Investing in Arrows is better than investing in Shields

Attack surface is always huge for a person, a home or a country. Security of a person, a home or a country relies solely on defensive measures is resource intensive and ineffective. The attackers will always eventually find the chink in the armor and break through the defensive lines.

Pre-emptive attack to take out key enemy offensive capability or counter attack after successful defense to disarm or disable the enemy is necessary to have true security for a person, a home or a country.

By distributing the offensive power into many soldiers instead of putting it all in a single miracle machine, military planners can maximize enemy attack surfaces while limiting their own exposure.

From the Qin crossbow that puts firepower in the hands of normal, not well trained farmers to the AK47 in Vietnam war to the Manpad Stingray in the Afghan war, history rewards leaders who can empower their common people with the ability to defend themselves and their interests.

In the battle for Ukraine, this once again proved to be true with the success of the Javelin, a portable anti-tank missile that enabled a small country like Ukraine to take out one third of all Russian tanks available for combat.

Without enough tanks, Russia could always continue to bombard Ukraine cities from the Air with cruise missiles and bombs but will not be able to secure the ground and capture more Ukrainian cities.

The Javelin, a Texas-made product via the combined efforts of Lockheed Martin missile division and Texas-Instruments sensors and semiconductor research department, is the Qin crossbow of the 21st century. The Javelin is also not GPS dependent like other NATO missiles so even if Russia could take out all American GPS satellites with their Mig 31 and anti-satellite missiles, the Javelin could still be operational.

With so many miracle war machines like the Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo, Avangard hypersonic glider, Kinzhal hypersonic missile, Russia was deprioritizing investment in individual soldiers and their supporting tanks and planes in exchanging for more media exposures and defend stunts.

Stealth Technology - An Over-Valued Weapon or a Network of Foreign Spy Traps or an Expense Shielding Scheme

From the 1st research paper on The Increase in Radio Wave Diffraction via Edge Configuration by a Soviet scientist in 1964, the US will deliver their 1000 F35 Stealth fighters to US and their allies in 2024. Was that 60 years of misdirection or brilliance?

The study of Radar wave refraction and diffraction resulted in two breakthrough military innovations: The Phased-Array-Radar mounted at the nose of Modern fighter jets to search and track up to 100 enemy air, ground and sea targets at the same time

The Low-Radar signature airframe in modern Stealth fighters and bomber. The Low-Radar signature airframe results in significant less weapon payloads that a Fighter aircraft or a Bomber can carry.

US mass production capability and its massive annual GDP of 25000 billion dollar allows the F35 to reach their critical mass of 1000 F35 by the year 2024.

Offensively, 1000 plus F35 is enough to achieve Air Superiority over the skies of most countries and allows US bombers to drop its payload in an uncontested sky. There are 20 B2 Stealth Bomber available for combat, not enough conventional weapon payload to replace B52 but useful for the delivery of nuclear weapons at 100% success rate.

Defensively, if somehow all US Carriers and Destroyers were sinked or disabled, it will still be an extremely difficult task for enemy naval and airforce to achieve Air Superiority of American West Coast.

Enemy naval Radars and AEWACs needs to be able to detect and track US West Coast land-based F35A and F22 stationning along American West Coast without the normal saturating home ground radar coverage of fixed land-based Radar stations.

Most of the F35 program Research and Development was initially done in California and Massachusetts near the US top Engineering program and its Tech ecosystem. While most of the F35 program manufacturing, assembly and testing is being done in Texas, California and Florida near major US military bases.

The entire F35 program spreads out across the United States among 2000 plus vendors in almost every state and employs more than 500,000 American and foreign contractors in allied countries like UK, Turkey and Singapore.

However, the only Stealth fighters used offensively was the F-117 Nighthawk to evade enemy radar and take out the air defense to create holes in the air defense networks to allow non stealthy aircraft to attack. While stealth plane is almost invisible to long-range early warning L-band radar, the Yugoslavia air defense commander were able to get the missile lock on F117 using higher frequency X-band and Ku-band radar right after F117 open it weapon bay and dropped its bombs on an expected target.

After the downing of F-117 during the Clinton presidency in Yugoslavia, Stealth aircrafts are no longer being used offensively during high risk missions but only conduct low risk missions, protect the US homeland and provide ground, air, sea intelligence data for US allies like Japan and the United Kingdom.

Su 57 is not seeing combat because there are only 11 of them, not enough to achieve Air Superiority. Su57 can not win a dogfight at 100% success rate either against older aircrafts. 200 plus Chinese J20 stealth fighters available for combat but never seen real combat, no battle experience, could also be just another weapon poster. The J20 program is part of the Aerospace and High Tech Industrial Zone of Chengdu.

All Stealth fighters from US, China, Russia are being used defensively and not conducting high risk deep penetrating missions like it was designed for with the exception of the Israel F35i version.

Turkey is making prototype of their first Unmanned Stealth Fighter. Turkey Unmanned Stealth Fighter is a product of Bayraktar, the same indigenous company that created the famous TB2 Drone that destroyed many Soviet era tanks in Armenia and Ukraine. Will Autonomous Stealth Fighter a game changer or another money sunk?

Modern destroyers with Long-range Guided Missiles and saturing surface converage from Synthetic Aperture Radar satelites as well as high-resolution Optical satelites could potentially sink an aircraft carrier before any aircrafts stealth or not stealth could be launched.

The Paradigm Shifts in Defense Industry

America and the West have major advantages in technology through early industrialization in the 17th century. Heavy industry has a slow innovation iteration cycle because of its high cost of material and machinery. It is also very difficult to keep secret any kind of heavy industry invention or innovation.

This is why it is difficult to close the gap in heavy industry with the West and the UK is still holding major advantages accumulated since 1945 in Engine design and manufacturing over even the US, Russia or Asia.

The most advanced Engine is still being built first in the UK or UK-influenced American North East with the highest thrust-to-weight ratio engines being built by Pratt and Whitney of Connecticut, US for F22 and by Eurojet for the European Typhoon aircraft.

Other post-WW2 brand new technology areas with faster innovation iteration cycle like Biotechnology, Semiconductor and Artificial Intelligence shows a much smaller gap with Asia has slight or large advantages over the West.

Practical knowledge is power and the defense industry is not an exception. Weaponization of Biotech, Semiconductor and Artificial Intelligence has been done and will continue to accelerate in this 21 century. Viruses, Nanobot and Information could all become a stealthy invisible form of weapons for homeland defense and territorial expansion for any nations or corporations who hold the leading edge in these brand new paradigms.