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Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Yahoo
F-47 6th Generation Fighter Future Force Size Questions Emerge
The U.S. Air Force is firmly of the view that its new F-47 6th generation stealth fighters are key to 'how we win' in future fights, according to the service's top general in charge of force structure planning. Though the Air Force previously said it would buy 200 of the next-generation combat jets, how many of the aircraft the service now plans to acquire is an open question as its vision of the core air superiority mission set continues to evolve. Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel talked about the F-47 and how it factors into his service's current work on a new over-arching force design during a virtual talk that the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) hosted today. Kunkel is currently the director of Force Design, Integration, and Wargaming within the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Air Force Futures at the Pentagon. Kunkel described the announcement in March that Boeing's F-47 had won the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) combat jet competition as 'a fantastic day for the Air Force' that has 'assured air superiority for generations to come.' The Air Force had put the NGAD combat jet program on hold for a deep review last year, which ultimately concluded that the service needed to acquire the aircraft to be best positioned to achieve air superiority in future high-end fights. 'The F-47, the capabilities that it brings to the fight, are game-changing for us,' he continued. 'It doesn't change the character the fight just for the Air Force, it changes it for the joint force. It allows us to get places – allows the joint force to get places where it otherwise couldn't. It allows us to move closer to the adversary [and] allows us to counter the adversary in ways we can't [now].' Kunkel said that he could not provide any more granular information about the F-47's design and capabilities due to the high degree of classification currently surrounding the program. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported last week that the F-47 concept art that the Air Force has released to date has been heavily manipulated to obscure key details about the actual aircraft. You can find TWZ's previous in-depth analysis of what has been shown so far here. 'The F-47, I think, is a perfect example of a war-winning story, a coherent narrative, [a] cohesive 'hey, this is how we win,'' Maj. Gen. Kunkel added today. 'This is how the joint force wins.' There are still questions about how exactly the F-47 will fit into the Air Force's future force structure and how many of the jets the service might actually purchase. 'We won't be able to get to F-47 force structure numbers in this conversation,' Kunkel said today in direct response to a question from the author. 'It does point to a larger question of, we've got a force design, how do you transition that force design into force structure, and then is there a force-sizing construct that needs to accompany it? And that larger force-sizing structure or concept is something we're working on right now.' During a quarterly earnings call yesterday, Boeing's CEO Kelly Ortberg also said he could not offer any details about the current F-47 contract beyond what the Air Force has already announced. In 2023, then-Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said that his service was working around a future force planning construct that included 200 NGAD combat jets. That aligned with the original vision for what was first referred to as the Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) platform, which was intended as more or less a one-for-one replacement for the existing F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. In July 2024, Air Force Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, head of Air Combat Command (ACC), said that there was no longer a firm timeline for replacing the F-22 at all, and it is unclear how those plans may have further changed since then. Significant F-22 modernization projects are underway now, which have also been feeding into the larger NGAD initiative. These questions are directly tied to the Air Force's still-evolving vision of what achieving air superiority – the primary expected mission of the F-47 – will look like in future conflicts. 'I was part of the group that did the [NGAD combat jet] analysis, and said, 'hey, is there a different way to do this? Can we do this with the current capabilities?'' Maj. Gen. Kunkel said today. 'I guess we probably didn't need to do the analysis, because what we found is we found out that we were right, that air superiority, in fact, does matter.' At the same time, 'there's an evolution in how we do air superiority, right?' Kunkel added. 'All domains is [sic] enabled by air superiority. So the Air Force must continue to provide it.' 'But there might be places where air superiority, it doesn't turn into air supremacy. And on this scale, it goes from 'blue' or U.S. air supremacy, and goes down to your superiority, and then goes down to neutral, and then 'red' is on the other side,' he continued. 'There's probably places where there's mutual air denial. Where no one's no one has air superiority, but we're denying the air domain to the adversary. And I think, in some of these cases, that may be perfectly acceptable, where we don't have this dominant presence all the time.' This is in line with a concept of 'pulsed airpower' operations the Air Force has outlined in the past, defined as a 'concentrating of airpower in time and space to create windows of opportunity for the rest of the force.' 