The Pentagon will delay acquisition of more than 100 early-model Joint Strike Fighters, a bid to save up-front money and to give more time for testers to work out the finicky F-35 warplane’s many technical kinks. That much was expected: The real surprise is that a newly cash-conscious Defense Department still seems fully committed to buying nearly 2,500 of the stealth jets.

‘Simply put, there is no alternative to the F-35 program’

Total cost: about a trillion dollars.

In the short term, The military will purchase only around 30 JSFs per year from 2013 to 2017, an almost 50-percent reduction that...

The Pentagon will delay acquisition of more than 100 early-model Joint Strike Fighters, a bid to save up-front money and to give more time for testers to work out the finicky F-35 warplane’s many technical kinks. That much was expected: The real surprise is that a newly cash-conscious Defense Department still seems fully committed to buying nearly 2,500 of the stealth jets.

‘Simply put, there is no alternative to the F-35 program’

Total cost: about a trillion dollars.

In the short term, The military will purchase only around 30 JSFs per year from 2013 to 2017, an almost 50-percent reduction that...