The USAF needs more F-22 Raptors if it intends to maintain air supeiority.

I would like to start off by saying that this is a rather interesting topic for debate. As far as my prior knowledge of this issue is concerned, I know considerably more about foreign affairs (a topic I believe is closely related to this) than military aircraft performance, so I hope this will be an opportunity to learn something new. My opponents argument is that, "The USAF needs more F-22 Raptors if it intends to maintain air superiority." There are a few terms in this statement that I think need to be defined to fully understand it. needs - to have need of; require (http://dictionary.reference.com...) maintain - to keep in an appropriate condition, operation, or force; keep unimpaired(http://dictionary.reference.com...) So a few questions immediately arise. Does the USAF require additional F-22 Raptors to maintain air superiority? What level of air superiority is necessary to maintain? I think it goes without question that additional F-22's will make the USAF more powerful, but whether this is necessary, especially upon weighing the costs, is the more important question. C1: The first point my opponent makes is about the alleged obsolete nature of already existing US aircraft. Dictionary.com defines obsolete as meaning, "of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date." Granted, the mentioned aircraft are less technologically advanced than the F-22's, but they are by no means yet obsolete. The F-16 is used by 25 nations besides the US, including military powers such as Israel and The People's Republic of China according to F-16.net. It is correct that Russian anti-air weapons have increased in quality since the Cold War, but the Russian Airforce is hardly on par with that of the United States. It has around half as many aircraft as the USAF and a third as many fighter jets. The International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded that Russian pilots get as little as 10% the number of flight hours as US pilots. The USAF is and continues to be far superior to that of any other nation in the world despite any advances in defense made by other nations. However, as I will discuss later, the issue of Russian or Chinese forces is not highly relevant anyway. C2: My opponent's next point is about the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet and it's alleged inability to replace the F-22. The F-35 would not be replacing the F-22 because, as is likely the purpose for my opponent's argument, the F-22 makes up an very small portion of the USAF. According to The Salt Lake Tribune (http://www.sltrib.com...) there are only 145 F-22's in service out of the more than 1,800 jet fighters in the USAF. This news article also lists the cost of an F-22 as $140 to $340 million per plan. The Air Force said in 2008 that they predicted the F-35's would cost only $83 million per plane (http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil...). I would therefore that the F-35 is actually far cheaper than the F-22. If the Air Force is indeed of a major overhaul in its technology, they would be wise to consider the fact that they can produce 2-4 F-35's for the cost of 1 F-22. My opponent has not offered any definitive study proving that the F-22 is superior to the F-35, and with the cost difference I would expect the F-22 would have to be at least twice as useful to warrant the investment. Considering the fact that the F-35 is currently under development and is likely more advanced technologically, I think it would be reasonable to assume that unless my opponent shows otherwise the F-22 would not be assumed to be the superior of the two planes. Additionally, I have a point to be made about the issue of advancements by other nations. C3: The fact that the United States can not launch an attack against Russia or China is not relevant to the issue of air superiority. It is extremely unlikely that the United States will engage in a war with either of these two nations at any time in the foreseeable future. All three of these nations, the US, China, and Russia, are nuclear states. If a conflict escalated to the point were the nations were bombing each other it is extremely like that nuclear weapons would be used, and at that point air superiority is not really important. Though these nations are rivals, they are not military enemies of the US and as such I see no reason to waste resources competing with them in a way that is unnecessary. By contrast the US' current enemies are extremely weak in terms of air power. Terrorists organizations obviously possess no real air power whatsoever and according to the World Tribune, Iran's current air defenses are extremely weak and could be easily penetrated by the US (http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil...). Conclusion: I feel that increasing the number of F-22's would be a waste of money that would not produce a considerable benefit. The USAF already has the ability to easily defeat any potential enemies. Any nations (Russia and China) that might have air defenses that could challenge the USAF are not enemies and already possess a nuclear deterrent anyway, removing the possibility of an air strike against them from the table. In addition, if the USAF does wish to increase its forces the upcoming F-35 is a much cheaper alternative with no known disadvantages to outweigh the economic benefit. The US government is heavily in debt as is and should look for cheaper but effective alternatives or simply not spending money is a good idea at this time, especially when that money is being spent in a department in which the US is already supreme.