This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
All of a sudden, the US Air Force is considering cancelling a multibillion-dollar effort to develop a new stealth fighter. Citing the high cost of the so-called “Next-Generation Air Dominance” programme and the competing demands of other projects, USAF leaders have warned they may have no choice but to cancel NGAD – and find other ways of winning control of the air in future wars.
It’s a startling development for advocates of American air power. For generations, the whole US military – not to mention the militaries of America’s closest allies – have depended on the US Air Force to achieve air superiority against even the most determined and sophisticated foe, affording freedom of action for troops on the ground and ships at sea.
For generations, the US Air Force has gained control of the air by fighting for it, jet to jet, with the world’s best air-to-air fighters – and highly-trained pilots. Late in the Cold War and into the 2000s, the Boeing F-15C Eagle fighter was the world’s top fighter. Later, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor assumed this position.
The last few dozen F-15Cs are finally retiring after five decades of service. The 180 or so F-22s are pushing 20 years old – and won’t last forever. The US Air Force has already asked the US Congress for permission to retire the three dozen least-capable F-22s in order to free up a billion dollars for other priorities – a request lawmakers have denied, for now.
As recently as a year ago, the disappearance of the last few “fourth-generation” F-15Cs and the “fifth-generation” F-22s’ advancing age weren’t crises. The US Air Force had been working for years, mostly in secret, to develop a new “sixth-generation” fighter under the auspices of the NGAD program. The new piloted warplane would combine high speed, long range and radar-evading stealth – and would carry a new generation of powerful missiles while also flying and fighting in formation with AI-controlled drones.
The plan, as of this spring, was for the US Air Force to acquire 200 of the new jets starting in the 2030s. That plan is now falling apart.
The first hint of trouble came on June 13, when USAF Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin suggested service leaders might recommend reconfiguring, delaying or even canceling the NGAD program as part of the US government’s budget for 2026. While lawmakers have yet to finalize the 2025 budget, military leaders are already writing their proposals for the following year.
It’s in 2026 that Allvin said he expects the US Air Force will have to make some hard choices to stick to its usual $200-billion budget. Inflation cut into the service’s purchasing power starting a couple of years ago. And Republican lawmakers who gained control of the US House of Representatives in the 2022 election have been fighting for across-the-board cuts to federal spending. Those and other fiscal forces are creating budgetary headwinds at precisely the same time several major USAF programs are demanding more and more money.
Those programs include a $200-billion effort to build at least 100 new Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bombers. Production of new tankers, radar early-warning planes, rescue helicopters is also ramping up. But the big problem isn’t these planes – it’s the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II multi-role stealth fighter.
The US Air Force developed the F-35 in the late 1990s and early 2000s as an affordable replacement for the service’s thousands of older F-16 fighters and A-10 attack jets. The plan, all along, has been the US Air Force to buy more than 1,700 F-35s. The F-35 is classified as fifth-generation like the Raptor: it should be more capable than all but a handful of today’s Chinese and Russian aircraft.
But deliveries of the $80-million F-35s to USAF squadrons stalled last year as the US Air Force and Lockheed Martin struggled to complete testing of the type’s latest software. Today there are scores of complete USAF F-35s sitting in storage, awaiting software. That’s billions of dollars worth of fighters that aren’t even available to front-line squadrons.
The cost and timeline for testing the software, installing it and finally delivering those stored keep extending. And while deliveries may resume this summer, it could take another year for Lockheed to hand over the last stored jet.
It’s not for no reason that aviation expert Bill Sweetman refers to the F-35 as a “trillion-dollar trainwreck.” The fighter is eating the US Air Force’s budget – and forcing the service to rethink its next fighter.
It’s still possible the US Air Force proceeds as planned with the NGAD program – or the US Congress forces it to. If the new fighter project falls apart, USAF leaders could piece together other systems into a kind of replacement. F-35s and new F-15EXs could fight for control of the air alongside aging F-22s as new generations of high-performance drones enter service – and prove whether they can shoulder the air-superiority burden.
But that’s risky. Since the advent of air power more than a century ago, manned fighters have controlled the air. It’s safe to assume they’ll continue to control the air. If the US Air Force can’t find a way to develop and field state-of-the-art fighters, it might discover it no longer dominates.
And that could mean some other force dominates, instead. The Chinese air force, for instance.
It’s a startling development for advocates of American air power. For generations, the whole US military – not to mention the militaries of America’s closest allies – have depended on the US Air Force to achieve air superiority against even the most determined and sophisticated foe, affording freedom of action for troops on the ground and ships at sea.
For generations, the US Air Force has gained control of the air by fighting for it, jet to jet, with the world’s best air-to-air fighters – and highly-trained pilots. Late in the Cold War and into the 2000s, the Boeing F-15C Eagle fighter was the world’s top fighter. Later, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor assumed this position.
