Imagine the scene: Four advanced Soviet fighter planes streak across communist Poland for a confrontation with NATO. Suddenly, the lead jet erupts in a fireball, followed quickly by the next three.
As the surviving pilots drift toward the ground in parachutes, they finally get a glimpse of their attacker -- a single U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter jet, all but invisible to radar, roaring by at supersonic speed.
Unfortunately for the Air Force and Lockheed Martin Corp., that scene no longer relates to the real world, where the fall of communism and the collapse of the once mighty Soviet military have eliminated the adversary for which the F-22 was designed.
Now the $62.7 billion program soldiers on into a far different world of terrorist attacks and ballistic-missile threats. Even while the conflicts in Iraq and Yugoslavia demonstrated that major air-to-air battles no longer are likely, supporters of the F-22 have ensured its survival in part by exaggerating the foreign military threat.
Advocates have resorted to noting the dangers of countries such as Canada and Australia, contradicting another branch of the military and coining terms for the jet such as "information platform" in an attempt to reinvent its mission and keep it relevant.
But even some who admire the jet say the military is overstating the need for it, especially at a time when the services say they cannot afford to keep troops ready to fight.
"The F-22 will be the best fighter in the world, no doubt about it. But there ain't any opposition out there," said Williamson Murray, visiting professor of military history at the Army War College. "It's sort of like holding a boxing tournament for a high school and bringing Mike Tyson in."
The Air Force itself characterizes the F-22 as overkill, saying it wants its pilots to have an overwhelming advantage.
Anyone who has been in battle would applaud that goal, said William E. Odom, a retired Army general and former head of the National Security Agency. It's just that the fractured, post-Cold War world has changed the rules.
"The F-22 is like somebody buying an 18-wheeler truck who needs a slick sedan to take him up to a bank meeting. It's a misfit," Odom said.
Creating a new mission
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Congress and the military struggled to understand the significance of what was already being called "the year of revolution."
Rep. John R. Kasich, an Ohio Republican, complained early in 1990 that he had seen a military presentation that morning on nuclear strike capability followed by a debate on sending aid to Russia. "What is going on here? Where really are we in the world, and what is our approach going to be?" Kasich pleaded.
Many sensed a rare opportunity to pare whole programs from a defense budget still swollen from the Reagan buildup. Then-Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney said in a special round of hearings that he had commissioned a "Major Aircraft Review" to see whether four costly warplane programs were still needed.
One of them was the Air Force's Advanced Tactical Fighter, or ATF, which would become the F-22. The plane had been created for a specific reason:
"We are designing the ATF to [combat] ... a technologically advanced, numerically superior enemy," the Air Force had reported in 1987 and 1988. "The program schedule is driven by the threat: The Soviets are already fielding new fighters" that match current U.S. jets, the F-15 and F-16.
Behind the scenes, some in the Pentagon knew that the F-22 would survive the Major Aircraft Review -- not because of military necessity, but because the people assessing the fighter had supported it all along.
"Given the composition of the working-level staff on the review, it is not likely that anything but 'press on' would be supported from the 'analytical' data," Ronald G. Garant, director of investment for the Pentagon's financial office, warned in a March 1990 memo to his boss.
Garant, who still holds that position but declined to discuss the memo, wrote that three programs -- the B-2 stealth bomber, the Navy's A-12 Avenger attack plane and the early version of the F-22 -- were going to be justified regardless of outside concerns such as cost and need. "All three of these programs suffer from having been born in the undisciplined world of compartmented programs where money is no object and the realities of the world are never a consideration."
Of those three, only the F-22 has survived in something like its original form. The B-2 was scaled far back, and the A-12 was canceled.
Clearing Cheney's review with only a two-year program delay was a milestone for the F-22. The next year, 1991, the Air Force chose Lockheed Corp. and its partners Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp. to build the F-22 over a competing proposal from Northrop and McDonnell Douglas Corp.
From then on, even as the Soviet Union dissolved, the Air Force gathered momentum in recharacterizing the plane to protect it from its Cold War origins.
'Exaggerated threats'
One argument the Air Force used increasingly was that the nation needed the F-22 program to keep the defense industry busy and efficient. This was at a time when the Pentagon was urging defense contractors to merge. Lockheed led the way by absorbing its General Dynamics partner in 1993 and then merging with Martin Marietta Corp. in 1995.
