It’s getting seriously hard to find the strength to talk about anything positive since January, and the genocide in Gaza and now Israel is testing Iran’s right to exist, and vice-versa. One bombed-out civilian neighborhood full of corpses and rescue workers looks pretty much the same. As Mark Twain once said, regarding religion, if you take two adherents of the religions of peace and lock them in a room together with knives, you’ll come back to find they have disassembled eachother and taken their case to a higher court.

But, let’s neep about weapons because at least they are still somewhat cool. It is undeniable that the US’ intelligence community was what originally prepared the US to go into space after Sputnik, and their first-generation ballistic missile and surveillance projects (who owe their large budgets to Wehrner Von Braun) and Herr Doktor gave the US enough of an edge in the space race that we kinda won, even though we came in second on a lot of stuff. So I’m going to arbitrarily rewind to the days of John Boyd (as documented by Roger Coram) – there was a “military reform movement” which pushed for small, effective, highly maneuverable, purpose built combat aircraft. It was that movement, headed by Pierre Sprey and Chuck Spinney, who squeezed Boyd’s head and got his suggestions for an ideal one-engined knife-fighting combat monster. The results were so pure and good that, basically, the F-16 remains one of the premier combat aircraft in spite of the air force trying to turn it into a bomb sled. When the F-22 was being born, the air force was very careful not to let F-16s play fight F-22s because when the scores came in, some people were going to ask how a 1970s fighter clobbered a next-generation vectored-thrust multi-role stealth piece of mission-creep.

I am not, here, going to go into what Spinney used to call the “defense department death spiral” which is that Air Force would declare their new plane to be “multirole” to keep the Marines and Army, etc., from buying anything else. Then, the program would run over and the other arms would complain (rightly) that it was too damn expensive. In response the Air Force would fly the thing in multiple roles even if its software was still in debug, and it didn’t have the control panels for fairly important weapons systems. To say that the Air Force threw the damnthing over the fence in a half-finished state would be an understatement. But, production of A-10s had been shut down because the F-35 was going to be the greatest close support plane, ever – and production of the F-22 was about to shut down, because the Air Force couldn’t justify buying two more or less exact “multi-role” Lamborghinis, when everyone knew their only real purpose was to cruise chicks and imagine they were the mysteriously-unageing Tom Cruise in some interminable Top Gun series. In order to protect the F-35, as went known but unsaid, the Air Force let the F-22 go. The F-15 was already gone. Considering the forces these planes would go up against, we have: guys with AK-47s wearing sandals and maybe carrying a 1980s man portable anti-aircraft missiles, and Iran or Turkey which actually have grown-up stuff that is actually dangerous. When the Turkish began deploying state-of-the-mumble Russian stuff, the A-10s rather quickly had somewhere else to be, the F-16s got turned into bomb sleds, and the F-22s had their moment in the sun flying around in circles looking amazingly badass and avoiding clouds (the anti-reflective paint on F-22s comes off if it gets wet). At around this time, the F-35 program was “under attack” or, as more sensible people would say, “folks are asking WTF, Air Force?” So the Air Force asserted that the planes were awesome (the $450,000 personalized heads up display helmets were not working yet) and sent them out to drop a few bombs on ISIL. Whee! Combat Cred: achieved.

The F-22 died, the coffin lid on the F-15 was screwed down, and all the lies about the F-35’s close support ability was used to finally kill off the A-10. [There’s gamesmanship going on there, too. Air Force and Army figure if they fuck up the A-10 enough they can start screaming “we need a close air support plane as good as an A-10,” while standing over the steaming corpse of the A-10. I have predicted this before, here: the F-35 is going to get relegated to being a moderately useful shitbox, while the Air Force screams for an updated Generation-VI air superiority fighter and the Army whines about it’s admittedly wonderful A-10. Under either party, the white house will continue to throw money toward all those programs, while the Navy tries to explain how the vaunted “cruiser-class” Zumwalt spends as much time having its drive-train repaired as the IGN Bismarck. So the situation is that we have a piece of crap but we can’t afford to call it that. What’s the solution?
If you guessed: “give them to Israel and let them kick some a-rab ass!” you have a metabolism.

Now, we are up to date. F-35 “naysayers” like yours humbly have been saying “they’re not so good” for a while, and it sounds like various people have been finding out. First, there was a mysterious incident where and F-35 was going to land on a British carried and landed in the water about 300 yards to the left. Then there was the F-35 that got so out of control that its steely-eyed Japanese pilot ejected, which is something they only do when it’s really, truly an equipment problem. Of course, it sank in the China Sea and the Air Force had to pull out all the stops to recover the plane’s pieces so the Chinese could not learn how to make truly bad fighter aircraft. The Japanese pilot? Ah, fuck him.