The last few dozen F-15Cs are finally retiring after five decades of service. The 180 or so F-22s are pushing 20 years old – and won’t last forever. The US Air Force has already asked the US Congress for permission to retire the three dozen least-capable F-22s in order to free up a billion dollars for other priorities – a request lawmakers have denied, for now.
As recently as a year ago, the disappearance of the last few “fourth-generation” F-15Cs and the “fifth-generation” F-22s’ advancing age weren’t crises. The US Air Force had been working for years, mostly in secret, to develop a new “sixth-generation” fighter under the auspices of the NGAD program. The new piloted warplane would combine high speed, long range and radar-evading stealth – and would carry a new generation of powerful missiles while also flying and fighting in formation with AI-controlled drones.
The plan, as of this spring, was for the US Air Force to acquire 200 of the new jets starting in the 2030s. That plan is now falling apart.
The first hint of trouble came on June 13, when USAF Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin suggested service leaders might recommend reconfiguring, delaying or even canceling the NGAD program as part of the US government’s budget for 2026. While lawmakers have yet to finalize the 2025 budget, military leaders are already writing their proposals for the following year.
It’s in 2026 that Allvin said he expects the US Air Force will have to make some hard choices to stick to its usual $200-billion budget. Inflation cut into the service’s purchasing power starting a couple of years ago. And Republican lawmakers who gained control of the US House of Representatives in the 2022 election have been fighting for across-the-board cuts to federal spending. Those and other fiscal forces are creating budgetary headwinds at precisely the same time several major USAF programs are demanding more and more money.
Those programs include a $200-billion effort to build at least 100 new Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bombers. Production of new tankers, radar early-warning planes, rescue helicopters is also ramping up. But the big problem isn’t these planes – it’s the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II multi-role stealth fighter.
The US Air Force developed the F-35 in the late 1990s and early 2000s as an affordable replacement for the service’s thousands of older F-16 fighters and A-10 attack jets. The plan, all along, has been the US Air Force to buy more than 1,700 F-35s. The F-35 is classified as fifth-generation like the Raptor: it should be more capable than all but a handful of today’s Chinese and Russian aircraft.
But deliveries of the $80-million F-35s to USAF squadrons stalled last year as the US Air Force and Lockheed Martin struggled to complete testing of the type’s latest software. Today there are scores of complete USAF F-35s sitting in storage, awaiting software. That’s billions of dollars worth of fighters that aren’t even available to front-line squadrons.
The cost and timeline for testing the software, installing it and finally delivering those stored keep extending. And while deliveries may resume this summer, it could take another year for Lockheed to hand over the last stored jet.
It’s not for no reason that aviation expert Bill Sweetman refers to the F-35 as a “trillion-dollar trainwreck.” The fighter is eating the US Air Force’s budget – and forcing the service to rethink its next fighter.
It’s still possible the US Air Force proceeds as planned with the NGAD program – or the US Congress forces it to. If the new fighter project falls apart, USAF leaders could piece together other systems into a kind of replacement. F-35s and new F-15EXs could fight for control of the air alongside aging F-22s as new generations of high-performance drones enter service – and prove whether they can shoulder the air-superiority burden.
But that’s risky. Since the advent of air power more than a century ago, manned fighters have controlled the air. It’s safe to assume they’ll continue to control the air. If the US Air Force can’t find a way to develop and field state-of-the-art fighters, it might discover it no longer dominates.
And that could mean some other force dominates, instead. The Chinese air force, for instance.
I read all that and think the real story is investing in unmanned drones of all shapes and sizes, payloads and speeds, stealth and non stealth. Ukraine has been a major eye opener. The future is not 100 million dollar planes flown live by dudes that take 5 years to train.
Yep, the drift from that article is they feel the $$$ can be more useful in other projects.
Still wondering what all of this is about. Hope it will be an attempted coup in Belarus.
Well within range of Ukraine’s drones, however. Hopefully they are geolocating the parking stands on that tarmac. The heavier missiles are great for command posts and bridges. A little shrapnel has proven to go a long ways against Russian aircraft parked in the open.
Belarus has been blustering and moving troops around for 2 years. They don’t want any piece of this war. Lukashenko wouldn’t last a week if he gets them into this war.
The US continues to stockpile weapons on the Eastern edge of NATOs boundaries. This time Abrams tanks stationed in Poland. As the article mentioned crews can be quickly flown in the man this armored brigade versus spending 30 days moving them to a US port, crossing the Atlantic, and then trucking them to Poland.
www.newsweek.com
US sends Abrams battle tanks to NATO frontline nation
The U.S. tanks have arrived in Poland at a new NATO-built storage facility that will equip the alliance's eastern flank.
www.newsweek.com
He's counting on financial support from Vlad. That's why he says these things.
