Obviously it is a bit of a click-bait title. But not totally.
Back in the day, when the JSF was still on the drawing board, or at least in the wetdreams of the Dutch Air Force, there was a very lengthy discussion on this board whether it should be the next fighter. Main points were generally it is too expensive, not European, not exceptional at some roles, but its stealth features will be a huge advantage and it uses an incredible integrated digital control system.
By now it has been chosen and flies already. In the end a few thousand of them will fly in the European and American skies. And it will probably proof excellent in most combat roles it will be required in. I am not going to say it will fail.
And now, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many lessons are being learned. One of them is that the Russian army is even more ==censored== than many could imagine, but still it can do a lot of damage in a conventional, large scale war-of-attrition which this war currently is. Another lesson is that with a true stealth fighter, the Ukrainians probably could do a lot of damage to the Russians. Just look at what they are doing with a very limited number of obsolete Su-25s.
But here is another lesson, in a thread on Twitter by Australian general (ret) Mick Ryan. In a war-of-attrition there will be a need for a large scale industrial capacity to support the war effort. And that's where I think we will have a JSF problem (and perhaps with many more high-tech weapon systems).
https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/stat ... 3860118528
In a large scale war-of-attrition, the need will be to replenish equipment, ammunition AND manpower at a constant rate. This will proof very difficult with systems like the JSF. It is immensly costly (and therefore, not feasible to churn them out at a high rate), it takes a long time to produce (again, not feasible to curn them out at a high rate) and it takes time to train people to use them. Be it the pilot, mechanic, systems operators, it takes a lot of time to get proficient. It is not like deliver, unwrap, hop in and fly away. And even though these are stealth fighters and will not likely be shot out of the sky as much as WWII fighters were, it is naive to think there will be no losses. And with only a very low number available, just a little attrition will have a big impact.
One of the arguments used back then, was that for the same amount of money, over a 100.000 Cessna 172s could be bought. They don't pack much of a punch, but each armed with a bomb and you can do some damage. Crazy thought? Of course. But the Ukrainians show a much better option, the small and very cheap modified commercial drones, armed with small obsolete granates. These things do quite some damage to the Russians. Easy, cheap and quick to produce and just about any new recruit can use it with less than a day of training.
So, in short, I am not trying to argue that the JSF was the wrong choice. But I am saying that when learning the lessons from Ukraine, maybe simply expanding the fleet of them in the Dutch Air Force (and others), might not be the right idea. Not because the plane is not good, but because it will not scale up when it is needed. Don't throw them away, but invest additional funds that will become available in building an additional capability that only requires cheaper, simpler and less technological advanced options. Capabilities that can stand the test of a war-of-attrition and that can be scaled up quickly when needed. Perhaps a cheap secondary fighter, perhaps drone based, maybe something completely different.
Interested in thoughts, I am sure there are some other opinions out there...
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