Mark Bowden’s amazing profile of Col. Cesar Rodriguez makes as good a case as you’ll ever see for the F-22. Bowden’s over-arching argument is that air supremacy is the sine qua non of American war fighting and that said air supremacy comes at a cost. The question is simply whether we pay that cost ahead of time in dollars, or during military operations with blood. And in order for America to retain bloodless air supremacy, we need more Raptors. (In case anyone was looking to, say, stimulate the economy with stuff America needs, the F-22 is a “shovel-ready,” made-in-America project.) All of that high-minded defense stuff aside, Bowden’s piece is nearly pornographic in its level of fighter jet detail. Just one tiny sample:
You read that right. To put things in perspective, the F-22 Raptor was initially 144-0 against F-15s and F/A-18s in Red Flag exercises and it took until July 2007 for a fourth generation fighter (an F-16) to finally register a mock kill against an F-22. Then again, maybe we really do need that Disney-Vegas mag-lev line.
