Joint Strike Fighter an instrument of Power Projection, not just another fighter: America's F-35 has earned the unfair sobriquet as the nation's "worst fighter jet ever." However, this singular vision of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike "Fighter" (JSF) as a fighter jet has failed to give credit to its capabilities when coupled with other forms of advanced technology finding their way into every nook and cranny of military arsenals and operational platforms.
It is precisely this jointness, which sets it apart from 4th generation fighters (still evolving, still relevant today), and which gave the jets its appropriate name of joint strike fighter. In this, the F-35 has advanced beyond the "F" designation and should be judged as a multirole platform - one in a larger framework of multitude of advanced platforms.
F-35 technology combined with the capabilities of highly trained pilots, and the many platforms it works with, opens the way for an advantageous awareness of what's out there and well beyond the immediate periphery of the aircraft. In this, the JSF moves beyond the long-hold dominance and concept that "first sight wins the fight."