Today, only Lockheed Martin and Boeing remain as military aircraft builders, creating great political pressure to sustain their biggest shared program, the F-22.
On the military side, the Air Force seized upon the very uncertainty brought about by the end of the Cold War as justification for continuing the program.
The fighter created as the ultimate response to a huge, monolithic enemy became a "keystone" in the Air Force's attempt to deal with precisely the opposite type of threat -- a "multifaceted" future that would be "difficult to predict" and "dominated by regional conflicts," according to a 1993 Air Force report to Congress.
Because strategists do not know who the enemies will be, the Air Force argues, the nation needs to be ready for anything.
"We're buying this airplane to provide air dominance for the United States from the time frame of about 2010 through 2030. We've never been very good at defining the evolution of threats against our interest that far into the future," said Air Force Gen. Richard E. Hawley, who oversaw the Air Combat Command until retiring last month.
A fact the Air Force continues to leave out of that equation is that U.S. military resources already far outclass those of all potential enemies. The United States accounted for almost a third of worldwide defense spending in 1995, the most recent year for which data were available from the federal Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Russia ranked second, but its total was about a quarter that of U.S. spending. In fact, American military spending equaled the total of the next five nations combined -- Russia, China, Japan, France and Germany.
Nonetheless, the Air Force and contractors have distributed a map of the world that illustrates the need for the F-22 by identifying "foreign countries with advanced fighter aircraft." In addition to China, North Korea, Iraq and Iran, the map highlights such seemingly nonthreatening powers as Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Morocco and Israel.
A majority of the nations listed had U.S.-built fighters. In fact, Air Force leaders have argued that the nation needs the F-22 to leap ahead of countries that have bought current U.S. fighters.
"The ongoing modernization of [missile] systems and the possibility of fighting an enemy equipped with our own weapons means simply that the F-15 Eagle cannot be expected to ensure air superiority for U.S. forces in the next century," the Air Force secretary and chief of staff warned in a 1994 report.
An Air Force document about the F-22 from 1996 and a briefing package from 1997 showed similar claims about the threat posed by U.S.-made equipment.
Still, Lockheed Martin executives are already lobbying for permission to sell a version of the F-22 overseas. "There have been allies ... [that] have been briefed at some level or other," said James A. "Micky" Blackwell, president of Lockheed Martin's aeronautics sector.
Blackwell acknowledged that the foreign menace has occasionally been inflated. "Some have exaggerated the threats," he said. "But the fact is, there are some good airplanes out there, and airplanes are coming online that are newer than the F-15."
The Navy has disagreed with the Air Force about the danger of those new foreign fighters. In 1996, the Navy issued a report that showed its new fighter -- the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet -- as superior to any overseas jet through 2005 and equal to the world's best in 2015.
What's more, the Navy said its forecast was coordinated with Air Force intelligence.
Lockheed's might
Ultimately, the Air Force's opinions about its planes seem to depend on the situation. When it wants to push the F-22, such as last year in congressional issues papers, the Air Force claims that the F-15 is only "at parity with current foreign aircraft."
On the other hand, a September Air Force fact sheet boasts otherwise, claiming that the F-15 "can penetrate enemy defense and outperform and outfight any current enemy aircraft."
The service went a step further in its official fact sheet for the smaller, more versatile F-16 Fighting Falcon: "In an air combat role, the F-16's maneuverability and combat radius ... exceed that of all potential threat fighter aircraft."
The fighters most often described as equaling the F-15 are not only two Russian jets -- the MiG-29 and Su-27 -- but also a pair of new fighters from Europe: the Eurofighter, built by a four-nation consortium, and the French Rafale.
Neither of the European planes has entered service. Each will cost more than the F-15, and no country outside those where the planes are being built has bought one. In countries buying new aircraft, the overwhelming favorite has been Lockheed Martin's relatively inexpensive F-16.
The updated F-16 is more advanced than the new European fighters in such areas as flight control and electronics, said George Standridge, who promotes international sales at Lockheed Martin. "Things that are considered old in our airplane are 'revolutionary' in theirs," he said.
Because the F-16 is so small, it even competes with the newer planes in terms of being hard to find on radar, Standridge said.
Whether or not overseas planes are as good as U.S. fighters, the Air Force has maintained that Russia could introduce a new generation of jets that would vault far ahead of them all.
