Against the backdrop of renewed uncertainty on the nearby Korean Peninsula, Japan's government today gave a boost to the Pentagon's biggest weapons program by selecting the F-35 fighter as its first line of defense in future conflicts. The stealthy, single-engine fighter is being developed in multiple variants to meet the needs of three U.S. military services and nine overseas allies, but this is the first time it has beaten foreign and domestic competitors in a head-to-head competition.
The F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, was conceived by the Clinton Administration shortly after the Cold War ended as an affordable, exportable tactical aircraft that could help implement the administration's policies of coalition warfare and burden-sharing. At the time the U.S. was planning to buy a more costly twin-engine tactical aircraft called the F-22 Raptor so that the Air Force could operate a "high-low" mix of fighters, but that plane was not designed to be exported and it was terminated in 2009 with barely half of the service's production requirement met. (Forbes)
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