Last night the Israelis (depending on who you believe) lost 2 of them. Remember, these are the super-awesome stealthy first strike fighters. I have written about this before but the Israelis had to so something clever to allow them to get past their pathetic 750nm range. Tehran from Israel is 1600km. Of course a B-52 or B-2 could have done the job but even the US is not stupid enough to sell those darlings to anyone. Thank god or whatever I believe in. But, as I wrote in a bit about Miyamoto Musashi, understanding engagement distance is actually more useful than knowing how to use a sword. One is strategy, the other tactics, and Musashi was one of the few sociopaths who was really good at both. [stderr] As was admiral Togo, etc. Ok, but the big problem with the F-35 actually dropped last year in the form of a small mention from the Chinese that their newer antiaircraft systems could easily penetrate F-35 stealth. Did it garner attention? Only among us “naysayers” apparently. So, the big “value proposition” for F-35s is ‘sensor fusion’ which is a dumb term for having an information bus that spreads information about threats and targets in a landscape. The Chinese did what they usually do, and sorted through the good and bad ideas and said, “hey we can do that for no additional cost” so participating nodes in the Chinese sensor-sphere could now detect the massive heat-plume coming out the back of that one engine as it struggles to get the plane home. So the Chinese sensor-sphere goes “wow that may be an F-35, it’s not one of ours, let flag it as open meat!” and then every antiaircraft system that can also track an infrared source goes to town and starts preparing to doom the poor, slow, thing with its horrible 750nm range. The Israelis apparently did something (probably wing tanks) to increase its range to something worthwhile – remember – this is a barely combat-worthy jet – and the F-35s reigned the night skies over Tehran for several minutes before they cut and ran with a flock of heat-seeking warheads chasing them. At least one F-35 was downed, its female pilot captured, and what happens to her will be not good. Meanwhile there are rumors of another F-35 being downed. The real point is that the Air Force just discovered that F-35s are not super great when someone adds a bit of software to their defense panels. Seriously, that’s it. OK.

More interesting and concerning is a massive kerfuffle that the media is not allowing: allegedly one of Iran’s drones was high up looking for occluding shadows (good idea!) and a great big bat-wing thing flew between it and the ground. Here the stories get vague. First off, that would be a US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and, unless it was touring the capitol grounds, it had no business over Tehran at night while bombs were going off, etc. One story is that its virgin carbon fiber skin is virgin no more. Another story is that it vaporised into carbon fiber shreds, and a third, of course is “those arabs are such liars.” If the death toll last night was 2 F-35s and a B-2, that’s the end of the F-35 program. As I predicted. The F-35, like the Spirit, is a first-strike weapon and that’s about it, and we’ve gotten a conclusive demo of what happens if they fly into a contested air-space. The photo of the crash is suspicious to me, since when a plane crashes, its engine tends to shut down pretty fast, and that white-hot core doesn’t really match reality. But the wings, etc., are about right.

For damn sure, the Iranians do have at least one F-35 pilot and that’s a whole lot of super stealth macaroni and cheese on someone’s face. Remember, the Iranian counter-attack was not an attempt to beat Israel – they’re just showing them pretty conclusively that when you attack the entire cradle of civilization, you’re playing Alexander to Darius and in the long run, Alexander was a blip on history. I find this whole moment in time fascinating, as long as the Israelis don’t go nuclear, because after this weekend I’d rate Israel’s survival window at about 30 years.* Netanyahu is, of course, Israel’s trump. Like Trump he is a transcendent military genius. Another bit of uncomfirmed news is that he’s hiding in Greece (along with most of El Al’s air fleet) until the hard times are over.

The myth of Israeli invicibility has taken a massive shot in the ass, with the help of the F-35. But I still will not back away from my position that the plane is a joke.

Now, let me conclude with 2 more tidbits of F-35ery. I guess in order of pain caused: The Air Force has asked to halve its projected order of F-35s. I have written about this before, of course [stderr] – Air Force asked congress for enough money for 200 F-35s but is now whining that they are unexpectedly expensive. True! Because Air Force mis-managed the development horribly. But they can no longer buy the 200 F-35s they wanted: they’ll settle for 100. At the same price. [Actually they have already paid for them] Effectively that doubles the prince of the F-35 and Lockheed/Martin don’t care (until someone reforms the US DoD) but it places the F-35 on the same development ramp as the F-22. They’re going to get, I predict, halfway through the order for 100 F-35 and say “you know, these things… let’s just use them as air show stunters, while we build the F-55” If I’m alive I’ll drag myself to the keyboard and drink however much vodka it takes to get me in a mood to try to be light about one of the largest thefts in human history. So, that’s one. Now, for the other.

Allegedly 3 of the countries that commited to the F-35 are preparing to cancel their orders, to the tune of 1tn dollars. That probably means Germany, Israel(?) and Canada. It is a humongous kick in the nuts, except F-35s lack those. I am guessing that Saab and Eurofighter sales reps are snorting coke off their Patek Philippe watches and scheduling back to back order meetings, driving the price of those things down even further. I can hear, it, in fact: “When they turn to leave the battle area, their infrared foot-stomp is so huge that anyone with a 1960s Sidewinder will take a shot.” It only hurts because it’s true. As I opined in [stderr] we’re only winning so long as we go up against bush leaguers. I’m not saying that China is a tremendous power – but I am saying anyone who writes them off is a fool. They appear to have put together their 6-th generation fighter (ugly as it is!) in the amount of time it takes for the US Airforce, collectively, to name its project.

