US Military Hardware, The best? Options

[*kryogenix*]

I think so. Although I think some countries may have some equipment that is better (Israel comes to mind immediately), as a whole, our military-industrial complex is a force to be reckoned with.

It's funny though, cause unless I'm getting things wrong, it seems like we're still stuck fighting the Cold War. I don't think things like the F/A-22 and more cruise missiles should be made. I don't see the arguement for the F/A-22, if they wanted an untouchable fighter, the USAF would have chosen the YF-23, it seems unnecessary to spend $120 million on something that performs marginally better than the F-15. Speaking of which, in order to get the F/A-22, the airforce tried to make it seem like we were in need of a better fighter by staging a mock battle with the Indian Airforce. The Indians won, and the airforce used it as evidence to support the need for the F/A-22. Of course, the fight was rigged. The F-15's were outnumbered, were not able to use AWACS and had dumbed down technology. Now onto the subject of cruise missiles. They're pretty nifty because you can hit the enemy from thousands of miles away. I think it would be better if we went back to shore bombarding guns and battleships. Although we'd have to get closer to the shore in order to use them, shells are cheaper to produce and guns can deliver more ordnance than cruise missiles. They can also be reloaded at sea, unlike missiles.

So I guess the questions are

1) Do we have the best military?
2) Do you believe that there are kickbacks and pet projects in the military?