Gen McPeak in WSJ: Why we need the F-22

General Merrill McPeak, former Chief of Staff of the Air Force, weighed in with a Sunday op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that establishes the need for airpower generally and the F-22 Raptor in particular. While the decision to terminate the program early has already been made, at least in one vote in Congress, the article stands as a excellent reminder of the dangers of misplaced thinking about the lack of near-peer threats.

Here are a couple of his quotes:

In an argument they seem to think makes sense, critics say the aircraft has no worthy opponent—as if we want to create forces that do have peer competitors.

Our guys on the ground had hard work to do, but when they looked up, they saw only friendly skies. For the life of me, I can’t understand why we should wish to change this.

Here is the entire article.