Well, I guess the beach lifestyle of the Russian occupiers in Crimea isn’t so idyllic after all. That’s a shame.
Several US military bases across Europe were put on a heightened state of alert over the weekend amid concerns of a possible terrorist attack against US installations or personnel in the continent.
One of the bases include the US European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, where the US Army Garrison issued an alert that raises the level of Force Protection Condition (FPCON) to "Charlie," US officials said.
Out of the five FPCON threat levels, "Charlie" is the second-highest alert.
The "Charlie" threat level is in effect when "an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely," according to the US Army.
Similar alerts were issued to other US military installations across Germany, including the US Army Garrison's Rheinland-Pfalz and Ramstein Air Base in the southwestern German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Ramstein Air Base in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate (Image: Getty)
Both military installations are part of the Kaiserslautern Military Community, the largest American community outside of the United States, according to Ramstein Air Base.
Service personnel and others may expect severe delays at gate entrance points due to heightened security, according to the alert.
A military spokesperson told CNN the United States European Command is "constantly assessing a variety of factors that play into the safety of US military community abroad."
"As part of that effort, we often times take additional steps to ensure the safety of our service members."
The US European Command also did not go into specifics on what kind of intelligence sparked the heightened security, and what kind of force protection measures are now being taken due to security reasons.
While it did not specify what kind of threats against US military personnel or bases in Europe, the heightened alert comes as European authorities repeatedly warned of a potential threat of terrorism on the continent in the summer.
Security is a top priority in Europe with global sporting events such as the UEFA European football championship in Germany in full swing and the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games set to begin in late July.
Germany's interior minister Nancy Faeser had previously warned about the threat of possible threats ahead of the month-long football tournament, saying that "we are preparing ourselves for all conceivable dangers: from Islamist terror to violent criminals and hooligans."
The German government has even dispatched a cohort of 580 officers from all 24 European countries competing in the tournament to work with German security authorities and police counterparts to bolster its security.
France is also preparing for the potential threat of terrorism to the Paris Olympic Games, which is set to begin in July 26.
A warning from the US embassy in France had been issued in the country since the ISIS-K terror attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow in March 22, which left over 130 people dead and and hundreds injured.
The embassy had raised its national security alert system to the highest level, urging residents and tourists to stay vigiliant in public areas such as airports, public transportation, large commercial centers, and places of worship.
“French authorities actively monitor terrorist threats from organized groups and radicalized individuals,” the alert wrote.
“Attacks may happen with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, major sporting and cultural events, and other public areas that attract large numbers of civilians.”
The security alert was first reported by Stars and Stripes, an independent military newspaper.
One of the bases include the US European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, where the US Army Garrison issued an alert that raises the level of Force Protection Condition (FPCON) to "Charlie," US officials said.
Out of the five FPCON threat levels, "Charlie" is the second-highest alert.
The "Charlie" threat level is in effect when "an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely," according to the US Army.
Similar alerts were issued to other US military installations across Germany, including the US Army Garrison's Rheinland-Pfalz and Ramstein Air Base in the southwestern German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Ramstein Air Base in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate (Image: Getty)
Both military installations are part of the Kaiserslautern Military Community, the largest American community outside of the United States, according to Ramstein Air Base.
Service personnel and others may expect severe delays at gate entrance points due to heightened security, according to the alert.
A military spokesperson told CNN the United States European Command is "constantly assessing a variety of factors that play into the safety of US military community abroad."
"As part of that effort, we often times take additional steps to ensure the safety of our service members."
The US European Command also did not go into specifics on what kind of intelligence sparked the heightened security, and what kind of force protection measures are now being taken due to security reasons.
While it did not specify what kind of threats against US military personnel or bases in Europe, the heightened alert comes as European authorities repeatedly warned of a potential threat of terrorism on the continent in the summer.
Security is a top priority in Europe with global sporting events such as the UEFA European football championship in Germany in full swing and the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games set to begin in late July.
Germany's interior minister Nancy Faeser had previously warned about the threat of possible threats ahead of the month-long football tournament, saying that "we are preparing ourselves for all conceivable dangers: from Islamist terror to violent criminals and hooligans."
The German government has even dispatched a cohort of 580 officers from all 24 European countries competing in the tournament to work with German security authorities and police counterparts to bolster its security.
France is also preparing for the potential threat of terrorism to the Paris Olympic Games, which is set to begin in July 26.
A warning from the US embassy in France had been issued in the country since the ISIS-K terror attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow in March 22, which left over 130 people dead and and hundreds injured.
The embassy had raised its national security alert system to the highest level, urging residents and tourists to stay vigiliant in public areas such as airports, public transportation, large commercial centers, and places of worship.
