This post is stupid. I've embarked a lot of things on my 3x CRUDES ships that we can't talk about on here. It's all Phase 0 stuff; not worthwhile to this discussion at all. Look at the larger point. Why risk 300x lives (and a $2B asset) on a CRUDES to save one pilot? It won't happen.
As a layman, I think that if you're relying on a sure-thing PR effort to motivate strike crews, we've already lost the war.
But it isn't just about one pilot - the benefit is across the entire air war/campaign! This has been core to AF doctrine for 2 generations. Its not a calculus of return vs investment.
A longtime mantra in the US military has been 'leave no man behind'. While not always practiced for various reasons it has been a consistent theme across 70 years of war and peace and has been the practice in many cases, some famous and some not. To this day we go to much further lengths to retrieve our military personnel, dead or alive, than almost any other country with the possible exception of Israel.
This mantra has cost us dearly many times, if you read a decent history of CSAR efforts in Vietnam there were numerous instances where rescue efforts to retrieve just one or two aircrew caused numerous casualties to the rescuers and supporting forces. 'Bat 21' is one famous example where 11 personnel were KIA and 2 more were captured to rescue a single USAF aircrew before a pair of SEALs, one US and one Vietnamese, infiltrated enemy territory to rescue him. Another more recent example is the Battle of Mogadishu, where a relatively quick 'grab and dash' operation turned into a recovery mission turned free for all battle when a single soldier was injured rappelling from a helo at the start of the operation.
It is also very ignorant to discount the impact on morale how CSAR is run, either good or bad. One of the few things that kept morale up as the war dragged on in Vietnam for aircrew was that they knew their fellow aircrew and the leadership was 'keeping the faith' and would make every reasonable effort to rescue them if they got shot down. The air campaign would almost instantly be reoriented and focus on the rescue of aircrew if they were shot down and recoverable, almost every time. This dedication went all the way up to the President, who authorized a risky operation in 1970 to try and POW's at Son Tay. While there were no prisoners there the impact on morale for both the aircrew who were still flying missions and the POW's in Vietnam, who found out about it, was pretty dramatic and reinforced the belief that we would go to almost every length we possible could to rescue our countrymen.
Point being... Don't get shot down... Don't get sunk.
While probably sarcastic that has got to be one of the stupidest statements I've seen in a while from a military professional. In many cases that can't be helped much and it has more to do with luck than anything else.
I'm trying to avoid a dick measuring contest here, but I've been involved with actually creating OPLANs and I can tell you that the PR aspect is one of the most important to the COCOMs.
Anecdotally, I've personally seen an entire AOR's operations come to a halt because there wasn't a clear, concise plan on the 5Ws of PR support.
While I don't see us putting an LCS or DDG alone and unafraid out in the middle of the East China Sea to recover downed aircrew in the middle of the war with China if there is not a sensible CSAR plan to recover aircrew you can bet that operations would likely suffer. I don't think any air commander worth his or her salt would put up with a CSAR plan of 'don't plan on getting shoot down', not only from an integrity and credibility standpoint but also if he or she wanted maintain aircrew morale and performance.