'Now, is that your superiority? I don't know. I tend to think it is, but it may not be,' Kunkel further noted today. The video below offers a view of how the Air Force has described the air superiority mission in the past. As already noted, the air superiority mission set was absolutely central to the development of the NGAD combat jet requirements that led to the F-47. Kunkel himself highlighted just earlier this year how critical the jets are expected to be in providing a forward airpower presence, especially in heavily contested environments. 'You've got to be forward in order to sustain the tempo that's required to bring the adversary to a sneeze. So an all-long-range force, … it sounds wonderful, doesn't it? You sit in Topeka, Kansas, you press a red button, the war gets fought. Nobody gets hurt. It's all done at long range,' Kunkel said during a talk at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., in February. '[But] it doesn't win because it just can't sustain the tempo of the fight.' The service has also previously made clear in the past that plans for the NGAD combat jet, as well as its future fleets of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones and next-generation aerial refueling capabilities, are all directly intertwined. The Air Force is still very much refining its vision for how it will employ CCAs and is similarly ironing out requirements for future aerial refueling capabilities. The forward drone controller role is still expected to be another key task for the F-47. 'CCA integration with F-47 makes the F-47 better,' Kunkel said today. Boeing E7 #Wedgetail, Future Fighter & MQ28 Collaborative Combat Aircraft #CCA teaming.. ( Boeing) — AirPower 2.0 (MIL_STD) (@AirPowerNEW1) April 20, 2025 Budgetary considerations will have an impact on the ultimate F-47 force structure, as well. Just completing the jet's development is expected to cost at least $20 billion on top of what has already been spent. The aircraft's estimated unit cost is unclear, but has been pegged in the past at three times the average price of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or upwards of $300 million based on publicly available information. Separately this week, Lockheed Martin, which lost the NGAD combat jet competition to Boeing, also pitched the idea of a major 'NASCAR upgrade' for the F-35 that could 'deliver 80% of 6th gen capability at 50% of the cost,' according to the company's CEO Jim Taiclet. Kunkel said today he had not heard about this ambitious proposal, but would be interested in talking with Lockheed Martin about it. Regardless, a major realignment of priorities is currently underway across the entire U.S. military under President Donald Trump. Despite expectations that some existing programs will be cut, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the total U.S. defense budget request is set to rise to around $1 trillion. Maj. Gen. Kunkel and other Air Force officials have been and continue to be bullish on their service coming out ahead in the end budget-wise. 'So, when you say balance out the budget, what we can't do as a nation is say that the Air Force needs to balance out its budget,' Kunkel said today. 'The Department [of Defense] needs to balance its budget, and the resources need to follow the strategy. … If the strategy has changed – which I would argue that the strategy for the last 30 years is not the strategy for the future – if the strategy has changed, then the resources need to follow the strategy. Here's the truth. The truth is that future fights depend on the Air Force to a greater extent than they ever have.' There are still concerns about what tradeoffs the Air Force may need to make in order to afford its F-47 plans on top of other expensive top-tier priorities, including the future LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile and the forthcoming B-21 Raider stealth bomber. There has notably been renewed talk in recent months about increasing planned B-21 purchases. 'When I left the Pentagon, the Department of the Air Force had a list of unfunded strategic priorities that were higher priority than NGAD. At the top of the list were counter-space weapons and airbase defense,' former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall wrote in an op-ed for Defense News earlier this month. 'Our new F-47s – and all of our forward-based aircraft – will never get off the ground if we don't address these threats through substantial budget increases.' Kendall had already disclosed that he had been willing to trade the NGAD combat jet for new investments in counter-space capabilities and improved base defenses during an episode of Defense & Aerospace Report's Air Power Podcast put out in March. During the podcast, Kendall, together with former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Andrew Hunter, provided a slew of other new details about the F-47 and its origins, as you can read more about here. Overall, the Air Force's current leadership is clearly very committed to the F-47, but how the service expects to eventually weave the jets into its future force structure plans looks to be still evolving. Contact the author: joe@
Asia Times
19-03-2025
- Science
- Asia Times
US arming up to zap China, Russia in space
