cost cutting could impact on us., page-2

I don't beleive the F-35 would be within his sights. I think the work on this aircraft was started during the Howard years.

And in reality - what alternative exists, that wouldn't leave us with a loss of dominance in the region we need to dominate? Unless he sees sense and asks the US for access to the F-22.

Sorry something else I found from Wiki - Combat range of various aircraft:
The combat radius of an aircraft is often given with its mission profile (without in-air refueling). For example:

The F-16 Fighting Falcon's combat radius is 550 km (340 mi) on a hi-lo-hi mission with six 450 kg (1,000 lb) bombs.
The F/A-18 Hornet has a combat radius of 537 km (330 mi) on a hi-lo-lo-hi mission.
The Su-27 Flanker's Range is 1,340 km (800 mi) at sea level and 3,530 km (2,070 mi) at high altitude.

Combat range refers to an aircrafts ability to fly out to a point, loiter for a pre-determined amount of time, and return with minimum fuel.

The F-22 Combat range is: 410 nmi on internals. (Probably not a good option based on the range for us).
The F-35A Combat range estimated 610 nmi (1,100 km) (Definate improvement over the F/A-18

Note Indonesia is currently getting the Su27 Flanker - with a greater range than any of our aircraft current and future. But obviously less stealthy.