So that is the F-35 news. Next prediction: you will hear less and less about that unfortunate aircraft until it drops from the radar screen. Even Tom Cruise will not attempt to resurrect it for a daring flight against Chinese 6th generation fighters (whatever that is) because nobody is going to believe F-35s winning a knife-fight. I could see Tom Cruise putting Maverick in a Spad, to infiltrate China, but, please, we’re getting past the point where he could retire.

I have not written about this here, but I had a drunken battle of theories with a military analyst from Washington Beltway, who maintained that the F-35 would be OK, and like the F-22, once it was dialed in, it would be only a decade late. My counter-argument went for the throat-pumping system and I opined that the F-35 would be the aircraft that destroyed the Air Force. They don’t want to admit it, but those guys really live for one thing: to strap on some wings and go dogfight a German or Chinese or whatever – ideally with enough advantage that it’s all win, win, win. The Air Force gets its dick brutally bent when its gear does not match its aspirations. They pout like spoiled kids that they are. The fact that everyone is (usually classified) acknowledging that the F-35 is a pig, is kind of galling. But the Air Force never knew how to build a good plane. Kelly Johnson appeared out of the crowd and created the P-38 and the SR-71 and nobody who knows the Air Force would expect them to build something kickass without making it somehow less kickass like by leaking its CAD files to the Internet like they did with the F-35. The next battle shaping up will be unmanned fighter aircraft. I approve of that concept – imagine a Project Ares, 30mm centerline cannon and some sidewinders, without the stuff to preserve the health of a glob of protein paste in the cockpit. Calculate the expected remaining lifespan of your carbon fiber wings and turn that hard, then fire. This is stuff that probably wouldn’t turn a human into paste, but it’d make any human ask “why do I want to be in the cockpit for this?” The last big fight was the oversold – and under-competent F-35 as a do-it-all weapons platform at any price. Not even the most stupid congressperson should believe the Air Force any more. They are going to get fucked so hard when it comes time to test their F-57 (“fat donny”) against a remote-controlled inherently stealthy version of Project Ares with maneuverability the gods envy and a 30mm centerline gun. Then they’ll say they want to buy half as many F-57s and … the drones win. 12 F-57s get built for the airshow circuit.

I went to one of Frontier’s Elite Dangerous conferences in Northamptonshire, and I was fortunate enough to sit next to the lady who did the AI for the enemy fighters. She said her problem was finding the right set of parameters for each scenario so the humans had a chance. Since nerdy women with librarian glasses send me, and she was willing, I went to go play on her system, which was running an “unrestrained AI”. As soon as I took control of my ship, the shields were crumbling and the missiles boring in, while I was trying to find the attacking ship on my readout. The future of war has nothing to do with F-35s or Israel and probably not Iran. It will be one AI explaining to another, “do you understand how he got you?” and the process of unnatural selection will be very fast indeed. The Frontier developer’s opinion was that the AIs will learn to pattern the gaps between your moves, and the speed of your thoughts, and then you’re dead. DeepSeek AI seems to bear that out: one of the things it is trained to do is produce training sets for its offspring.

No, I am not concerned about the “AI eradicating humanity” discussion, other than to point out that humanity has done a great job of eradictating humanity on its own, and we have learned a lot of techniques and counter-techniques. If we’re not a tough opponent, and AIs are able to quash us like clubbing baby seals, oh, well, who cares? The empty universe sure doesn’t. I think that the humans who eventually figured out how to deal with Mongols, will pop up and hand the AI their Aisses. (trick comment, humans never figured out how to deal with the Mongols, but they drank themselves to death. I always wondered if that was the core of “War of The Worlds”)

* I don’t really know how to say this without sounding racist, but the remnants of the Ottoman Empire have not managed to cough up a military genius like Saladin or Vo Nguyen Giap or fucking anyone. It’s nice to see that they have graduated from the “throw rocks and hide behind your explosives” stage but it’s really really bad. Allah has abandoned those people. By the same token, if the Palestinians ever field a brilliant strategist like Ho Chi Mihn or Mao, Israel will be done and dusted in ten years. By the when when US congresspeople are performatively wringing their hands about Israel, someone needs to ask them “what are your plans for when Israel collapses?” OK that’s a tall order but as an armchair general, I think Israel has never been a tenable idea. It hasn’t lasted very long. It’s like declaring that “the US Air Force base at Da Nang in Vietnam will never fall!!” while in earshot of General Giap. The people discussing this situation don’t seem to realize that colonies (like Israel) come and go more or less messily and Israel could be like French Algeria, which lasted 40 years and cost a few million lives. Or Vietnam (French Indochina) which lasted 50 years and cost a few million lives and a handful of American dead, lost within the ashes of the French reputation for feats at arms. [By the way a good history of Dien Bien Phu is fascinating and frustrating] people are in denial about the obvious fact that the colonial program could go south at any moment. I sure hope the various lawmakers and evangelicals that think Israel will bring about the second coming…. to them I say “bro, try some Zoloft and bourbon.”