The race for space dominance is intensifying as the US Space Force embraces directed-energy weapons, jammers and kinetic systems to counter China and Russia's escalating orbital warfare capabilities. The space war plan, designed to achieve 'space superiority', was outlined by General Chance Saltzman at the recent Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium, Task & Purpose reported. While traditional military branches have historically explored space weaponry, the US Space Force's contemporary approach includes offensive and defensive tools for terrestrial and orbital operations. This approach marks a shift from the branch's initial focus on satellite network development for communication and missile detection. Directed energy weapons like lasers and jammers are favored for neutralizing enemy satellites without generating harmful debris in space. Saltzman also revealed plans for a foundational doctrine, 'Space Force Doctrine Document One,' which will define the agency's vision for space operations. Initiatives such as the secretive X-37B space plane underscore the broader strategic vision for orbital control. The US Space Force's intent to diversify its arsenal reflects its evolving role in maintaining strategic dominance in space, leveraging advanced technologies to counteract adversarial capabilities while minimizing collateral risks. Illustrating the growing capabilities of near-peer adversarial threats, CNN reported this month that China and Russia are aggressively testing offensive space capabilities, highlighting their increasing space militarization. According to the report, Russia has recently conducted satellite training missions, practicing 'attack and defend tactics' in the Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), while China demonstrated advanced co-orbital satellite maneuvers in December 2024. The CNN report says both nations are developing technologies such as anti-satellite missiles and directed-energy weapons to disrupt or destroy enemy satellites. Directed energy weapons encompass lasers and microwaves. Lasers could overheat or melt sensitive components or blind sensors on satellites. Microwaves can induce electric currents that could 'fry' satellite electronics, destroying the satellite without breaking it apart. While not considered a directed energy weapon, jamming works by flooding satellites with false signals or noise, drowning out their control signals and temporarily making them inoperable. An August 2021 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report describes space as the 'ultimate high ground,' critical to communications, intelligence and missile warning surveillance operations. The report notes that near-peer adversaries like China and Russia have studied warfighting concepts and focused on space systems as a particular US vulnerability. Such developments give rise to a new form of space warfare. In a February 2025 Modern Warfare Institute (MWI) article, Alan Dugger explains the concept of orbital warfare. Unlike terrestrial battles, Dugger says orbital warfare is defined by subtle maneuvers, strategic positioning and kinetic and non-kinetic methods to disrupt or disable adversary assets. He mentions that the concept revolves around controlling orbital slots and leveraging technologies like cyberattacks, electronic jamming and directed energy to achieve dominance without creating debris. Further, Jessica Getrost writes in a June 2024 podcast for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies that orbital warfare involves more than two vehicles maneuvering around each other. Getrost says orbital warfare involves executing offensive and defensive fires to preserve freedom of action in space. In the same podcast, Charles Galbreath emphasizes the foundational role of space domain awareness (SDA) in orbital warfare, emphasizing reaction time to prepare for attacks against space-based assets to ensure continuous space-based support for warfighters. Further on orbital warfare, US Space Doctrine Publication 3-0 defines space superiority as 'a relative degree of control in space of one force over another that would permit the conduct of its operations without prohibitive interference from the adversary while simultaneously denying their opponent freedom of action in the domain at a given time.' However, these conceptual developments may have to be implemented amid an architectural shift in space-based military capabilities, which are now moving from a few expensive satellites to proliferated satellite constellations. Illustrating that shift, Breaking Defense reported this month that the US Space Force is reevaluating its reliance on costly, singular satellite systems in favor of a proliferated satellite architecture, as confirmed by Major General Stephen Purdy. Breaking Defense says this shift aims to enhance resilience and cost-efficiency by leveraging commercial alternatives for space situational awareness and other critical capabilities. The report mentions that the US Space Systems Command is analyzing legacy programs, including Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, to identify opportunities for commercial integration. It points out this approach may require scaling back stringent requirements to achieve faster deployment and reduced expenses. Douglas Youvan highlights the advantages of satellite constellations, mentioning that they offer redundancy, resilience and versatility, making them formidable assets in potential conflict scenarios. Youvan says they can provide continuous coverage, adapt to evolving mission needs and mitigate the risk of losing a single satellite. However, Youvan points out that their very nature – being small, numerous and relatively