Are aircraft cost-effective for defensive purposes?

In article ,
Hobo wrote:

If a country had zero interest in offensive actions and was only
interested in defense, would putting money into military aircraft
instead of a SAM system make any sense?

Yep.

Pure defense doesn't really work that well in the long run.

Special-purpose hardware (antiair missiles) is much easier to defeat
than general-purpose (aircraft). Flexibility almost always wins.

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