I had to stare at this for a while. I thought it was sarcasm, but I don't think it is.

Zero F-22s are sufficient for Iraq and Afghanistan. But using those wars as the benchmark for a useful or needed weapons system is a bit absurd. It it was the benchmark, why isn't anyone trying to get rid of submarines, artillery, amphibious landing craft, etc. None of those are useful in this war either.

The fact is that there will be another war. The fact is that we don't have any idea what it will look like. Very few folks would have argued in Aug 2001 that we'd be in a prolonged counterinsurgency conflict now. Everyone thought back then the next war would look just like the last one. Remember Bosnia? After that conflict, lots of "experts" were asking why we needed the Army anymore. After all, we could achieve our political objectives with air power alone. That wasn't very long ago at all.

The F-22 is not my favorite weapons system, but the fact is that it can do what no other system can do. Our #1 objective in the military is to become so credible a force that no one would dare attack us...in other words: a deterrent. If we have a credible force to zip through the air defenses that some (very recently considered third world) countries have/are buying, than that is the most important deterrent to all nation-state threats. If some thug dictator can buy a fancy SAM system and put it in his capital, and we can't get there without significant risk to our forces, then he just became somebody on the world stage because he can bet that we don't have the political will to take big losses. And he'll be right.

The F-22 production line has NOTHING to do with how many UAVs we have. It's not preventing us from affording them, it's not keeping us from buying them, and it's not clogging the pilot pipleline and keeping dudes from flying them. It's a non-factor. I know a lot of dudes hold up the whole former CSAF thing as an example of why "fighter dudes don't get it"...but the reality is that anyone who thinks the F-22 was an obstacle to UAVs doesn't get it. The issues are unrelated.

Closing the F-22 line means they are done. If they are too expensive now, there is zero chance they'll be affordable after the factories close, machinery is sold, labor goes elsewhere, etc. There is no option to "revisit the F-22." We'd better hope that we've got the team on the field that we need when the balloon goes up for the next conflict.