cheap – means they could be used in more aggressive postures, adding to space congestion and amplifying the risk of unintentional escalations. Aside from the tactical and operational advantages afforded by proliferated microsatellite constellations, Dugan says hiding military goals within civilian activities introduces strategic uncertainty, enabling state actors to operate covertly on the global stage without detection or opposition. This intermingling of civilian and military capabilities and operations in space enables the conduct of gray zone operations in the domain. In a July 2024 article for the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Mike Carey and Charlie McGillis mention that intermingling civilian and military activities in space allows states to exert influence below the threshold of armed conflict. Carey and McGillis point out that the US and its adversaries, including China and Russia, leverage commercial space assets for strategic objectives, complicating attribution and response. They say non-kinetic tactics—such as jamming, spoofing and cyberattacks—degrade satellite capabilities while maintaining plausible deniability. They also mention that space technology's dual-use nature blurs the lines between civilian and military operations, making deterrence challenging. As the militarization of space accelerates, the fusion of advanced technology, strategic deception and great-power competition is transforming Earth's orbit into the next battlefield.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Space Force Chief 'Enamored By Systems That Deny, Disrupt, And Degrade' Satellites
The U.S. Space Force's top officer has provided an unusually detailed description of a vision for future counter-space capabilities and priorities in that regard — as well as the kinds of threats that the service faces. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman's comments came during the Air & Space Forces Association's 2025 Warfare Symposium last week. Saltzman began by categorizing the types of adversary weapons that the United States might expect to encounter in space. These are broken down into six broad categories, three that are space-based and three that are ground-based, but with the same threats in each set. In each of those domains, the three broad threats are directed-energy weapons, such as lasers, radio-frequency capabilities, including electronic warfare jamming, and kinetic threats, which attempt to destroy a target physically. The latter category includes 'killer satellites' positioned in orbit. As TWZ has explained in the past: 'A killer satellite able to maneuver close to its target could use various means to try to disable, damage, or even destroy it, such as jammers, directed energy weapons, robotic arms, chemical sprays, and small projectiles. It could even deliberately smash into the other satellite in a kinetic attack.' 'We're seeing in our adversary developmental capabilities that they're pursuing all of those,' Saltzman said. As for the United States, 'we're not pursuing all of those yet,' Saltzman admitted, although he noted that there are 'good reasons to have all those categories.'In particular, a broad range of capabilities is required to potentially counter a proliferation of satellites across low-Earth orbit, as well as in medium/high geo-synchronous orbit. These different challenges, Saltzman observed, 'require different kinds of capabilities. That which is effective in low-Earth orbit is less effective in GEO and vice versa.' In terms of the kind of threats that the United States and its allies now have to deal with in space, Saltzman considers that the most concerning aspect 'is the mix of weapons … they are pursuing the broadest mix of weapons, which means they're going to hold a vast array of targets at risk.' In this context, Saltzman identifies China as the most dangerous adversary, although Russia is also working on similar capabilities. Back in 2021, Gen. David Thompson, at that time the Space Force's second in command, pointed out that China and Russia were already launching 'reversible attacks,' meaning ones that don't permanently damage the satellites. These attacks include jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyber-attacks, and they target U.S. satellites 'every single day.' Thompson also disclosed that a small Russian satellite used to conduct an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test back in 2019 had at one point approached so close to a U.S. satellite that there were fears an actual attack was imminent. Even before then, U.S. satellites were coming under 'reversible attack.' In 2006, for example, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) confirmed that a U.S. spy satellite had been 'illuminated' by a ground-based Chinese laser. On that occasion, it was a test with no impact on the satellite's intelligence-gathering capabilities. Since then, however, there has been an uptick in these kinds of attacks, underscoring the rapid development and fielding by Russia and China of a wide variety of anti-satellite capabilities. As for non-reversible attacks, details in this regard are few and far between. In the past, when U.S. officials have been asked to confirm or deny whether any American satellites have actually been damaged in a Russian or Chinese attack, this information has been withheld as classified. Nevertheless, with these various threats in mind, 'the focus out of the gate has been on the resiliency of our architecture, to make the targeting as hard on the adversary as possible,' Saltzman said last week. 