China's missiles could dust the US military in minutes — here's what would happen if they tried
The exact phrasing was that the US was getting "its ass handed to it" in those simulations, Breaking Defense reported the RAND analyst David Ochmanek as saying earlier in March.
"In every case I know of," Robert Work, a former deputy secretary of defense, said, "the F-35 rules the sky when it's in the sky, but it gets killed on the ground in large numbers."
Against China, which has emerged as the US's most formidable rival, this problem becomes more acute. China's vast, mountainous territory gives it millions of square miles in which to hide its extensive fleet of mobile long-, medium-, and short-range missiles.
