I think the USAF is looking at future campaign scenarios where we may need to stage significant numbers of ground attack aircraft with limited runway access. This lesson was learned in Iraq with the Saudi's reluctance to let us stage our attack aircraft on their soil. If it wasn't for Qatar we would have had significant troubles.
Our AF is going to be significantly reduced. A couple of wings of F-22's to provide air dominance, a lot of JSF wings to replace the aging fleet of F-16S, more B-2s. These will hold us over until we start producing the new generation of pilotless attack craft. The Buffs and the Warthog will be around for awhile.
No it isn't. I don't know where you folks get this stuff.
In which case a STOVL aircraft would have not changed things much. In Gulf I and Gulf II, thousands of sortes were generated daily, and without the hard infrastructure of a permanant base for maintenance, refueling, and rearming, you can't sustain that kind of air campaign. In limited combat situations, where you need short term close air support, then you do need to be forward based, and that is what the Marines are for. If you don't have access to a hard base, that is what the carriers are for. Why do you think there is a carrier variant of the F-35? Theoretically, the Navy could just buy STOVL vairants, but that would be as questionable as the Air Force buying a "significant number" of them.
Our AF is going to be significantly reduced. A couple of wings of F-22's to provide air dominance, a lot of JSF wings to replace the aging fleet of F-16S, more B-2s. These will hold us over until we start producing the new generation of pilotless attack craft. The Buffs and the Warthog will be around for awhile.
Our Air Force was significantly reduced prior to Gulf I. It was reduced even further prior to Gulf II. We will still have F-15Es for air to ground, we will still have F-16s for wild weasel, close air support, air superiority, air recon, and strike package jamming. The F-35 will replace the older F-16s in the air superiority role, while the newer F-16s will be reassigned to the other roles.
Pukin Dog is right, however, in that the F-35 will end up being cancelled. We learned from McNamara's day that you can't design one aircraft for widely different roles. The F-111, which I worked on when I was in the Air Force, is the prime example. It eventually worked out to be a decent ground attack aircraft, but it was never the air superiority aircraft either the Air Force or the Navy wanted it to be. (The Navy never wanted the damn thing in the first place.) The result was the F-15 for the Air Force, and Pukin's beloved F-14 for the Navy. I'm seeing the same thing with the F-35A, B, and C variants.