Opting to procure a less capable medium-lift replacement that is more manpower intensive, and which is projected to have greater life cycle costs, is neither operationally or fiscally responsible.
Yet successive defense programs have justified reductions in force structure on the grounds that quantitative improvements in platforms, systems, and manpower allow commanders to do the same or even more with less.
Less hubristic and more informed leaders would have realised that both countries had the manpower and industrial resources to prevail in a war of attrition.