[ntonozzi]

My question is genuine.

Not really the point, but an idea that springs to mind is selling fighter jets to allied countries.

[jandrese]

This is messy. The countries that could afford to buy the jets generally have domestic industries they want to protect, and you never know when some President will come into power that is hostile to that country and tells the contractors to stop supporting that very expensive hardware. There is precedent for this: See Iran's fleet of F-14s.