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F-35 combat operations have often been against terrorist and militant targets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
Israel used the fighter jet in widespread strikes against Iran in late October.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
The success of that operation underscores the F-35’s ability to battle higher-level threats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
F-35 stealth fighters have been flying combat missions in the Middle East for years now, though largely in permissive airspace against lower-level targets. The jet’s recent victory against Iran’s air defenses, however, highlights its ability to combat higher-level threats.<\/p>\n
Britain’s top military officer shared last week that when Israel used its fifth-generation F-35s<\/a> to execute retaliatory strikes against Iran in late October, it wiped out nearly all of Tehran’s air defenses and hammered its missile production sites.<\/p>\n The suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses through penetrating strikes \u2014 that is the kind of higher-level mission for which the jet was made.<\/p>\n The F-35 has historically been used against weaker targets with either limited or nonexistent air defenses. Israeli F-35s have battled Syrian surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft batteries and engaged in strikes on Iranian targets, but the expensive fighter jet has largely been employed against non-state actors like ISIS, the Taliban, and the Houthis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Israel’s recent operation against Iran, which fielded very capable Russian-made surface-to-air missile systems, emphasizes how the jet is capable of engaging in combat at a higher level.<\/p>\n Mark Gunzinger, a retired US Air Force colonel who flew the B-52 Stratofortress bomber, told Business Insider that without the F-35, it would’ve probably been “a far more risky mission.”<\/p>\n The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is an advanced single-engine, multi-role strike stealth fighter jet made by American defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Multiple variants of the aircraft are in use by several countries, including Israel.<\/p>\nThe ‘power’ of the F-35<\/h2>\n