'If you can disaggregate your missions from few satellites to many satellites, you change the targeting [requirements]. If you can make things maneuverable, it's harder to target, and so that is an initial effort that we've invested heavily over the last few years to make us more resilient against those broad categories.' As well as efforts to field 'many satellites,' the U.S. military has been looking to develop and field new and improved space-based capabilities, as well as explore new concepts, such as distributed constellations of smaller satellites and ways to rapidly deploy new systems into orbit, to help reduce vulnerabilities to anti-satellite attacks, in general. This kind of resilience is only becoming more critical as the United States and its allies increasingly rely on space-based assets for vital capabilities, including early warning, intelligence-gathering, navigation and weapon guidance, communications and data-sharing, to name just a few. Of course, while Saltzman's broad description of these six types of threats was framed around building resilience in space, the very same capabilities can be used, in turn, by the United States against its adversaries. Typically, Space Force officials are extremely tight-lipped about these so-called 'counter-space' capabilities. 'In the military setting, you don't say, 'Hey, here's all the weapons and here's how I'm going to use them, so get ready.' That's not to our advantage,' Saltzman said. While unable to talk specifics, The Space Force's top officer did approach the topic more generally. 'I am far more enamored by systems that deny, disrupt, and degrade,' he said, as opposed to ones that destroy. 'I think there's a lot of room to leverage systems focused on those D-words, if you will.' Saltzman pointed out that although systems that 'destroy' come at a cost in terms of debris, 'we may get pushed into a corner where we need to execute some of those options.' Mainly, however, Saltzman's Space Force is 'really focused on the weapons that deny, disrupt, and degrade. Those can have tremendous mission impacts with far less degradation, in a way that could affect blue systems. That's just one of the things about the space environment. I tell my air-breathing friends all the time, when you shoot an airplane down, it falls out of your domain.' For the Space Force, using a weapon to destroy a target in space can lead to its own systems being threatened by debris. Saltzman pointed to the examples of the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test and another by Russia in 2021 as 'still causing problems' in terms of hazardous debris. The 2021 Russian anti-satellite weapon test, in particular, involving a ground-launched interceptor, led to widespread condemnation, including from the U.S. government, and prompted renewed discussion about potential future conflicts in is not the first time that a Space Force or Air Force senior officer has alluded to these kinds of capabilities, but such instances are vanishingly rare. 'There may come a point where we demonstrate some of our capabilities so that our adversaries understand they cannot deny us the use of space without consequence,' then-Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said back in 2019. 'That capability needs to be one that's understood by your adversary,' she added. 'They need to know there are certain things we can do, at least at some broad level, and the final element of deterrence is uncertainty. How confident are they that they know everything we can do? Because there's a risk calculation in the mind of an adversary.' It's worth noting, too, that the Biden administration vowed to halt U.S. destructive direct ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons testing back in 2022, raising concerns about America's ability to target enemy satellites, something you can read more about here. In recent years, American officials have increasingly pointed to the policy and other problems caused by the extreme secrecy that surrounds U.S. military activities, as well as those conducted by the U.S. Intelligence Community, outside the Earth's atmosphere. Barbara Barrett, Wilson's successor as Secretary of the Air Force, previously argued that 'The lack of an understanding really does hurt us in doing things that we need to do in space.' Meanwhile, the challenges the U.S. military and the rest of the U.S. government face in deterring hostile actors or actually responding to acts of aggression in space are by now fairly well established, although specific details remain scarce. Even more secretive are the kinds of capabilities that the United States is able to employ, in turn, to 'deny, disrupt, and degrade' — and even destroy — the systems of its adversaries. While Saltzman wasn't able to provide anything in the way of specifics, his comments may well reflect a growing openness to address these issues in the public arena. Contact the author: thomas@
South China Morning Post
06-03-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
China's sixth-gen fighter jet leaves US Air Force officials with ‘choices to make'
