I've always thought the F-20 was one of those canceled military projects with a lot of potential if it had found its way into service. Of course, the F-16 has also put in some great performance, and it would be a shame to have it never enter service if the F-20 had won out instead.
But, is there a possibility for having both the F-20 and F-16 fly in America's Armed Forces. As I see it, there are two possibilities for this happening:
1) The USAF adopts the F-16 as per OTL, but amidst growing mid-80's budget concerns, Northrop is able to convince congress to buy some of the cheaper ($15 million per unit) F-20's to complement the F-16's. Northrop succesfully argues that while the F-16 has superior long range interdiction abilities, the F-20 will have quicker combat turn around times, and will probably be better for close in fighting nad air-to-air combat. [Note: Northrop argued this in OTL, but it just didnt quite work out]
2) The USAF sticks solely with the F-16, but the F-20A is picked up by the national guard to fulfill their requirement for an air defense fighter to replace the F-4 and F-106. IIRC the F-20's laser inertial navigation systems required no spin up, so it would have had the fastest scrable time in the world. In OTL, the job was given to dumb-downed F-16's that were acutally markedly inferior to the F-20's, but what if the Tigerhsark had been adopted instead?
So, what exactly would have been the ramifications of this change, on both force structure, and during operational deployments? What other nations would have gone on to adopt the F-20 besides the obvious ones like the ROC?