Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
You are absolutely right about one thing in your post Ryan and that is that you don't plan for the current war - but the one looming over the horizon. I doubt that you will ever see a decrease in the near future of the asymmetrical warfare though; as more and more non-state actors can engage in this type of combat than ever before and there is no reason to believe that with state support that this will decrease. The fact is that with the collaspe of the Soviet Union and the 'Eastern Bloc' that many thought the time of more conventional (or semi-conventional as you say) warfare might have been a thing of the past. This thought process ignores current state actors like North Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, a reemergent Russia, and China which some continue to grow in influence.
I'm not sure why you don't think that the F-35 is a well designed fighter or where you are drawing these conclusions from; but it will be a leap of technology above anything that we currently have and I would expect some very nice capabilities to come from this aircraft in both the A/A and A/G roles; although it is a UGLY duckling in my humble opinion!
USMCFLYR
Well sir,
It isn't that the F-35 is not well-designed... I believe it isn't the
best designed
fighter. However you are certainly right in that it is improved over existing technology. It would just seem that there will be a lot of mx problems to come.... but hopefully that won't be the case. As far as asymmetrical warfare decreasing...there are many, many different possible outcomes for that... and I'm certainly not the expert.