The F-22 Raptor Is the World's Best Fighter (And It Has a Secret Weapon That Is Out in the Open)
Dave Majumdar
With Russia and China deploying advanced new fighters and surface-to-air missiles (SAM), the task of gaining and maintaining air superiority over an increasingly more lethal battlespace falls to a small and elite group of U.S. Air Force pilots flying the mighty Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
Conceived during the waning years of the Cold War, the stealthy high-flying supersonically cruising Raptor was designed to defeat the most fearsome weapons the Soviet Union could hurl at the United States and NATO during a third world war in Europe. However, with the end of the Cold War and subsequent 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the F-22 was left without a mission—or so it was thought. Indeed, the second Bush and Obama administrations cancelled the F-22 program in 2008 after only 195 aircraft—187 production planes—were ordered because they made the assumption that high-end state-on-state conflicts were a relic of the past. However, as it is becoming increasingly apparent, they were wrong.
Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spoke about a return to great power competition. “We will be prepared for a high-end enemy. That's what we call full spectrum. In our budget, our plans, our capabilities and our actions, we must demonstrate to potential foes, that if they start a war, we have the capability to win. Because the force that can deter conflict, must show that it can dominate a conflict,” Carter said, speaking at the Washington Economic Club in February. “In this context, Russia and China are our most stressing competitors. They have developed and are continuing to advance military systems that seek to threaten our advantages in specific areas. And in some case, they are developing weapons and ways of wars that seek to achieve their objectives rapidly, before they hope, we can respond.”
Source URL (retrieved on December 2, 2016):
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-f-22-raptor-the-worlds-best-fighter-it-has-secret-weapon-18549
