Until now the $245bn Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has been the one large weapons programme that has largely escaped the sharpened knives of Pentagon budget-cutters.
The way the programme was created is largely responsible for its ability to remain unscathed: conceived in the mid-1990s as post-cold war defence budgets were tightening, it was designed to fill the needs of three separate US military services - the air force, navy and marines - as well as the British armed forces.
