Buy 10 ish P-8s and you can adapt the fleet to match the mission rather than having a one trick pony,
Navy Moves Forward On Advanced Airborne Radar
But keep the capability until then of course! Once something is gone it becomes 'normal' not to have it and easier to convince ourselves we can manage without it, in reality we do what we can with what we've got and don't notice what we can't do anymore. No more managing the gap, capability holidays and then removal of capability
A MMA fleet would have been of great use in virtually every conflict scenario we have been in for the last 50 years and the next 50. The technology is mature and entering service with other nations providing a real capability for many military tasks, the costs are known and it has an efficient support structures
Still we have Typhoon which will do everything (it better as it cost enough, at the expense of other fleets/capabilities), and sometime this century F-35 and we don't have a clue what it will cost
