It's really baffling that the US isn't looking more heavily at cheaper, easier to field aircraft like the A-29 Super Tucano for counter-insurgency operations like Iraq and Afghanistan.
edit: to be clear, the US is looking at the a-29; they just don't want to risk their own pilots in it.
Certainly we should not be blowing up pickup trucks with F-35s and F-22s, but we absolutely do need stealthy fast smart planes available in a pinch.
Sure!
The point is more that maybe we don't need 2,456 of them, and that dropping that to, say, 2,000 might get us a couple thousand much cheaper planes for more day-to-day usage in the conflicts we're regularly engaging in too.