US Military Edge Not As Sharp As in Gulf War (1990-1991)

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Weapons technology l Who’s Afraid of America?  The military playing field is more even than it has been for many years. That is a big problem for the West. Economist, June 12, 2015.
www.economist.com/news/internati ... been-many-years-big

Quote:

"And America has been distracted. During 13 years of counter-insurgency and stabilisation missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon was more focused on churning out mine-resistant armoured cars and surveillance drones than on the kind of game-changing innovation needed to keep well ahead of military competitors. America’s combat aircraft are 28 years old, on average. Only now is the fleet being recapitalised with the expensive and only semi-stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

"To get its hands on the technologies it needs, the military establishment and the armed forces themselves may have to take an axe to cherished programmes. One possibility would be to scale back plans to buy nearly 2,500 F-35 fighter jets, which have too short a range for many situations, and use the money to buy unmanned combat aircraft and a bigger fleet of long-range strike bombers.

Note:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) The Economist title is a wordplay on

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who's_Afraid_of_Virginia_Woolf%3F
(a 1962 play by Edward Albee [1928- ; American]; The title is a pun on the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from Walt Disney's Three Little Pigs (1933 [film]), substituting the name of the celebrated English author Virginia Woolf[[1882 – 1941 (suicide by drowning); maiden name Stephen and Woolf was Jewish husband's surname])
(c) Wikipedia on F-35 Lightning II:
"Maximum speed: Mach 1.6+
Range: 1,200 nmi (2,220 km) on internal fuel
Combat radius: 613 nmi (1,135 km [or 705 miles]) on internal fuel"

* New York and Chicago air distance: 733 miles