> Another question might be why no other nation was allowed to acquire them. Lots of advanced fighters get exported. My understanding of this is that there's a

> Another question might be why no other nation was allowed to acquire them. Lots of advanced fighters get exported. My understanding of this is that there's a threshold of "really good but not too good" that is a bit arbitrary. The F-117 and the follow-on F-22 Raptor both crossed over the line into "way too good" territory and couldn't be exported. While it's pretty cool having aircraft that are so advanced that no other country on earth can own them but your own, the net result ends up being... you don't have anyone to share the NRE costs with, which drives the unit cost and spare parts costs up like crazy.