Sorry, F-35: Boeing’s X-32 Stealth Fighter Was Better

Key Points and Summary – The U.S. made a massive strategic mistake by choosing the sleek F-35 over the “ugly” but brilliant Boeing X-32 in the Joint Strike Fighter competition.

-While unconventional in appearance, the X-32 was designed for simplicity, affordability, and manufacturing efficiency—qualities better suited for a long-term great power conflict.

Boeing X-32 Fighter at USAF Museum July 2025. Image Credit: National Security Journal.

-In contrast, the F-35 has been plagued by sky-high costs and questionable survivability.

-The X-32 didn’t lose on merit but because it “didn’t flatter,” a victory of form over function that has left the U.S. with a less sustainable force.

The Boeing X-32 Was Better Than The F-35

“Appearances count for much; reality, for more.” So wrote Sun Tzu over two millennia ago, and never has the maxim been more cruelly inverted than in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) competition between Boeing’s X-32 and Lockheed Martin’s X-35.

The X-32, ungainly and unlovely by any aesthetic standard, looked like a cartoon jet. It was mocked, memed, and ultimately maligned into oblivion.

But beneath its bulbous chin and awkward silhouette was a machine of brute engineering brilliance—one that, for all its stylistic sins, met the program’s core requirements with a modular elegance and conceptual clarity that Lockheed’s sleeker X-35 could not match. In the world of industrial-age airpower, especially at the turn of the 21st century, function should have triumphed over form. The X-32 didn’t lose because it failed; it lost because it didn’t flatter.

The Stealth Fighter Beauty Contest?

What makes this particularly galling is that the JSF was never supposed to be a beauty contest. It was about meeting a brutally complex set of operational and logistical demands across three services, with the holy grail of stealth, speed, range, payload, and—most critically—affordability and maintainability baked into a single airframe.

Boeing’s approach was daringly honest: minimize parts, simplify production, and design a jet that could evolve into a sustainable workhorse for decades. This was no boutique stealth toy; it was an attempt to industrialize air dominance.

Boeing X-32 Fighter USAF Museum Dayton, Ohio. Image Credit: National Security Journal.

The X-32’s delta wing offered structural simplicity and generous internal fuel stores, and its one-piece carbon fiber composite fuselage was a masterclass in manufacturing efficiency. It flew with fewer moving parts, had a unified engine architecture across variants, and leaned into a philosophy of “design once, build forever.” These aren’t trivial attributes. They are precisely what the U.S. military has lacked in the post-Cold War era of gold-plated procurement follies.

By contrast, the X-35 won with a sleight of hand. Its separate lift-fan configuration for the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant added complexity, weight, and future maintenance headaches—all the things the JSF was supposed to avoid. Its appearance echoed the aesthetic language of the F-22 Raptor, which made it photogenic and palatable to politicians. But it offered only the illusion of commonality: the three F-35 variants share only between 27% and 40% of their parts in common (the original goal was in the 70% to 90% range), and their service-specific performance compromises continue to plague operational effectiveness. Indeed, in 2025, two decades into production, the F-35 remains hobbled by sky-high sustainment costs, endless software delays, and growing doubts about its survivability in the very high-end fights it was meant to dominate. If the X-32 looked like the wrong answer, the X-35 is turning out to be the wrong solution.

Why the Boeing X-32 Really Lost

Let’s be honest. Boeing stumbled on one key test flight—the STOVL hover transition—and it was enough to fatally wound its campaign. But even that so-called “failure” was not a structural or systemic flaw.

Boeing had opted to demonstrate a simplified STOVL configuration to meet schedule requirements, with plans to integrate the desired system later fully. In other words, it chose engineering prudence over flashy optics.

That prudence was punished. And yet, in every other regard—from range and payload to signature reduction and cost projection—the X-32 was not only compliant but competitive. It was even praised for its unusually quiet acoustic profile and low infrared signature—key traits for survivability in modern sensor-rich battlefields. If the job of the JSF was to ensure persistent presence in contested zones without bankrupting the services, Boeing’s design was arguably better attuned to the aerial battlespace of the future.

