Libya is such a terrible example of NATO cooperation. Major players ala Germany and Greece (200+ jets) and middle size forces such as Poland did not contribute jets.
Other major airforces only contributed token contributions ala 6 F-16s for Turkey (300+ combat aircraft) and Spain (6 F/A-18s out of 160 odd aircraft).
And a lot of the countries that contributed to Libya will see a major drawdown of forces in the near future:
E.g. Netherlands – will go for from 85 F-16 to 42 F-16 then F-35.
E.g. Italy – will reduce fleet by at least 41 aircraft (from 131 F-35 to 90). Cuts are probably deeper as there is 150 odd AMX, Harriers and Tornados.
E.g. France – only 180 Rafales on order to replace 250+ Mirage F1/Mirage 2000/Super Etendard. And 5 of those Rafales have already been lost.
E.g. Greece – potential retirement of Mirage 2000 plus older types still in service.
E.g. Germany – will end up with only about 140 Typhoons by 2020
E.g. Britain – Already lost Harrier and 2 Tornado squadrons. F-35 numbers and future of Tranche 1 jets unclear.
Smaller numbers of aircraft means less for combat tasking. After all NATO airforces have to cover off training and home defence requirements and then provide jets for NATO tasking.
Many NATO countries are only capable of domestic air policing (e.g. Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria) due to extremely small number of aircraft (10-14 on average) or operate older aircraft not capable of modern combat operations (Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia).
The cost of F-35 and other modern jets just exacerbates this situation.
And if airforces from strong contributors ala Denmark and Netherlands drop to lower numbers of aircraft, then that will reduce their ability to contribute.
F-35 may be as good as 2 F-16’s but it can still only be in one place.
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