The End of American Air Superiority?

One of the world's great reporters, Mark Bowden, who, like many of the world's great reporters, works at The Atlantic, has a fascinating piece about the F-22 in our latest issue, which should be read on paper, ideally:

American air superiority has been so complete for so long that we take it for granted. For more than half a century, we've made only rare use of the aerial-combat skills of a man like Cesar Rodriguez, who retired two years ago with more air-to-air kills than any other active-duty fighter pilot. But our technological edge is eroding--Russia, China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan all now fly fighter jets with capabilities equal or superior to those of the F-15, the backbone of American air power since the Carter era. Now we have a choice. We can stock the Air Force with the expensive, cutting-edge F‑22--maintaining our technological superiority at great expense to our Treasury. Or we can go back to a time when the cost of air supremacy was paid in the blood of men like Rodriguez.