You haven’t been hanging out with that loony Carlo Kopp have you Rii?
That must be why I disagree with Airpower Australia’s major historical talking points, namely the proposed F-111 modernisation and the proposed F-22 acquisition. And I place a greater emphasis on Australian sovereignty and strategic neutrality rather than embedding ourselves within a US-centric security network. But sure, there are certain points on which we agree — namely that F-35 is dumb — and we share a basic skepticism of the current national security apparatus. If that makes me a Kopp-zombie in your eyes, suit yourself.
Super Hornet, F-35, Wedgetail and KC-30 is a pretty potent combination regionally.
For the 2020s when the threat board is still mostly green and Australia secure under the American umbrella, sure. For the 2040s when China is the dominant regional power and Indonesia the dominant power in Australia’s immediate environment, not so much.
Considering the F-35 has barely entered service and is a long way off from full operational capability it is a bit much to write it and those other types off as a potentially fatal mistake or non-competative and start wishing for an as of yet un-designed alternative in 17 years.
The basic qualities of the aircraft are fixed and thus amenable to long-term analysis. The long-term view is often upsetting to those who don’t wish to hear of it. And yet the basic trends are often visible many decades in advance and far less uncertain than most folks would like to suppose. Witness the eerily prescient writings of Jack London in the early 1900s, who predicted not only that Japan would rise to challenge the west, but that it would fail in the attempt, and moreover that its lasting legacy would be in awakening the nation that would prove the real downfall of western — including American — supremacy: China. Note that he was writing of the end of American supremacy long before most folks were prepared to acknowledge that it was even coming!
And of course it’s not only unimportant folk who perceive and remark upon such long-range developments, to no avail. From Kiderlen-Wächter, the German foreign minister in 1912:
âDoes Europe not hear the rumbling noises coming from the Asian continent, where a race which has been asleep for a long time begins to stretch its limbs and will eventually rise and advance against distant objectives, against the Occident? Is it deaf to the ferment of the American soil which is young still, and to the roar of its machines?â
(And hence the pressing need for Germany to make the play for dominance of the European molehill sooner rather than later.)
Meanwhile, an illustration of Australian strategic thought in 2012:
/sigh
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