Hasik hints at an airpower takeover of the Pentagon.

via National Interests...

. Until now, these particular ships hadsurvived the critics, but now, the Joint Strike Fighter is eating the budget, and it must be fed. Given trends in military technology, and a fundamental question about American strategy, I do wonder if this re-emphasis on aircraft and quality over ships-in-quantity may be the wrong call.

Then this...

If surface flotillas are to survive in the most hazardous seas, as Commander Phil Pournelle of the Office of Net Assessment keeps saying, thennumbers will be needed. To command the seas one wants to command, as Bryan Clark of the CSBA has argued, more ships with more missiles and more missiles per launcher will be required.

And finally this...

None of this means that the Freedom or the Independence, in an LCS or FF version, is the right ship for the U.S. Navy, but it does mean that ships in quantity are what’s right for anyone serious about an open-ocean navy. That dynamic is what recently led T. X. Hammes of the NDU to argue both thatquantity will trump quality in future wars, and that blockading China makes more sense than fighting across its shores. If you’re bent on frequently fighting air wars over someone else’s territory, then doubling-down on F-35s might make sense. If you’re looking to keep the oceans open for business, you’re going to need a lot of ships.

Read the whole thing but I wonder.

Are we finally going to see open warfare inside services (like the Marine Corps with the Wing vs the Ground Combat Element) and then intra-service...the USAF vs everyone else?

The ENORMOUS cost of the F-35 mixed with the Long Range Strike Bomber, Tankers and the tilt toward airpower could not only make the USAF winners...it could make the nation a HUGE loser in the coming peer vs peer conflict.