F-35 is built for the wrong war

F‑35’s Role and Performance

• Many see the F‑35 as highly capable at what it was designed for: stealthy deep strike, SEAD, coordination of networks and drones, and operations against sophisticated SAMs (Iran, hypothetical China).
• Others argue it’s a “jack of all trades” compromise whose strengths are overkill for most current tasks and whose maintenance and basing needs make it brittle in a long, high‑attrition war.
• Several comments echo the article’s suggested fix: keep a smaller F‑35 fleet for niche, high‑end missions and shift marginal spending to cheaper, expendable platforms.

Cost, Production, and Logistics

• Disagreement over economics: some say unit procurement is now comparable to or cheaper than 4th‑gen fighters (F‑15EX, Eurofighter, Rafale, Gripen) thanks to scale; others point to much higher lifetime and per‑flight‑hour costs, limited availability, and slow software integration.
• Production is ~150–200 jets/year; critics argue this cannot be surged in wartime, while defenders note no peer fighter is built faster and pilots, not airframes, will be the bottleneck.
• Basing vulnerability is a recurring concern: concentrated, high‑value jets plus specialized infrastructure are seen as easy targets for missiles and drones.

Quantity vs. Quality and the Drone Shift

• Strong theme: modern wars (Ukraine, Iran, Red Sea) show “quantity is a quality” — mass cheap drones and munitions, short OODA loops, and distributed manufacturing.
• Counter‑argument: truly long‑range, survivable, high‑payload drones converge toward missile‑like costs (~high 5–6 figures+), so cheap swarms have limits against serious air defenses.
• Consensus that a high–low mix is needed: exquisite manned platforms plus large numbers of cheap drones, interceptors, and gun/laser C‑UAS systems.

Lessons from Ukraine and Iran

• Ukraine is cited as a case of air parity and entrenched fronts where manned aircraft are mostly stand‑off bomb trucks and drones dominate tactical attrition.
• Iran war: F‑35s and other high‑end systems achieved air dominance and tactical success, but Iran still imposes real costs via missiles/drones and the Strait of Hormuz blockade.
• Several argue the US is burning through scarce interceptors (Patriot, THAAD, SM‑series) faster than industry can replenish, exposing industrial‑base fragility.

China/Taiwan and Great‑Power War

• Some think F‑35 is “the right jet” for a US–China conflict (SEAD, enabling B‑21 and standoff strikes); others say any major US–China war would be unwinnable or nuclear‑constrained, making the whole framing suspect.
• Debate over whether Chinese satellites, drones, and missiles can reliably find and overwhelm carrier groups; tracking and targeting in the vast Pacific is seen as a hard, unsolved problem.

Procurement, Politics, and Ethics

• Repeated criticism of the US military‑industrial complex: revolving door appointments, pork‑driven subcontracting in many districts, projects chronically late and over budget.
• Some defend big programs as a way to preserve advanced engineering capability between wars.
• Several comments question the morality and normalization of planning for wars with Iran or China at all, and note the opportunity cost versus domestic needs (e.g., student debt, social spending).