China's newest fighter jet emerged as a talking point at an American defence conference this week, with US Air Force officials showing more urgency to get their own version of a sixth-generation stealth combat jet. Advertisement They made the call at the annual Air & Space Forces Association's Warfare Symposium, held in Colorado from Monday to Wednesday, while discussing the future of a costly fighter jet programme – Next Generation Air Dominance – that was paused last summer. 'We have some choices to make as we observe what China has produced, and we can presume we know what that's for – for air superiority,' US Air Combat Commander Kenneth Wilsbach said during a panel discussion on Tuesday, according to American news outlet Defense One. 'What are we going to do about it? I don't believe that nothing is an option,' he said. US Air Combat Commander Kenneth Wilsbach says doing nothing is not an option. Photo: YouTube Wilsbach was referring to the unofficial debut of two Chinese sixth-generation aircraft prototypes in December that suggests the People's Liberation Army could have an early advantage in the race with its long-range, stealthy J-36.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Yahoo
Next Generation Fighter Critical To Future Air Superiority, Key USAF Study Concluded
A deep review of the U.S. Air Force's paused plans to acquire a new crewed sixth-generation stealth combat jet came to the unambiguous conclusion that the service needs such an aircraft to be best positioned to achieve air superiority in future high-end fights. The same analyses further reinforced the view that establishing air superiority will remain central to winning those same conflicts. A panel of senior U.S. Air Force officers discussed what is commonly called the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) combat jet, as well as the future of air superiority operations more broadly, at the Air & Space Forces Association's (AFA) 2025 Warfare Symposium earlier today. 'Many of you know, we put a pause on NGAD, and we put a pause on NGAD to reflect, and we did a study on it,' Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel said early on in the panel. Kunkel is currently director of Force Design, Integration, and Wargaming within the office of the deputy chief of staff for Air Force Futures at the service's top headquarters at the Pentagon. 'With that study, we asked ourselves some hard questions,' he continued. 'Is air superiority dead? What does air superiority look like in the future? Does the joint force need air superiority? And what we found is, not only in the past, not only the present, but in the future, air superiority matters.' 'We tried a whole bunch of different options, and there was no more vital option than NGAD to achieve air superiority in this highly contested environment,' Kunkel added. This is fully in line with comments that Maj. Gen. Kunkel made at a separate event that the Hudson Institute think tank hosted last week, which TWZ covered at the time. Envisioned ostensibly as a successor to the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, the NGAD combat jet requirements, at least as existed prior to the review, are understood to call for a relatively large, high-performance, and long-range design. The NGAD aircraft has also long been expected to feature a very high level of broadband low-observability (stealthiness) together with an array of advanced sensor, networking, electronic warfare, and other capabilities. All of that has been expected to come at considerable cost, with former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall saying in January that it would take at least approximately $20 billion to finish the developmental stage of the program. Serial production of the jets, which cost upwards of $300 million apiece, would add tens of billions more to the overall price tag. The alternatives to the NGAD combat jet that the Air Force is known to have explored include a truncated, lower-cost aircraft intended primarily to serve as an airborne drone controller. The service also considered a force-wide shift in focus away from air superiority to longer-range, standoff strike capabilities like those the B-21 Raider stealth bomber will provide. Kunkel and the other Air Force officers on today's panel stressed that NGAD is just one part of the bigger and more critical matter of how to effectively provide air superiority in future major conflicts, such as one in the Pacific against China. 'The entire joint force counts on air superiority. So, anything else you want to do in the battle space, if you don't have air superiority, it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible,' Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, head of Air Combat Command (ACC), another one of the panelists, said. 'So, if we want to collect intelligence, if we want to do casualty evacuation, if we want to drop some bombs, if you want to sail some ships around, or if you want to have some ground maneuver, if you don't have air and space superiority, you will not be able to or you will have a very difficult time achieving any of those other objectives.' 'There's been some talk in the public about [how] the age of air superiority is over,' Wilsbach continued. 'I categorically reject that and maintain that it's the first building block of any other military operation.' Wilsbach cited the emergence of two previously unseen Chinese stealth combat jets this past December as further evidence that air superiority is not dead and that America's chief competitor believes it to be similarly critical for success in future conflicts. The two Chinese stealth aircraft 'we believe are for air superiority,' Wilsbach said. 'As we observe what China has produced, and we can presume we know what that's for, for air superiority, what are we going to do about it? And I don't believe that nothing is an option.' — OedoSoldier (@OedoSoldier) December 26, 2024 — Justin Bronk (@Justin_Br0nk) December 26, 2024 The panelists did also make clear that they do not see the NGAD combat jet as a silver bullet solution to future air superiority challenges by itself. 