Air superiority involves protecting friendly forces from aerial attack, while concurrently empowering offensive power projection by suppressing enemy defenses. The previous is essential to not losing a war. The latter is what brings victory. Joint combat power is just not viable without control of the sky. Investment in a capable, sufficiently sized fighter enterprise is the down payment required for successful joint force operations.
Given this stark reality, it’s crucial that Congress block the Air Force’s budget-driven request to retire 32 of its F-22s, while also providing the resources vital for tomorrow’s air superiority mission.
The Air Force’s fighter inventory stands at lower than half of what it was in 1990. Does anyone think the world is any safer today? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Chinese aggression within the Pacific, combined with Iran’s and North Korea’s aggressive nuclear ambitions, suggest otherwise.
These aircraft average nearly three a long time in age. They were flown hard in nonstop combat deployments that began with 1991′s Operation Desert Storm and have never stopped. That has exacted an extreme toll on their physical condition. Old, small and worn is a recipe for disaster when facing a burgeoning set of worldwide security demands — but that’s an accurate description of today’s Air Force.
Specializing in Air Force fighters is essential; while the Navy and Marine Corps have fighters, they largely exist to support organic functions like carrier battle group defense and Marine Air-Ground Task Force support. Even when these objectives are met, these fighter inventories are too small to satisfy large-scale combatant command requirements.
The identical holds true for allied air forces; U.S. Air Force fighters stand alone in the flexibility to directly meet combatant command demands as job No. 1 in large volume.
Air Force leaders have long known these realities, and that’s the reason they made plans within the Eighties and Nineties to switch F-15s, F-16s and A-10s with a brand new generation of fighters in the shape of the F-22 and F-35. Nonetheless, post-Cold War cuts, compounded by a subsequent concentrate on combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, saw these plans go by the wayside.
The requirement for 781 F-22s was cut quite a few times, with 187 aircraft ultimately procured before production was canceled in 2009, representing lower than half the stated military requirement. F-35s were speculated to be acquired in high volume — with Defense Secretary Robert Gates committing to the Air Force procuring 80 F-35s per yr from 2015 through the 2020s, with the ultimate Air Force F-35As procured in 2034.
That didn’t occur — with every annual request far below that figure. That’s the reason the present fighter force is in a freefall, with aircraft retiring without recent backfills (note the F-15s withdrawn from Kadena Air Force Base last yr and not using a direct substitute).
Bottom line: The nation has assumed tremendous risk in its fighter modernization portfolio; the legacy fighter backstop is out of life while demand is surging.
That’s the reason Congress must stop further erosion within the Air Force’s fighter inventory and block the request to retire 32 F-22s. Service leaders are arguing that the F-22s in query are early production examples that don’t meet combat deployment standards. That is partially true, but even these versions can defeat any fourth-generation enemy fighter.
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Regardless, even of their present form they’re sufficient to satisfy training requirements. That could be a crucial contribution, for absent that capability, the more modern versions would have to select up the training load, effectively decreasing the dimensions of F-22 combat force. Not only would this increase fatigue, nevertheless it would scale back F-22 availability to combatant commands where they’re in high demand; that’s greater than a squadron’s price of the world’s most advanced air superiority aircraft. That’s taking excessive risk given combatant commands’ demands far outstrip supply.
These circumstances reveal the Air Force’s precarious fiscal position. Service leaders openly acknowledge the problem is money. They’re forced to chop the F-22 program as a consequence of insufficient funding to speculate in each F-22 sustainment and the Next Generation Air Dominance effort — the eventual F-22 substitute. While there isn’t a query that NGAD is crucial, probably the most optimistic forecasts suggest it’s going to not be fielded until 2030. That’s an aggressive goal, and reality suggests it’s going to slip.
Hope mustn’t be confused for a viable set of combat capabilities in adequate numbers. The true answer demands resourcing the Air Force to retain and adequately fund its full F-22 inventory, while also providing adequate resources for NGAD.
Construct rates for types in production, just like the F-35, also needs to be boosted to fund current capability gaps. Provided that the Air Force has received less money than the Army and Navy for the past 31 years in a row, it is not any wonder why its resources are strained. It’s older and smaller than it’s ever been in its history.
This Air Force fighter resourcing decision portends massive implications for joint force operations. That this problem exists within the context of the war in Ukraine — a conflict where the lack to secure air superiority highlights the criticality of this mission within the starkest possible terms — makes it much more concerning.
Congress must do the proper thing: Fund the Air Force sufficiently so it could possibly secure air superiority today and tomorrow. If leaders think this expense is just too great to bear, they need to think about the choice. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley recently testified, “the one thing dearer than fighting a war is losing a war.”
Douglas A. Birkey is the manager director for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.