The federal General Accounting Office disagrees. Louis J. Rodrigues, who heads the agency's defense acquisition issues section, said he has seen the classified intelligence data on which the Air Force bases its claims.
One important detail is omitted, Rodrigues said: Intelligence reports show that Russia will produce new jets only if its ruined economy regains its health.
That seems a remote possibility. In December, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev reported that only a third of the nation's warplanes were airworthy because of poor maintenance and that the Russian air force had not received a new aircraft all year.
"Those [new] planes will never come about in my lifetime," Rodrigues said.
The National Defense University, a Pentagon training center in Washington, reported in 1997 that "neither Russia nor China is ... capable of mounting a broad military challenge" to the United States. Other regional powers -- such as North Korea and Iraq -- have militaries that are too outmoded and decrepit to pose a serious threat, the study said.
One expert said it is not the power of any foreign military that keeps the F-22 program alive but rather the political and economic might of the company that is building it.
"We can beat the Chinese. We can beat the poor Russians. But you can't beat Lockheed Martin," said retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a best-selling author and military commentator.
'Counters to stealth'
The recent conflicts in Yugoslavia and Iraq point out how superfluous the F-22's original mission has become.
The plane was designed to provide control of the air by outclassing other fighters, but the F-15 and F-16 -- as well as the Navy's F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet -- have handled that role with ease. In Operation Desert Fox, for instance, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did not put a single plane in the air.
The few Serbian MiG fighters that dared to fly in Yugoslavia were quickly eliminated. NATO control of the air was absolute.
Asked why the nation needs to invest additional resources in a mission so well-covered, Air Force officials offered a series of rationales.
One is that the F-22 could be an escort for other aircraft -- such as the B-1 bomber, as Hawley of the Air Combat Command suggested, or the Joint STARS surveillance plane, as F. Whitten Peters, the Air Force secretary, said.
The F-22's presence "may be more important ... not so much for fighter-vs.-fighter as to make sure other high-value assets are protected," Peters said.
That is not a demanding role; of the 650 missions flown over Iraq during Desert Fox, only four were conducted by B-1s. And the Pentagon plans to buy only 14 Joint STARS aircraft.
The leaders also pointed to the F-22's potential for taking out targets on the ground. Like the F-15, the F-22 has "inherent ground capability," meaning that four of its missiles could be replaced by two 1,000-pound guided bombs.
But that is a far cry from an actual ground attack capability. A new version of the F-15 -- the heavier, two-seat F-15E Strike Eagle -- was developed for a ground attack role, which involves dangerous low altitudes.
Lockheed Martin is pushing to one day do the same with the F-22, but that would entail a separate program and separate pot of money.
In fact, the Air Force won permission to skip a legally required test -- in which a whole F-22 would have been fired on with live ammunition to see how it would be affected by battle damage -- by assuring a National Research Council panel that the plane would not be exposed to significant fire from the ground because it would stick to air-to-air missions.
Another F-22 advantage noted by supporters is that its speed and low visibility on radar would allow it to slip past missile batteries such as those protecting Yugoslavia and Iraq. But that raises another question, said Ralph Peters, the military commentator.
"What would the F-22 have done when it penetrated the airspace? It's not a bomber, so it's going to zip around over Baghdad like a mad gnat? So what?" he said.
Stealth technology itself raises a host of questions. While few would dispute that avoiding radar has been a valuable asset of the B-2 bomber and the F-117 Nighthawk fighter-bomber, even boosters caution that stealth offers no guarantees.
The first NATO aircraft shot down in Yugoslavia, for example, was an F-117.
Former Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr., who served under President Reagan, suggests that the Air Force has overemphasized the value of stealth technology in dealing with surface-to-air missiles -- especially because enemies are developing sophisticated methods for countering or negating stealth.
Pointing out that Navy planes have evaded heavy missile batteries in places such as Libya, Lehman said that stealth "is useful, it's valuable ... but there are counters to it. Most sophisticated defense establishments now have counters to stealth."
'Information dominance'
Even if all that is true, if today's world offers no compelling argument for building the F-22, the Air Force points out one undisputable fact: The F-22 is not going to fly in today's environment.
"It's a question of whether you think the world is going to be static," said F. Whitten Peters, the Air Force secretary.
And that, many experts say, is exactly the problem with the F-22.
Other nations have given up on trying to match America's broad military might, said Andrew F. Krepinevich, director of the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former member of the National Defense Panel.
