Originally Posted by
ProPax
I didn't know that. My understanding was that Lockheed proposed this idea. Very interesting. If it was the Congressional Mandate, then it was a stupid one. One size fits all NEVER works.
This "joint" thing traces back to the comms and interoperatiblity snafus during Grenada, 1983. From that came Goldwater Nichols Act. But there was a heck of a lot more to it than that. Joint Doctrine became a bit thing in the 90's, and the "roles and missions" power play between all four services also ran into the "why can't we do it cheaper and generically to reduce cost." And so on. There were Joint Requirements Documents writtend for V22 in the 80's. (Won't go off topic on that either). And there is the perception that Joint will save money. (As above, so it was believed with F-111) The common platform requirement guaranteed that nothing would be optimized. That LM came up with some neat ideas that eventually had a lot do to with JSF hardly made F-35 As Is inevitable. Boeing could have won the bid, but didn't.
And I think I remember correctly that the loss of the A-12 (A-6 replacement) left the USN in a "we got no Stealth" mode that they had not planned on, which made getting on the band wagon with the stealthy "low cost" fighter an easier decision because that Roles and Missions debate was a huge motivator on "From the sea" strategy (read "fund me") posture in the 90's and the later versions of the martitime strat after that.
It's a real hairball.
As to Moving from Turkey to somewhere else: yeah, I'd expect to see a price increase.
As to Turkey being the "key" NATO ally. That's a reach. But they are certainly sitting in a decent piece of real estate at the moment.
But wait, other NATO allies have pulled people out, to include the Germans.
IMO, the Critical NATO ally in the Southern Region is, and remains, Italy.
Location, Location, Location.