All good comments and all true, but I tend to look more at the big picture (I'm a big picture kind of guy!). I'm NOT an Air Force or Naval Aviation guy. My experience with both are limited to having them respond to calls for fire. Air support is a wonderful thing, and it isn't a stretch to say that we rely on it, but we never really think about the converse. There is a reason for this, and I think we need to put our thumb on it and grind it till it's as uncomfortable as it should be.
Our theory of modern warfare, pretty much in The West, be it on land or on the sea, relies quite heavily on air superiority. This has been the active theory of warfare in place pretty much since the Summer of 1940 and the opening of The Battle of Britain. It manifested itself quickly in the Pacific Campaign, and ended the days of dreadnaughts and battleships. Air superiority has now been the opening move and the prerequisite for invasion or attack for over half a century. We have never made a move without it, and we have focused our energies and resources upon it for this reason.
I cannot stress enough how air superiority is fundamental to everything we do in modern warfare. In fact, the last American casualty due to attack from the air occurred in April of 1953, and was sort of a one off. In a way I think an Air Force guy or a guy in Naval Aviation almost understands less than someone on the ground or the sea. Yea, I'd like to get on the radio and order up a JDAM to drop on the heads of those guys over there who are trying to kill me. Great. That's helps a bunch thank you very much! However, if the choice is that I now have to go over there and shoot them myself, or there is a distinct possibility that those guys over there are ordering up something for me, I'll choose the former over the latter hands down. We can live without air support on the ground. What we can't live with is being attacked from the air, and that IS a technology and engineering race that's never over. Everyone, and I mean even the hillbillies we're fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan, understand that owning the air is owning sheer terror and sheer power. We could handle all sorts of setbacks in warfare, and there are sure to be many, but I'm not sure we can handle the central and fundamental center of our overall strategy failing.
That's why this surface of the earth based guy is an unflinching and unfailing advocate that our Superiority Fighter is the most important weapon system we have. I care a lot less about being supported than I do about being protected. I care a lot less about striking than I do about not getting struck. If we ignore the central and most important facet of our war fighting strategy we are idiots. F-35s that aren't safe in the air from enemy fighters are of dubious use. F-22s that can't hit enemy ground positions are still the most important elements in the battle, because we can go over there and shoot them ourselves. What we can't do is prevent an Su-25, or even a prop-job really, from blowing us up if they come unopposed in the skies.
You can argue that no one is close to us, but I'd have to say you don't know that. We really didn't know about Chinese phased array radar till we say them steaming. We don't know what they have, but we do know they have plenty of money and time to make something lethal. We have the biggest best military in the world, but if we don't own the skies it changes everything.
I think being one step ahead of potential enemies isn't anywhere near good enough. We have to stay as far ahead in Air Superiority as it is possible to be. Really, to me, the rest we can argue about all day and make great points and counter points, but for my money this should be our focus till what's happening beyond our atmosphere becomes of equal importance, which is the way I see it going.
I guess that's why I hate the F-35 so much. It isn't even the plane or it's capabilities. It's the whole idea of it that I hate. It IS trying to reinvent the wheel, but worse it doesn't appear to me that it designed to fit on the cart we have had for over half a century. It seems to loose sight of how he have been fighting war for all our lives, and been born in pure politics rather than practicality.