Instead of trying to contend with the U.S. Navy or Air Force in future fights, he said, hostile countries are looking for unusual, hard-to-prevent ways of attacking. The most menacing: ballistic missiles.
Beginning with the crude Iraqi Scuds of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, ballistic missiles have posed an increasing danger that U.S. military planners do not know how to counter. In fact, relatively inexpensive long-range missiles could render the F-22 all but useless, Krepinevich said, by blowing up airfields before the fighters get off the ground.
That represents a problem for all types of Air Force fighters, which can be used in a conflict only if they have access to a nearby air base. Foreign governments are increasingly reluctant to give such access and the United States is withdrawing from its overseas bases, so carrier-based Navy jets have been the first choice for recent campaigns.
"It may turn out that the F-22 has a key role in helping us walk through this," Krepinevich said. "My problem is, I haven't been able to identify that role, and I haven't seen our senior military leadership explain what it is."
There also has been little discussion of what role the F-22 could play in a future dominated by terrorism. Jacques S. Gansler, the undersecretary of defense who oversees new weapons purchasing, was a respected military thinker in private industry when he told Congress in 1990 that the Pentagon was placing its resources in the wrong places.
Without mentioning the F-22 or any other program, Gansler urged the military to put more emphasis on weapons that address the types of conflicts that are most likely in the post-Cold War world: "namely, those associated with regional conflicts, Third World terrorism, drugs, things of that sort."
Gansler declined to be interviewed for this series, so it is unclear how he reconciles the Cold War mission of the F-22 with his vision of the future.
Maj. Gen. Claude M. Bolton Jr., the Air Force's executive officer for fighter and bomber acquisition programs, said the F-22 would serve as a deterrent to terrorists simply by being so powerful.
Hawley said the plane could carry out punitive raids against terrorist facilities that are protected by missile batteries -- though that involves the ground strikes for which the F-22 was not intended.
Other Air Force leaders claim the advanced electronics planned for the plane will plug it into the digital military of the future and make the F-22 an "information platform" for "information dominance," in the words of former Air Force Secretary Sheila N. Widnall.
While those electronics are being tested in various laboratory settings, none will fly on an F-22 until next year. Those systems are cited by program officials as the area of greatest risk in developing the plane.
Bankrupting the U.S.?
The GAO has argued since 1994 that the Pentagon should slow the F-22 program and focus on getting its technology developed. With no Soviet threat and U.S. power unchallenged, the agency said, there is no pressure to field an expensive, unproven weapon.
Many argue that the lull in world affairs offered by the end of the Cold War is a chance to rethink the future of the military.
The 1997 National Defense Panel -- nine experts appointed by Congress and the secretary of defense to study military planning -- questioned the decision to invest heavily in fighters. "Greater emphasis should be placed on experimenting with a variety of military systems," the panel concluded.
That line of reasoning involves building a few F-22s as a "silver bullet" fleet but continuing to explore other options, such as pilotless planes and new types of missiles, until the future threat is better understood.
Even some F-22 advocates are troubled by the plane's future in an altered world. Asked whether he would produce the same aircraft if he were starting over today, the Air Force's original program manager hesitated.
"That's a little harder to project. The threats, obviously, aren't emerging at the pace they were forecast to," said retired Col. Albert C. Piccirillo. "I don't know.
"I would say that in an unconstricted environment you go for the best money can buy, which in a sense is what we were trying to do. ... I'd say in this country, with our mentality and our culture, it's hard to back off from the high-capability solutions, to settle for second best."
Rodrigues, the GAO expert, agreed that attitude has produced the finest weapons in the world.
"The problem is, it's very inefficient and we can't afford them anymore," he said. "We managed to bankrupt the Russians. We're not going to be far behind if we're not careful."
A HISTORY OF THE F-22
1981
November: The Air Force formally identifies requirement for the Advanced Tactical Fighter.
1982
Congress authorizes $23 million seed money for the ATF in fiscal 1983.
1985
April 18: At a House hearing, the Air Force says ATF scheduled to enter service in 1995; total research and development cost will be $11.8 billion, but that figure "will ... be reduced."
Air Force study indicates a tough but realistic cost goal for the new plane would be $40 million to $45 million. The Reagan administration insists on $35 million. The Air Force protests but presents the figure to Congress.
Oct. 31: The Air Force picks Lockheed, with partners Boeing and General Dynamics, to compete for the contract with Northrop and its partner McDonnell-Douglas.
