John Baum: Why do we now have the smallest, oldest Air Force in our nation’s history? What does this mean for the future?
Mark Gunzinger: The short answer is that the Air Force budget dropped immediately after the Cold War… Let me cite one statistic I find shocking. From 1989 to 2001, the Air Force’s “blue-only” budget — which excludes funding it doesn’t control for intelligence, and other priority programs — dropped by about a third. Over that same timeframe, its procurement budget dropped by an amazing 52 percent. That goes a long way to explaining why the Air Force has an inventory of aircraft that is the oldest and smallest ever… The Obama era defense cuts, and the 2011 budget control act, blew additional holes in Air Force’s budget.
That was from a solid episode of the Mitchell Institute’s new podcast, Aerospace Advantage. It goes on to explain how a focus on counter-insurgency and budget pressure led to cuts in 5th gen modernization of fighters and bombers. For example, SecDef Gates cut the F-22 program from 380 to 187.
I think that’s a pretty standard argument from the Air Force, one that in general was countered recently by Paul Scharre who said that major systems continued to get ample funding — the DoD never really shifted from its Cold War-era mindset. The F-35 program, for example, received more than $10 billion a year in acquisition funds. That rivals the entire funding available to France’s military procurement organization, the DGA.
Here’s a clip from SecDef Bob Gates explaining the F-22 cuts:
The reaction from parts of Washington has been predictable. The most substantive argument has been that [not] completing the F-22 program means we’re risking the future of air supremacy. To assess this risk, it’s worth looking at the real world potential threat… Consider, that by 2020, the United States is projected to have nearly 2,500 manned combat aircraft of all kinds. Of those, nearly 1,100 will be the most advanced 5th generation F-35s and F-22s. China, by contrast, is projected to have no 5th generation aircraft by 2020. And by 2025, the gap only widens. The US will have approximately 1,700 of the most advanced 5th generation fighters, versus a handful for the Chinese.
In reality, by the end of 2020 the Air Force has received about 250 F-35As, and the Navy/Marines received less than 150 of the B and C models. Including the roughly 185 F-22s in the fleet, the United States doesn’t quite have 600 fighters that are 5th generation. That’s about 500 off the original pace. (Fortunately, it seems that China’s J-20 and FC-31 stealth aircraft have been slow to develop as well.)
Even if industry was able to have delivered those extra 500 F-35s, how could the Air Force possibly operate that fleet when it is struggling to maintain jets that are much cheaper in cost per flying hour? And if the F-22 actually delivered 380 units with its even higher operating cost, how could that have worked in reality? It’s not always worth taking out the fine china to do lower-intensity tasks.
I think the aerospace power community’s fear is that the same premature cut of the F-22 will happen again with the F-35, with only a prayer that a future system like NGAD (or disaggregated/autonomous systems) will come around in a timely manner.
My point of view is that the US Air Force, and DoD more generally, has had plenty of funding over the last 30 years. The reason its the smallest and oldest is its own bad decisions coupled with an actively harmful acquisition process. These programs, the F-22, B-2, and F-35 have accomplished amazing things, but at what opportunity cost?
Could these technological end states been accomplished faster and cheaper had programs tasks been partitioned and moved along incrementally with continuous competition? Moreover, could the DoD have already harnessed emerging technology, something closer to mosaic warfare?
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