Wilf asks a fair question. Or why not get a production line up and running producing a modern version of the A-6 Skyraider for ourselves and the many small, poor countries that have requirements? (sure they want F-16s, but really?)

For the top end aircraft critical issues are threat, deterrence and asymmetric counters.

1. What is the threat? (combination of capability, inclination, likelihood, risk, etc)

2. Do current platforms effectively deter that threat?

3. Are there relatively simple, inexpensive counters to these new platforms that can be quickly rolled out by opponents putting us right back at the same deterrence balance we are at currently?

4. What are the missions that drive this. Are there changes of policy that would cause some of those missions to (rightfully) either fall off the books or take a much reduced priority.

I don't have the answers to any of these. I did participate in the High-End Asymmetric Threat section of the last QDR though, so I do have some insights. Sometimes we use our desire for numbers or types of platforms or organizational units to drive retention or adoption of missions, that in turn then drive policy decisions. My one recommendation is that we need to turn that around to the extent possible.

Services and the corporations who produce these platforms are biased advocates; which is fine, so long as we've designed the process to contain those biases into limits set by our national policies and military missions. Currently (and I suspect historically) they opposite is true. BL, neither General Dynamics nor General Officers should pick our wars for us.