'We're making this transition from a platform-centric Air Force to a system-centric Air Force,' Gen. Kunkel said. 'And as kill chains get longer and longer,… we need to think about how are we trying to do that whole system.' Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin made similar remarks during a keynote speech at the AFA Warfare Symposium yesterday evening. 'We're looking at different ways to execute the same mission. We're going beyond just single platforms equal single things,' Allvin said. 'Maybe there's different ways to provide combat effects, understanding what that is, embracing and leaning into human machine teaming, understanding what autonomy can actually do for us, knowing that's going to be a part of our future.' Allvin then announced new 'fighter drone' designations for the designs that General Atomics and Anduril are currently developing in the first phase, or Increment 1, of the Collaborative Aircraft (CCA) program. CCA is part of the larger NGAD initiative that also includes the planned sixth-generation stealth combat jet. The NGAD aircraft has always been envisioned as serving, in part, as a forward drone controller and otherwise operating closely together with CCAs. The panelists today were also definitive in their belief that piloted combat aircraft will continue to have a role for the foreseeable future. 'We've been doing quite a bit of simulator work with incorporating manned and unmanned teaming, and we believe that there's some value to that as we go into the future,' Gen. Wilsbach said. '[However,] in 2025 we don't have the artificial intelligence [AI] that we can pluck pilots out of aircraft and plunk AI in them to the degree that the AI can replace a human brain. Someday we will have that, I trust, but right now we don't.' 'We're in this place where we're improving the artificial intelligence aspects, the human-machine team, all those areas are growth areas, but we have to iterate to the outcome,' Lt. Gen. Dale White, currently the Military Deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, added during the panel discussion today. 'And I think that's … the path that we're on.' 'As we walk down this warfighting path, we're going to have to iterate to the outcome, and it's going to take some time,' he continued. 'I know this Air Force is up to the task. I think CCA is going to put us on that path.' 'The reality is, this is where the threat is taking this because our adversaries are doing very similar things,' White also said during the panel discussion in regard to AI and advances in autonomy more generally. 'We can't sit back and just watch.' 'I don't see us fully stepping away from, you now, manned aircraft ever,' Gen. Kunkel added. A final decision on what course of action to take in regard to the NGAD combat jet, and what that aircraft might look like in the end, has yet to be made. There are also lingering budgetary questions. Concerns about the affordability of the new sixth-generation aircraft were an important factor in prompting last year's review of the program to begin with. The Air Force has a number of modernization priorities it needs to balance funding for, including the CCA program and work on new stealthy aerial refueling tankers. Aviation Week just recently reported that service might be considering axing Next-Generation Air-Refueling System (NGAS), or at least the stealth tanker component, to help preserve funds for the NGAD aircraft. There is also the matter of the ballooning costs of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program and an ongoing debate about the optimal size of the future B-21 Raider stealth bomber fleet. On top of this, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a complete review of spending plans for the upcoming 2026 Fiscal Year. The goal is to cut tens of billions of dollars from existing programs to help fund new priorities under President Donald Trump, including the Golden Dome missile defense initiative. Dysfunction in Congress raises additional concerns about when any major new defense spending might get approved. 'Fiscal constraints don't change what it takes to win,' Gen. Kunkel said. 'We know what it takes to win. It takes all of the Air Force. It takes air superiority. And if America wants to make those investments to win, then we'll do so. If America doesn't want to make those investments, then we'll take more risk.' 'I'm not so foolish to think that this is like a black and white decision on, you know, win versus loss. There's a degree of risk involved,' he added. 'But if we fund more force, we decrease operational risk. We decrease the risk for our policy makers.' 'And it is true that our adversaries are moving quickly. They are,' he continued. 'Fiscal choices should be driven by what it takes to win.' Gen. Kunkel has been and remains particularly bullish on the Air Force ultimately coming out of the current budget uncertainty with an increase in funding rather than a decrease. He did also acknowledge at the Hudson Institute event last week that cuts to existing programs could still be painful. Many questions remain to be answered about the NGAD aircraft's future. However, it is now clear that the Air Force has concluded that the path forward that offers the best option for achieving critical air superiority in future high-end fights with the lowest amount of risk includes buying a fleet of new crewed sixth-generation stealth combat jets. Contact the author: joe@
