Why did the United States never sell the F-22 Raptor to other countries?

The F-22 Raptor is one of America's best fighting planes. The United States' first fifth-generation, multi-purpose fighter aircraft was meant to take the country into the twenty-first century and defeat any near-peer competitor. Despite its superior technology and capabilities, the jet was doomed to failure from the start and was never transferred to foreign countries, as previous aircraft have been when newer ones for the US military have came online. Read this new amazing narrative to find out why the F-22 was never sold outside of the United States. 🛩💣🗺

• One of America's best fighter jets is the F-22 Raptor. In order to lead the United States into the twenty-first century and outperform any near-peer rival, the first fifth-generation multi-purpose fighter aircraft was created. But despite its cutting-edge technologies and capabilities, the plane was destined for failure from the start for a number of reasons, including competing projects and a lack of enemies to fight. Perhaps worst of all for the plane's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, the plane was never exported to other countries like other aircraft have been when newer ones come online for the US military. These are the explanations for why it fell short. The F-22 is still the best air superiority fighter aircraft in the world, despite its reputation.
• Before the enemy aircraft's pilots even realized they were being hunted, American engineers built it to find, engage, and destroy them. In the early 2000s, the F-22's air-to-air capability was put to the test when, in simulated kills, it downed hundreds of aircraft while suffering just one loss of its own. Due to this air-to-air dominance, the F-22's ground attack mission set is only incidental and not its primary focus. The fact that the aircraft's first combat missions against ISIS in Iraq and Syria weren't carried out until 2014 is proof of this. While it may have seemed like a waste of resources, the US needed to make sure that the Syrian military wouldn't shoot down their aircraft given that the US had previously launched strikes against them.
• This was made possible by the advanced air defense systems that Russia had provided to the Syrians. The Raptor continues to serve as the primary tool the US uses to gain and maintain air superiority over the enemy, in contrast to more modern aircraft like the F-35. For instance, the F-35 was created with a model that could take off vertically from ships and with a primary focus on ground attack in order to meet the requirements of all the services. Although the F-35 is a fifth-generation fighter with excellent stealth capabilities, it would never be able to match how well the Raptor can perform in aerial combat because America did not design it for that. The Raptor, in contrast to the F-35, was never intended to be produced as an export aircraft from the start.
• Because the US wanted to have the upper hand over any aircraft China or Russia could throw at it in the 1980s, when the aircraft was first being designed, this is what happened. As a result, all sophisticated stealth technologies, including composites, RADARs, electronics, and various avionics, as well as computer software and electronic warfare suites, were classified as top-secret. The military planned for this aircraft to be used exclusively by the US and, more specifically, only by the Air Force. As a result, the software, radars, and communications suites installed on board were among the most sophisticated and effective weapons in the US arsenal.
• As is typical for aircraft designed with foreign military sales in mind, systems like these are purposefully left out of the frame to be installed in the country of sale with their own equipment or produced with a less capable version that still allows interoperability. Even if the military had intended to export the F-22, everything would have changed in 1998 when Congress passed legislation outlawing the sale of the Raptor to any foreign nation. The amendment was passed as part of the 1998 Defense Authorization Act and was designed to protect these critical technologies from anyone else. A number of factors, though, would have prevented the United States from exporting the aircraft in the first place, so codifying this into law probably wasn't necessary.
• Cost was a major factor in why the military was unable to export the aircraft. The Air Force intended to purchase 750 of these aircraft when the F-22 was first conceived in the 1980s. This number was later changed to 650 and then 381 as cost overruns persisted. Only 195 of these planes could be purchased, according to a 2009 order from the Secretary of Defense. The government reduced these numbers dramatically due to the enormous cost overruns that plagued the project, very similar to what has happened with the F-35. In the beginning, the Air Force estimated that the industry could produce the planes for just 120 million dollars per aircraft, adjusted for inflation, of course.
• However, as development slowed and testing came to a halt, the aircraft would eventually come out with a price tag of almost 400 million dollars per aircraft. Accounting for inflation and the maintenance costs over the lifespan of the aircraft, each Raptor is estimated to cost a whopping 700 million dollars. There are several reasons why the aircraft costs so much, which would exclude it as a prime candidate for foreign sales since these aircraft must usually be cheap and quick to manufacture. The F-22 was neither of those. The plane's development began in 1986, when the US government awarded the contract to begin production. The testing and design phase lasted through the 1990s, and production started in the early 2000s.
• The first operational aircraft was delivered to the Air Force in 2005, meaning that the time from conception to the first operational flight was almost twenty years. With such a long lead time, the rest of the defense industry developed around it while the design languished on the drawing board. Citing the Air Force's 2017 feasibility study, the service noted that when the Raptor was first designed, the Air Force intended to combat enemies in a contested air environment. A contested air environment would mean the aircraft would encounter things such as enemy fighters and air defense missile batteries. However, as the report has noted, the world has dramatically changed since the Raptor first came out.
• The Air Force now assesses that by the time it would take to retool the manufacturing base for a potential export model, the Raptor would be facing highly contested airspace. This means that the future operating environment the Raptor would face if the Air Force and Congress decided to restart production in 2017 would be too fraught with danger to maintain the edge it had before. With the proliferation of advanced air defense radars and missiles across the world, as well as newer fighter aircraft designed to go toe-to-toe with the F-22, as well as an increase in the cyber warfare domain, the threats to the F-22 would become so great as to question its feasibility on the battlefield.
• As a result, the Air Force warned that restarting production for an aircraft for sale might mean that they would be obsolete when these aircraft were delivered anyway. However, simply telling the aviation industry that Congress had the money and a buyer for new Raptors to be exported was not feasible.