However unpopular the Air Force decision may be, people on both sides of the debate agree that the current crisis—what defense strategists believe is an air-dominance fighter gap—was caused by the decision to cut production of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. Developed to replace the F-15C/D, the F-22 turned out to be so expensive—$350 million per airplane, by some estimates, if development costs are factored in—that beginning in the 1990s, successive presidential administrations hacked away at the number of fighters their budget offices would approve. In 2009, the Obama administration ended F-22 production at 187. When he canceled the program, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explained that the Air Force would still have an adequate number of fifth-generation fighters because it had contracted to buy more than 1,000 of Lockheed’s newer F-35A. He predicted that by 2020, the Air Force would have 1,100 fifth-generation F-22s and F-35s.
