America’s F-35 Fighter Kicked Asia’s Stealth Race Into High Gear
Singapore’s decision to buy F-35 puts it in what China derisively calls the “U.S. F-35 friends circle,” a group of nations that border China that have bought F-35s to counter China’s increasingly powerful air force.
Here s What You Need To Remember: Singapore’s decision to announce the F-35 purchase during
a series of sea and airspace disputes with Malaysia suggest that the F-35s capability could become a “big stick” that it might wield in the future in regional affairs.
In January 2019, Singapore
announced that it planned to buy a limited number of F-35 fighters for evaluation purposes. While this didn’t come as a surprise to many Singaporean military watchers, the decision comes at a tense time for Singapore, with China becoming more assertive and rising tensions with Malaysia.
In 1971, India Proved to Pakistan That Its MiG-21 Fighters are Killers
The showdown between the two aircraft was long anticipated as the F-104 and MiG-21 in many ways were rival designs.
Here s What You Need To Remember: After the 1971 war, the MiG-21 would continue to serve in the IAF, although it did not see much further air combat. In 1999 an IAF MiG-21Bis shot down a Pakistani Navy Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft, creating a minor incident.
In 1971 the first supersonic air combat over the Indian subcontinent was fought. Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG-21FLs squared off against Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-104A Starfighters. The MiG-21FL came out squarely on top, downing between three and five F-104As. But was the MiG-21 really a better aircraft? Or was the success due to the better strategy and numerical superiority of the IAF?
China is a rival who seems to have learned from Yamamoto.
Here s What You Need To Remember: Yamamoto was right: Japan had to win quickly or not at all. But he was also wrong: by executing his plan to strike Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Navy guaranteed there would be no quick win. So, again: if the outcome was predictable, why did they do it? What should they have done?
As we afford our hallowed forebears the remembrance they deserve, let’s also try to learn from what transpired here seventy-five years ago, and see what it tells us about America’s future as an Asia-Pacific sea power.
Does Kim’s North Korea Have an Answer to South Korean F-35s?
The ROKAF already fields a variety of advanced American fighters, including over one hundred KF-16Cs and around 60 F-15K Slam Eagles.
Here s What You Need To Remember: The ROKAF might opt to fly the F-35A in formations with fourth-generation aircraft to provide better situational awareness and communications capability, enhancing the ability of the entire formation to fly and fight.
The ROKAF, South Korea’s Air Force received their first F-35A fighter jets in April 2019. The ROKAF hopes to eventually buy forty F-35As and should have ten F-35As by the end of the year.
American victory in the Pacific was far from assured.
Here s What You Need To Remember: Bottom line, no likely masterstroke no single stratagem or killing blow would have defeated the United States. Rather, Japanese commanders should have thought and acted less tactically and more strategically. In so doing they would have improved Japan s chances.
Let s face it. Imperial Japan stood next to no chance of winning a fight to the finish against the United States. Resolve and resources explain why. So long as Americans kept their dander up, demanding that their leaders press on to complete victory, Washington had a mandate to convert the republic s immense industrial potential into a virtually unstoppable armada of ships, aircraft, and armaments. Such a physical mismatch was simply too much for island state Japan with an economy about one-tenth the size of America s to surmount.