"I hope that all the fanatical "boots on the ground" heads have an excuse ready for the day when we are shut down by two Su-35 squadrons. Because then you have no air transport, no CAS, no air anything at all. "
And there LO you have it in a nutshell...How many Su35s have the Taleban got? Exactly. How many RPGs/MANPADs/DShKs & fanatical fighters prepared to use them do they have? Loads. We can always point with a wavy finger into the future and perceive a threat to support our favourite toys. None of this helps out Private X bleeding out on the side of a road because there was not enough SH to move him by air, or missing the "magic hour" having been denied a Medevac due to lack of dedicated Dust-Off asset, or the bloke at a platoon house who's run out of ammo because the AT fleet couldn't keep the airbridge up due to a lack of new aircraft and increasingly flakey old ones.
Though, thank goodness, we can have 232 Typhoons and 100 plus JSF just in case we fight a theoretical war with a theoretical enemy in a theoretical future. Just maybe, if confronted with your doomsday scenario, somebody senior enough would say "no sir, we can't do that"...maybe?
Pontificating about the next war is important in times of peace. In times of war you should concentrate on winning the one you're fighting at the minimum cost in blood and treasure.
Rather than send £60m a pop Typhoons to AFG (and risk being shot down by a pocket-money DShK), why not send a whole load of cheaper A10s, SU25s or, dare I say it, Hunters?