I don't think so. The US has actually never fought peer adversaries in conventional warfare throughout its entire existence. It has always been at an overwhelming advantage; even in WW2, US had 2x the GDP and population of the entire Axis, and 5x more than Imperial Japan. It has never fought against an opponent with even half of its own GDP. Even with a large, but not overwhelming advantage, such as that against the Soviet Union (where it 'merely' 2x the Soviet GDP), the US refrained from a direct fight.
Therefore, we can say that they don't actually know what will work in an actual near peer war.
Meanwhile, China and Russia have fought multiple peer opponents with equal or greater GDP and won.
War of 1716 - overwhelmed in numbers and gdp
British American War 1812 -overwhelmed in numbers and gdp
Spanish American War - overwhelmed in numbers dont know spains gdp at that time
US has the highest fighting history of any nation present today. of its 200+ years of existence it has only been at peace for 21 yaars
GDP is not a direct measure of wealth and certainly doesnt decide war fates. a better direct measure would be GDP/Capita if u actually wana go into it
How F16 blk 70/72 is not on table is something which surprises me. It has all the good elements from capex and opex POV and it can stand up to any 4.5 generation plane in the world. Is there a spec sheet other than operational cost which USAF wants for a new 4.5 gen plane?
Block 70/72 is a variant produced only for middle east like jordan etc under contract. USAF uses 50/52
in hind sight, should kept the f22 going & installed all the f35 sensors on the f22, would've been a much more cheaper & better iron
option. f35s don't stand a chance against the f22 and the f22 was already a flying reality when then f35 was still on the drawing board. but you know big business...
Well, the platforms differ entirely. F22 is made for air superioty and F35 is more like a strategic multirole fighter. F22's job is to clear the sky so F35 can come and bomb the shit out of the target, share reconissance datalink etc. its called a strike package
Also they tried revitalizing the F22 but the report said by the time they can get the assembly going the world would already be moving to 6th Gen platform so wqs no point