The Future Of Air Defense

F-22 (Photo from Joint Service Open House)

From New Wars:

I just can’t imagine we will always get away with sending our few and pricey stealth fighters into high risk areas when there seems to be so many other alternatives, such as UAVs, cruise missiles, and legacy fighters equipped with HARM and jamming devises. Via Danger Room, David Axe provides another excuse to dump the F-22 Raptor:

In a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of Joints Chief of Staff, defended Gates’ position — and whipped out a new argument for why Raptor-making should end. Faced with shutting down either Lockheed Martin’s F-22 production line, or Boeing’s competing F/A-18E/F fighter, for cost reasons, Cartwright said he asked the military’s regional commanders what air capabilities they needed most. They chose “electronic warfare,” a.k.a. “radar jamming,” Cartwright said. That meant keeping the Boeing jet, for only it has a dedicated jammer version, the EA-18G Growler…

But the F-22’s electronic-attack skills have remained dormant, while the Air Force focuses on honing the jet’s air-to-air prowess, and improving vexing maintenance problems. The Raptor won’t be able to jam enemy radars, until 2011 — and then, only half the fleet will have that capability. The Raptor suffers other, serious limitations, that haven’t been widely reported. As many as half of the jets already paid for, lack modern dogfighting systems, such as helmet-mounted sights.

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My Comment: Most (if not all) future wars will be against low-tech armies and insurgencies. $300 million dollar planes to use in such a fight makes little if any sense.

But one can say the same thing about nuclear weapons, Trident submarines, and ABM systems. Why build them when they cannot be used in the wars that we are presently in ... or will be in the future.

Hmmm .... the answer is that they all do serve a purpose and that is they provide deterrence ..... a military strategy that has both merit and value when countering other powers .... both small and large.