia and that would be too much. And Ukraine does not have F-35s and will never have.
- paganel 5y ago
  Not the OP, but it would have been interesting to see how well a plane like the F-35 handles ground-to-air missiles. My bet would be on the missiles, but maybe that's just a subjective take on my part (certainly not based on any concrete facts as I'm not an expert in this domain), but I'm thinking that if the Serbs of the 1990s managed to bring down a F-117 then the Russian technology of today (in theory much better up-to-date compared to what the Serbs had) should be quite a match for this plane.
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    It depends what missiles. 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.
- romwell 5y ago
  Sigh 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.

fsloth 5y ago

Western Europe has an ongoing security issues with Russia and China is pushing things in the Pacific. The best result is of course that there is no war, but there certainly are enough antagonists around. And then there are the sales to allies/third parties who have situations within their middle-power domain that need credible modern air support.

gampleman 5y ago

I can think of 2 reasons: 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).

wongarsu 5y ago

Most countries have militaries not for the fight they want to fight, but to discourage all likely aggressors from attacking. The US is very unusual in how much active use they get out of their hardware. Still, if they only made hardware for the wars they want to fight that would leave them wide open for attacks from larger powers like China.

michaelt 5y ago

The traditional justifications are: 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

andrewnicolalde 5y ago
Why /s?
- michaelt 5y ago
  In both examples the second sentence is exaggerated for comic effect: Nobody really believes Russia would have invaded the USA if not for the F-35. And nobody thinks the F-35 is a forward-thinking design; it's the greatest plane of the Cold War, delivered 30 years late.
- dwighttk 5y ago
  Like we could all learn Russian that fast…