“French authorities actively monitor terrorist threats from organized groups and radicalized individuals,” the alert wrote.
“Attacks may happen with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, major sporting and cultural events, and other public areas that attract large numbers of civilians.”
The security alert was first reported by Stars and Stripes, an independent military newspaper.
Force Protection Condition levels, or FPCON levels, range from NORMAL (when a general global threat of possible terrorist threat exists) to DELTA (applies in an immediate area where a terrorist attack has occurred or is imminent). The five FPCON levels are:
The FPCON levels are raised as a threat increases or if an attack has occurred.
HOW DO I KNOW THE FPCON?
The current Force Protection Condition level is posted at each gate entrance. It is also located on the homepage of this website.
- FPCON NORMAL
Applies when a general global threat of possible terrorist activity exists and warrants a routine security posture. As a minimum, access control will be conducted at all DOD installations and facilities. - FPCON ALPHA
Applies when there is an increased general threat of possible terrorist activity against personnel or facilities, and the nature and extent of the threat are unpredictable. - FPCON BRAVO
Applies when an increased or more predictable threat of terrorist activity exists. - FPCON CHARLIE
Applies when an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely. - FPCON DELTA
Applies in the immediate area where a terrorist attack has occurred or when intelligence has been received that terrorist action against a specific location or person is imminent. This FPCON is usually declared as a localized condition.
The FPCON levels are raised as a threat increases or if an attack has occurred.
HOW DO I KNOW THE FPCON?
The current Force Protection Condition level is posted at each gate entrance. It is also located on the homepage of this website.
Belarus sure didn’t/doesn’t care about Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Sovereignty is a convenience to observe when you want, if you have big enough friends.
- signed Israel
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/mwi-podcast-defending-against-drones/
In April of this year, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division finished a nine-month deployment to the Middle East. Spread across eight bases in Iraq and Syria, the brigade’s forces were targeted by more than one hundred drone attacks during the rotation—almost entirely during a period of about four months when Iranian proxy groups’ activities peaked. It has more experience than any unit in the entire US Army defending against drone attacks.
That makes the brigade a crucial source of lessons for the Army as it seeks to prepare for a modern battlefield characterized by the rapid proliferation of unmanned systems. The drones the unit encountered are known as OWAUAS (one-way attack unmanned aircraft systems), and a combination of weapons and systems enabled the brigade’s base defense operations centers to successfully intercept the vast majority of them. But what weapons are most effective? How reliable are nonkinetic tools like directed-energy weapons? How can sensors be most effectively employed to detect incoming drones with enough warning to defeat them?
To share lessons the brigade learned during the deployment—and how they can inform the Army’s preparation to defend against drone attacks in the future—John Amble is joined on this episode of the MWI Podcast by Colonel Scott Wence, commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division.
The MWI Podcast is produced through an endowment generously funded by the West Point Class of 1974. You can listen to this episode of the podcast below, and if you aren’t already subscribed, be sure to find it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss an episode. While you’re there, please take just a moment to leave the podcast a rating or give it a review!
In April of this year, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division finished a nine-month deployment to the Middle East. Spread across eight bases in Iraq and Syria, the brigade’s forces were targeted by more than one hundred drone attacks during the rotation—almost entirely during a period of about four months when Iranian proxy groups’ activities peaked. It has more experience than any unit in the entire US Army defending against drone attacks.
That makes the brigade a crucial source of lessons for the Army as it seeks to prepare for a modern battlefield characterized by the rapid proliferation of unmanned systems. The drones the unit encountered are known as OWAUAS (one-way attack unmanned aircraft systems), and a combination of weapons and systems enabled the brigade’s base defense operations centers to successfully intercept the vast majority of them. But what weapons are most effective? How reliable are nonkinetic tools like directed-energy weapons? How can sensors be most effectively employed to detect incoming drones with enough warning to defeat them?
To share lessons the brigade learned during the deployment—and how they can inform the Army’s preparation to defend against drone attacks in the future—John Amble is joined on this episode of the MWI Podcast by Colonel Scott Wence, commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division.
The MWI Podcast is produced through an endowment generously funded by the West Point Class of 1974. You can listen to this episode of the podcast below, and if you aren’t already subscribed, be sure to find it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss an episode. While you’re there, please take just a moment to leave the podcast a rating or give it a review!
This explains so much about how and why Putin & Russia are still no closer to 'taking' Ukraine now as they were when this all first started.
Lotta prisoners and conscripts not going home. Unreal.
I had a party in which one of the invited guests was recently married to a drone pilot. It was interesting talking to him. Said Elon's Starlink network has revolutionized the ability to communicate with drones. They can be based in the US and fly anywhere in the world. The other interesting thing is there is about a 2 second delay. Said tech will only get better with input timing.
