OPINION:
Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky once famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” This holds true in military appropriations just as it does in sports. That is why the Air Force must take its shot and request full funding for the planned Next Generation Air Dominance program, or NGAD.
The Air Force has long relied on a high-low mix of fighter aircraft to provide a combination of top-tier air superiority capabilities alongside more numerous, less exquisite surface attack platforms. The F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon represented this construct during the Cold War. As successors to this legacy, the Advanced Tactical Fighter and Joint Strike Fighter programs emerged, culminating in the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, respectively.
In a decision many regarded as myopic, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates persuaded the Obama administration and Congress to halt F-22 production in 2009. Rather than acquire the bare minimum 381 of the fifth-generation super fighter, the U.S. stopped at the 187 combat-coded aircraft it had already acquired.
The NGAD program was conceived as the next generation of air dominance capabilities to replace the F-22.
“The Air Force intends for NGAD to replace the F-22 fighter jet beginning in 2030, possibly including a combination of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, with other systems and sensors,” the Congressional Research Service explains. “NGAD began as a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project. Since 2015, Congress has appropriated approximately $4.2 billion for NGAD.”
That $4.2 billion is a small part of a large defense budget.
The Air Force’s chief of staff, however, seems to be getting cold feet about asking for even this much. Asked recently whether his service will request NGAD funding, Gen. David Allvin said: “We’re going to have to make those choices, make those decisions, across the landscape. That’s going to probably play out in the next couple [of] years or by this [20]26 POM cycle.”
This softening of the Air Force’s acquisitions stance on NGAD is alarming. As near-peer competitors such as China continue to invest heavily in next-generation air dominance technologies, the U.S. would be ill advised to shift its priorities elsewhere. Failing to seek NGAD funding would be shortsighted, a sort of unilateral disarmament while other weapons programs sail along unchanged.
When asked about the budgetary request surrounding NGAD, Gen. Allvin warned that the Air Force shouldn’t put all its “eggs in one basket.” This is puzzling, as the decision to cut F-22 production put all the Air Force’s eggs in one very troubled basket: the F-35.
The F-35 was never designed as an air dominance platform. It was created through a joint and multinational consortium to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. A great deal of ink has been spilled on the myriad issues that have plagued the F-35 program.
In 2006, I visited the Lockheed Martin plant in Marietta, Georgia, where I met with the program’s engineers and inspected the first F-35 to be produced. At this point the jet had not even had its first taxi test, yet the engineers were already frustrated.
Even though the F-35A (the Air Force variant) could have been equipped with high-output electrical generators, it was outfitted with the smaller generators required by the Marine Corps variant. This was done in the name of commonality and interoperability. The result was a power output system that was already at capacity with no room for growth.
While this example is anecdotal, it points to the pitfalls of designing a fighter to fulfill the requirements of three U.S. military branches. Add the complexity of international partner requirements, and you have a recipe for failure.
This is not to say the F-35 is not a capable fighter for its intended missions of low-observable deep strike and surface attack. The problem lies in stretching its capabilities to fulfill an air dominance role for which it was never designed. I have several excellent hammers in my toolbox, but they would all make poor screwdrivers.
This is why the manned penetrator conceived in the NGAD program is vital. The evolving character of warfare will increasingly depend on networked platforms that provide integrated mass, survivability and lethality to achieve air dominance. This will require effective human-machine teaming between manned fighters and numerous scalable unmanned, semiautonomous platforms.
NGAD would lead to flexible systems that can adapt and be effective in the future. It will leverage technological diversity, involving platforms, humans and drones working together. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be the linchpin of this concept.
Defense policy is in the news, and a defense bill may be the only thing that Congress can pass before the November election. Lawmakers in Washington just passed a draft $833 billion defense bill that is contentious due to its social policies (on topics such as abortion and diversity training) but not for its top-line spending. Money is available.
The character of warfare constantly evolves, and NGAD is vital to the U.S. in meeting this emerging security challenge. The Air Force should press policymakers to be serious about the future and pay to investigate ways to provide better weapons for American fighting men and women. That means asking for a fully funded NGAD, which will lead the Air Force to a more capable future.
Failing to pursue full NGAD funding at this nascent stage would be a critical error of judgment, and future war-fighters would pay the price.
• Clay Percle served in the U.S. Air Force from 1999 to 2019 as an F-15C and F-22 pilot and retired as a lieutenant colonel. He currently serves as a pilot for a major airline and is the founder and president of Gray Cloak Aerospace. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and children.
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