Don’t Forget the YF-23 Black Widow II

The truth is, we’ve seen this story before. The YF-23 Black Widow II—arguably the finest air-dominance platform ever built—was passed over in favor of the flashier, better-lobbied F-22.

YF-23 National Security Journal Photo. Taken by Harry J. Kazianis at U.S. Air Force Museum on 7/19/2025.

That mistake, too, was based less on hard-nosed operational calculus than on bureaucratic politics and superficial impressions. The X-32’s loss follows that same tragic pattern: an aircraft that promised long-term strategic advantage was shelved because it didn’t play well on camera.

YF-23 Black Widow II Up Close National Security Journal Photo.

In both cases, the better aircraft lost, and the warfighter has paid the price in deferred capability, mounting costs, and a brittle supply chain ill-suited to great power conflict.

The Lessons We Must Learn

Today, as the Pentagon shifts its gaze toward sixth-generation platforms, including NGAD, and allied efforts like GCAP and FCAS, the lessons of the X-32 matter more than ever.

We are entering a world where contested logistics, electronic warfare, and attritional airpower will define outcomes—not just exquisite kill chains and manned-unmanned teaming.

The X-32’s design foresaw that. It anticipated modularity before it became a buzzword, efficiency before it became a mandate. It emphasized production scalability and system commonality in ways the F-35 only pretended to. In retrospect, it offered precisely the kind of architecture that could have kept costs low, sortie rates high, and allied export relationships unencumbered by endless proprietary hurdles.

What the Present Teaches Us 

Indeed, in a world where peer competitors are once again testing America, we must ask whether we choose the fighter or the flyer. The F-35 flies, sure—but does it fight? Would the X-32 have fought more, fought longer, and fought cheaper? That’s not a theoretical question.

Boeing X-32 Bright Image 2025. Credit: National Security Journal.

The U.S. Navy has all but abandoned the F-35C in favor of upgraded Super Hornets and future NGAD variants. The Marine Corps struggles to afford enough STOVL F-35Bs to meet operational demand. And allies from Canada to Germany balk at the aircraft’s price tag and geopolitical strings.

Had the X-32 been selected, its simpler production and maintenance requirements might have fostered a more agile, exportable, and strategically autonomous ecosystem. It would not have dazzled air show crowds—but it would have met the fight, again and again.

The Flying Hammer vs. the Pretty Stealth Fighter 

There’s a deeper point here, too—one that transcends procurement and speaks to America’s strategic culture. We remain addicted to appearances. Whether it’s platforms, allies, or strategic doctrines, we prefer the sleek illusion of dominance over the gritty, sustainable reality of power. The X-32 was never meant to be a flying symbol. It was meant to be a flying hammer—durable, repeatable, and unglamorous. That’s precisely why it should have won. In a more realist age, it might have.

Head On Boeing X-32 Fighter. Image Credit: National Security Journal.

Of course, none of this is to claim that the X-32 was perfect. Its avionics suite was less mature than Lockheed’s. Its cockpit ergonomics required work. And yes, its looks were a PR nightmare.

But aircraft are not bought to be loved; they are bought to deter, to kill, and to survive. If the test is which machine offered the greatest long-term utility for the warfighter, the alliance network, and the American taxpayer, then Boeing’s ugly duckling was the better bet. It met the mission with fewer moving parts, lower life-cycle costs, and a production philosophy better suited to a protracted geopolitical rivalry with China and Russia. It understood the future of war, even if it failed to win the present contest.

The Boeing X-32 Shouldn’t Be in a Museum

In a more far-sighted U.S. procurement ecosystem, the X-32 would be flying today—not as a stealthy mascot of American vanity, but as the reliable, lethal, and cost-effective spearhead of a more pragmatic airpower strategy. True, it wasn’t a pretty aircraft, but it was the one best suited to the evolving battlespace.

That, in the end, is the lesson of the X-32—and one we ignore at our peril.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.

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