1987
April: The Air Force tells Congress that the ATF is designed to fight a "technologically advanced, numerically superior [Soviet] enemy" and that the service is "committed" to a cost goal of $35 million per plane.
1989
November: The Berlin Wall comes down (above); the Warsaw Pact is all but extinct.
1990
February: Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney (left) warns that the Soviet Union is still the only country that can destroy the United States but recommends delaying the ATF program by two years because the threat has diminished and to save money.
September-December: Lockheed's entry in the ATF sweepstakes, a prototype/ demonstrator called the YF-22, makes test flights. Northrop's entry, the YF-23, does the same. Final proposals are submitted.
1991
January-February: Operation Desert Storm (above) demonstrates the effectiveness of U.S. military technology.
The Soviet Union breaks up. The Air Force shrinks to 26 wings. Six years earlier, the goal was 44 wings, then 40, then 35. (In 1999, the Air Force stands at 20 wings.)
April 22: Air Force Secretary Donald Rice announces that the ATF buy will be reduced to 648 from 750 because of declining budgets.
April 23: Rice announces that Lockheed's F-22 is the winner of the ATF competition. Engines will be built by Pratt & Whitney.
1992
April 29: At a House hearing, members ask why the F-22 budget is increasing when the foreign military threat is decreasing. Generals respond that Soviet weapons technology is being dispersed around the globe.
1993
January: Because of fiscal 1993 funding shortfall from cost increases and congressional cuts, F-22 development is delayed by up to 18 months.
April 21: At a House hearing, Air Force says it is changing from a Cold War mind-set to one facing multiple smaller threats. It defends the F-22 as preserving technological superiority in an uncertain world, sustaining the industrial base and countering continued Soviet aircraft advances.
Dec. 8: Albert Ferara, milling machine operator at Boeing Defense & Space Group in Kent, Wash., begins fabricating first part of first flyable F-22, a titanium piece of the aft fuselage.
1994
Feb. 10: The Air Force announces reduction in production of F-22s to 442 from 648, which is "all the nation can afford." Gen. Richard E. Hawley says that the Air Force has learned its lesson from problems on the B-1 (above) and B-2 bombers, and that the F-22 will not repeat them because it is "a model program."
May 5: At a Senate hearing, General Accounting Office says the new Soviet planes the F-22 was designed to counter are no longer likely to be built.
Dec. 9: The F-22 program is delayed for a third time because of budget cuts.
1995
March 15: Lockheed and Martin Marietta complete merger, forming Lockheed Martin.
1996
December: Pentagon Joint Estimating Team (JET) identifies $15 billion in potential cost growth on F-22 program.
1997
January: Lockheed Martin agrees to cost-containment initiatives identified in JET report.
April 9: Extravagant rollout of first test F-22 at Lockheed Martin plant in Marietta, Ga.
May: First flight of F-22 is postponed because of technical problems.
Summer: Congress places cost caps on F-22 program.
September: First flight takes place; next two canceled because of glitches. Plane is disassembled and flown to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for further testing.
1998
May 13: Pentagon acquisitions chief Jacques S. Gansler postpones the formal review of entering F-22 production by one year.
Oct. 10: The F-22 goes supersonic for first time, Mach 1.1, at Edwards AFB.
Nov. 23: The F-22 achieves 183rd hour of flight testing, the amount Congress demanded before the Pentagon could consider spending production money. Original plans had called for 1,400 hours of testing at this point.
Dec. 17: Despite delaying formal review until December 1999, Gansler authorizes purchase of the first two production F-22s.
December: The United States bombs Iraq for four days in Operation Desert Fox. The Air Force says that if it had the F-22, it would have used it to escort the B-1 bomber.
1999
March-June: NATO bombs Yugoslavia in Operation Allied Force, losing only two planes and demonstrating utter technological superiority.
April: Boeing identifies a structural flaw in the rear section of the F-22, sharply curtailing test flights.
July 16: The Senate has authorized about $3 billion dollars for next year for the F-22, but House Appropriations Committee cuts $1.8 billion that had been intended for buying the next six planes.
2000
The first F-22 test plane containing a basic electronics system will begin flight-testing. This is considered the riskiest part of the program.
2004
The F-22 is to begin entering the Air Force fleet.
2011
The last 29 F-22s are to roll off the assembly line.