We don't need it, but it's too late now to drop it. Going back the the Joint Strike Fighter program circa 1993, the primary requirement for the V/STOL "B" model came from the USMC. They had an institutional fear stemming from experience in WWII that they couldn't depend on Navy fleet carriers for the close air support mission so they insisted on having that capability organic to amphibious ships (which lack catapults and arrested landing equipment). Originally that mission was performed by the AV-8B Harrier, but they (correctly) recognized that it wasn't survivable against modern air defenses. Hence the requirement for a 5th-generation replacement. The Marines had a lot of political influence in Congress at the time and were able to get their way. Requirements from international program partners including the UK and Italy who wanted to pretend that their crappy little mini-carriers could still be relevant also played a part.

Today the notion of conducting an opposed amphibious assault looks increasingly unrealistic. Even third-world terrorist groups now have drones and guided missiles that could massacre the connectors and transport rotorcraft. The F-35B can survive but there won't be any ground troops alive to support. So it's original reason to exist has largely vanished. And the sad thing is that the pointless V/STOL requirement forced a fat single-engine airframe on the entire program which badly compromised the "A" and "C" models in terms of reliability, range, speed, and payload. Oh well.

It did look friggin cool tho:)

But I always preferred the F22. That thing is beautiful and the metrics are insane. But for a while it seemed like there was no peer contender and they stopped the programme.

The whole thing of nations trying to build the fastest, stealthiest, VTOL-est, most high-tech expensive fighter they can reminds me of the generals desperately trying to engineer cavalry charges in 1917 or the navy folks dreaming about bigger battleships in 1944. To see where this ends up, look at Ukraine, you've got a few of the remaining high-tech super-expensive fighters loitering a long way from the battlefield launching long-range standoff munitions and then leaving again, and that's it. Or look at Iran, lawnmower-engine-powered darts stalemating the country with the most expensive, high-tech fighters in the world, and the US is running out of munitions while Iran is a long way from running out of darts. A thousand darts beat one F-35 no matter how technically superior it is.

People calling it "reverse engineered" are not entirely correct.

The "Low accuracy, low speed, drone" concept has not changed since the V1 was invented by the Germans. Who then went ahead and built a more modern one back in the 80s. It should look very familiar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_DAR

It has all the bells and whistles you can recognize: GPS guidance, shitty small piston engine, lumbering speed, launched from a box truck using a small booster rocket.

See, the funny part is that the project was considered a failure because they were designed as anti-radar munitions, to just hang around until a radar transmitted and home in and destroy it. But that part of the project never figured out a good seeker.

It's just convergent evolution. That's what the design requirements imply.

I think they meant the kind of warfare cheap drones encourage. I believe they implied other means may result in quicker conflict resolution.

I think the problem is, apart from deploying nuclear weapons, air-based warfare campaigns have never really been all that effective at achieving strategic goals. Bombing stuff always seems promising, but in reality consequences are hard to predict due to complexity and results tend to be underwhelming.

For the same reason, cheap drones favor the defender IMO. A typical country can sustain quite a bit of damage on home soil, without losing will to fight and popular support. On the other hand, the attacking carrier on their coast line, becomes a singular target instrumental to the aggressor's war efforts. On the front, cheap drones freeze the contact line, which of course also benefits the defender.

Ukraine is very successful at keeping front lines relatively stable, despite man power shortages, due to drones, but neither Ukraine, nor Russia are very successful with their deep strike drone campaigns. I mean stuff is burning all over, but it changes little for ending the war so far. Train tracks are quickly back in operation, refineries repaired, stocks replenished, behavior patterns changed. Population experiencing reverse hedonistic adaptation to the new shitty normal. No models to predict resilience. Collapse may happen instantly or not at all.

Also pretty evident with the US/Israel aggression against Iran right now. It somehow always takes a lot more than expected to break your enemy in the deep.

Dan Caine has come out in testimony before the Senate in support of this war and this strategy, shoulder to shoulder with Hegseth.

If this is due to post Venezuela kool-aid, then he drank from the same cup. Many others in the natsec space have resigned or been fired for standing by their convictions in the Trump era. The DoD is not without responsibility for this failure. Blaming Trump alone has been the sad redoubt of modern American discourse, a rather depressing reflection of a country that cannot look itself in the mirror, that treats Trump as a cause rather than a symptom.

If the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq had not occurred, Trump would likely have never been elected. His entire electoral premise has always been institutional incompetence. He famously was elected the first time by destroying the Republican guard from the inside, by tearing down Jeb Bush - a proxy for his brother and his two wars of failure.

There is no conceivable way for "everyone" to serve even if they wanted to. The modern professional military couldn't possibly absorb a mass of new conscripts. We don't have the budget or resources to train, equip, transport, and sustain them. Militaries of the future will have more robots and fewer humans, and those humans will need higher technical skills than ever before. That is our reality regardless of your political or social concerns.

I don't want to give the military more funding. I favor a less interventionist (but not totally isolationist) foreign policy, and a corresponding reduction in military mission requirements.

Indeed. Israel also does something like this. Nerds don't go to the front line for example, they go into the cyber corps. It's why they have some of the best cyber professionals and companies in the world.

Americans should get free education and free healthcare. But as JFK said, one should also ask what they can do for their country. The military has a lot of jobs, relatively few members actually serve in combat. There are more than enough tasks to go around. Most every type of work you identify already exists as a subset of military service.

By the way...

> A professional army brings contractual obligations for any received benefits (e.g. education), which makes disobeying objectionable orders a question of dealing with existentially threatening consequences (e.g. debt).

The consequences of disobeying objectionable orders could be:

1. Reduction in rank / Reduction in pay

2. Discharge with a "Less than Honorable" rating, which cancels all possible benefits like VA Home Loans or Education Repayment, and can make getting a federal job impossible.

3. Prison

4. Execution (treason)

[ As it stands today, with the UCMJ ]

Same airbase, 10 years later (i.e. a week ago).

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XbTL2kBnN7Q

The reason it can do this is because of the dispersed road airbase system where you are expected to manage with very few resources.

And this is all SAAB military aircraft in one shot https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uel1N2F6jo0

But your 9-3t started as a 900 NG with a little facelift. My point is to go to original branding and engineering, not whatever GM was trying to do we 9-whatever.

I technically still have a 9-3T in the garage.. with the engine sitting next to it...

Exactly and it was a great car. Loved it.

Exactly that’s the joke! Guess what the 9-7x was a rebadge of!

Same story as always: the goal sounded nice, but no one wanted to do the actual work.

NATO v Yugoslavia 1999 is not like the others

What is the denominator? I.e. how many times did it prevent war?

In case of war privilieges, your president can act as a dictator. At least the first 90 days, unless he finds a way to reset those days.

Also a very Christian nation that follows the teachings of Jesus.

I can't think of any rich free market democracies the US has fought wars against.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Market democracy is not perfect but it solves 90% of the problems we'd have otherwise.

>Economic warfare also does in fact kill people. Denying a population, e. g., Cuba, the ability to access medicine/food kills humans just as well as a bullet in the long term.

Deny them jobs, investment that could create jobs and paths to prosperity.

Give them drugs.

Shocked Pikachu when they don't like you.

Edit: Revised language to be more broadly applicable.