Really? We have military personnel in more than one hundred thirty countries. Nearly a dozen carrier battle groups. Our embassy in Baghdad by itself is the size of Vatican City and cost a $1 billion. We are the U.S empire, and might makes right. We spend more on our military than the rest of the civilized world…

Thank you, about time someone spoke with some reason and truth here.

I wonder why it took so darned long for the Navy to procure this. Why does it seem to be taking us longer and longer to adopt new military technologies, at what seems like disproportionate costs?

That "third option" really isn't much when it's been proven to melt military concrete asphalt runway pavements. They'll need to add a 100-TON vertical landing pad protector in order for the F-35 to do its VTOL thing. That isn't to say the F-35 can't land on a ship — the problem is it can only do it twice or thrice…

That's because they spent half those years accommodating scope creep, and then the other half trying to put enough lipstick on that flying pig so as to not make it appear more than a third of TRILLION dollars was pissed away.

They've got those specially designed "Spanish Conquistador beard" things going on. Very tactical towards intimidating the Washington Redskins (and other less civilized entities).

Oh gosh ... why not just admit that Canada doesn't feel the need to spend any more on its defense when it's got the good old US of A right next door to defend it? Like who's going to attack Canada anyway? The Russians? Aww, no worries, NORAD's got that covered!

I bet those damned Canadians apologized even as they dropped their bombs. "We're sorry, we're sorry! We're so sorry! Oh, watch out! Sorrryyy!!"

No idea how our boy in WW2 stood up to the sight of King Tiger. I would've dropped everything and run like hell in the opposite direction. The psychological impact of this thing must've been simply oppressive. If you were a tanker on a Sherman, you had to know you were going to die (Unless they were like, a dozen of…

A gigantic Russian Zubr-class Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) landing on your beach, disgorging a horde of Russian marines special forces on foot, BMPs and light tanks, with wicked AK-630 30mm cannons swiveling around, looking to disintegrate any opposition in that landing beachhead.

Ok, hold on Dear Leader. We're gonna have to fire the ejection seat. This will get your fat ass unstuck (good thing all the money being spent to feed your maw hasn't allowed us to make sure the ejection chutes have working parachutes ... silver linings, silver linings).

Your wife didn't think I was so little last night. She also says you're boring and totally unoriginal.

You know, my 6 year old daughter said the same thing about pigs being able to fly.

You can't be serious LOL. Ever heard of even ONE (1) SAM missile attempt to take down ANY U.S., French, British or Egyptian aircraft bombing ISIS? The SU-27's have seen actual combat. The F-22's been rolled out into service for nearly a decade, and it has yet to be used in ANY meaningful combat engagement.

Not quite sure how we went from discussing the merits of the SU-30SM over the F-22, to bringing in F-15's, F-16's, etc., and imagining stuff like Manpads and 'aerial photo intelligence.'

Sorry, really can't consider dropping bombs on ISS to be real operational combat. That's not combat —- that's so low risk, it's laughable. It's pretty much gross overkill, when your opponents can only basically throw rocks against your air assets.

What, are you in stealth mode? You need to do a better job with that sarcasm thing. It's practically invisible.

Have you SEEN an F-18 Hornet coming in for a landing? With fly-by-wire systems, these aircraft are designed to be inherently unstable. You can fully appreciate it when you see them landing, because they're not going at 700mph and you can actually see the plane with all its minute tremors, and all its control surfaces…

Uhhh, the reason why the U.S. isn't trying to sell the F-22 to other countries is because NOONE can freaking AFFORD them.

It would probably come down to tactics and training.