But regarding CAS, I feel we should focus on low threat primarily and shouldn’t be using expensive jets to fill the roll. In fact, I would fund low intensity conflicts through SOCOM and let them choose the assets they want, not what big military wants to provide (i.e. the super tacano vs fighter jets).
In the event that we find ourselves in an existential threat war (really only two countries I can think of), other factors such as Nuclear, Space, Cyber, and Air Supremacy are so much more important than high threat CAS. In my mind, high threat CAS and manned Strike aren’t the best use of resources to fight this war
Destabilize the region to ensure petro-dollar existence, replace leadership who don't want to bow, sell weapons and infrastructure.
But when architecting the military, the #1 consideration has to be the deterrence of existential threats. That means planning for contested air space (contested everything, really).
The U.S. is the uncontested strongest military in the world. It would probably be a mistake to take that for granted, though, by making all our decisions in the context of expeditions to the Middle East.