Having wondered what on earth Gates' rationale or reasoning is concerning deep-sixing the F-22 I stumble upon thorough article in Air Force Magazine that dwells on that very subject. The skinny seems to be that Gates is on a mission to reconfigure military acquisitions away from hi-tech platforms geared toward a conventional war theatre and towards more practical implementations in keeping with the wars we are fighting today. In short, Gates seems to be of the opinion that the US military has overkill capabilities [in particular apparently the USAF] viz an unlikely to happen conventional war against a China or something which is taking away needed resources for fighting the asymmetric little bastards we are engaged with presently. It's not clear whether this is a difficult trade-off he makes because of budgetary pressures or whether he believes this is the proper way forward regardless - understandably, he couldn't really just come out and say he's compromising America's long term strategic viability in order to save some cash.
But I suppose it doesn't matter why he's doing it, it's done all the same and the question is if it's a flawed and dangerous plan how flawed and dangerous is it? One thing for sure, it's a dramatic departure from American strategic posture of last fifty years - Gates is sticking his neck out a long way on this one - and I get the feeling from article referenced above that this is his baby [senate armed services committee can intercede - but would they?] and he's nursing it apparently in shadow of skeptical scowls from Joint Chiefs.
For starters, arguing against hi-tech platforms may prove difficult since the JSF is a hi-tech weapons platform - its survivability is entirely based on highly evolved sensor and radar capabilities - it most decidedly will not have the advanced flight characteristics of the F-22, so it will be all about cutting edge electronic systems, in the plane itself and its armaments, if it is to outclass the technologies most likely to be pitted against it. Gates' argument here seems to be that the F-35 will be more practical, more adaptable, just as survivable as the F-22 - but at half the cost, which is what he said today in press conference would be the case. To me that seems to assume an awful lot, not only as concerns costs [Gates talked today about not developing an alternative engine, which apparently it originally was supposed to do, because of costs - they really want to keep the costs down on this thing, which makes me suspicious - they're fixated on cost because that's how they defend getting rid of the F-22 - if the F-35 ends up costing in the neighbourhood of the F-22, Gates is going to be in some trouble explaining that] but also as concerns potential capabilities against likely to emerge technologies.
The other problem that comes to mind is - China, Russia et al obviously make assumption now that US not concerned about being prepared for conventional confrontation with them - I mean, that conclusion would depend on certain other developments, the US still has the most powerful military in the world by a fairly wide margin - but certain potential hostiles can realistically draw conclusion that the US is pulling back as far as global strategic posture goes - so the important question here is: how does that affect their postures? In other words, you show weakness, are you asking for trouble? And the next question would be: does Gates view this as an unavoidable show of weakness if he could speak honestly, or does he he see it as the smart play? I'm troubled by the potential answer to both those questions, in the latter because I see too many somewhat tenuous assumptions needing to be made in support of it, but in the former probably more so if the sincere answer is 'yes'.
The other dynamic to watch here is that Gates is rather seriously invested in this policy course - in other words, he's highly motivated to believe he's right - which in turn means he's highly motivated to believe he's right regardless of whether or not he actually is. I worry about that.
addendum: just watched Northrup Gruman video on the F-35's EO-DAS situational awareness and targeting system - it seems pretty god damn impressive - and it's clear this is the reason why they believe it doesn't matter that the F-35 can't match the better performance specs of the F-22. Still, it assumes effective counter measures will not be developed by opponents - I imagine their thinking is that EO-DAS is open ended, ie can efficiently and effectively be upgraded to adapt to any new developments by enemy forces - in essence they're saying [gambling?] that sophisticated electronic and digital systems governing stealth, detection, tracking, targeting, missile guidance etc now trump speed and agility when it comes to fighter planes. I have no idea how true that is or may prove to be - guess [hope] they do - but even though the people working on this plane obviously have a much more thorough understanding of things it nevertheless feels like a lot of critical assumptions being made here - after all, ten years from now America's air capabilities will be to a large extent utterly dependent on the F-35, so if it proves less than promised, somebody's got some 'splainin' to do.
