The U.S. Air Force today is the oldest and smallest in its history. Consequently, it is experiencing a severe fighter aircraft gap between what it has and what it requires to execute the national defense strategy. This gap is particularly acute within the F-35 stealth advanced 5th generation aircraft inventory. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 House Armed Services Committee bill language cutting F-35 purchases exacerbate this shortfall. With China increasing its aggressive actions in the Pacific, Russia advancing in Ukraine, Iran destabilizing the Middle East, and North Korea expanding its nuclear arsenal, now is not the time to take more risk by buying fewer fighters. Fail to adequately steward this capability and we risk losing a war.
Today’s fighter shortfall is well documented. When the U.S. launched Operation Desert Storm in 1991 (to counter Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait), it had 134 fighter squadrons. Today, it has 55—well less than half and yet the world is a far more dangerous place. Aggressive post-Cold War cuts, paired with funding pressures tied to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, drove dramatic cuts to America’s fighter aircraft force. Existing aircraft were retired, and modernization efforts, like the F-22, were dramatically cut to less than half their military requirement. However, global demand for fighters never dropped. Fewer aircraft and associated personnel carry a burgeoning load and is a recipe for disaster.
Unsurprisingly, China understands the importance of fighters. They are producing approximately 100 J-20s per year—an advanced fighter with many 5th generation-like characteristics including low-observability (stealth). Their current J-20 inventory exceeds our F-22 count by a significant margin, and theirs is still growing. A global fighter race is in play, and it is time we decide to compete.
In 2018, then Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson sounded the capacity alarm when she called for growing the fighter force by seven squadrons. In 2022, Air Combat Command Commander Gen Mark Kelly underscored the need for more investment in fighters, explaining: “It’s like a bill that comes to your house … for 60 multirole fighter squadrons. I’m trying to pay that bill with 48 fighter squadrons and nine [A-10-equipped] attack squadrons.” Two years later, those A-10 squadrons are leaving service and the remaining fighter squadrons are not being replaced fast enough to offset age-driven retirements.
The U.S. Air Force is in a force structure capacity nosedive. It did plan for recapitalization of its aircraft, but the result of decades of underfunding due to paying the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend,’ and the Defense Department’s prioritization of counterinsurgency fights over preparing for great power competition, is a fighter force not large enough to campaign at the levels our defense strategy demands. To this point, in 2023, the Air Force was forced to withdraw all its F-15s from Kadena Air Force Base—America’s largest base in the Pacific—because it did not have enough new fighters to replace the F-15s that hit the end of their service life. Similar gaps will ripple across other Air Force bases without buying sufficient new fighters. As General Kelly declared, “We literally ate the muscle tissue of the Air Force in the form of reduced fighter capacity, reduced readiness, putting hard miles on older aircraft, driving more extensive sustainment efforts.” It is well past time for a reset.
Regardless, the House Armed Service Committee (HASC) cut the F-35 in their version of the FY2025 defense authorization bill. This will further slow the build of critically needed 5th generation fighters. Already constrained by the mandatory spending caps driven by the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, the Air Force had to reduce its annual F-35 buy from 48 to 42 aircraft in its FY25 budget request. HASC actions chop the number even further to a total of 36 F-35As. Additional language regarding specific reporting requirements could see the number of F-35As plummet to 30 aircraft if the Department of Defense fails to meet stipulated demands. That is surrendering nearly an entire squadron of F-35s in one year. These cuts will also erode the Marine Corps and Navy F-35 procurement.
The impact of these reductions on the defense supplier base—already stressed due to COVID-related impacts and associated challenges—will be decidedly negative. They need stability to grow necessary capacity and resiliency.
House Armed Service Committee staff comments explain the reasoning behind these cuts: “We’re doing a number of things to try and mitigate some problems that the F-35 is having in production so that it gets to the warfighter sooner.” That translates to a funding reallocation within the program to shore up the broader enterprise. Frankly, that investment is a wise move. Ensuring the F-35 keeps pace with the threat environment demands a routine set of capability insertions across the lifespan of the program—which will extend decades into the future. This involves developing cutting edge, highly complex pieces of hardware and software. That demands robust testing and integration work. Far too much risk was taken in the corresponding enterprise in past years. It is time to get it back up to speed. Extremely frustrating delays tied to the technology refresh 3 and block 4 set of upgrades—which led to a halt in aircraft acceptances in 2023—are a symptom of these shortfalls. It is time to fix them. However, such investment should not come at the expense of aircraft already late to need in operational units. The current fighter inventory is so fragile that any production cuts will inevitably translate to empty spots on flightlines, and combatant command demands left unmet at a time when the global threat environment is soaring.
Greater numbers of F-35s are necessary to meet operational demand in a sustainable, survivable fashion against high-end threats. There is a reason why Secretary of Defense Austin characterized the F-35 as: “one of the best aircraft in the inventory.” It’s also why the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, an even more advanced fighter in development, is so important.
Rebuilding America’s fighter enterprise, the majority of which resides in the Air Force, requires greater investment plus the need for higher production rates. It is not an ‘either-or’ issue—we need both. As 18th Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Buzz Moseley observes, “The threat is incredibly serious, and we are vastly underprepared. You can’t skip three decades worth of Air Force modernization and then try and compress everything into a few years. It doesn’t work.”
Failing to sufficiently resource our fighter requirements will result in costs far greater than what shows on a budget spreadsheet. That would raise the risks of losing the next war. Ukraine is a cautionary tale in this regard. Limited in the ability to control the sky, they are stuck in an unbelievably brutal attrition fight on the ground that mirrors World War I. That is not the kind of war the U.S. wants to fight or could win. That is why a robust fighter enterprise is the cornerstone of U.S. defense strategy and has been since World War II. The growing threats facing us demand that we build the fighter aircraft capacity that America needs. With respect to cost, the only thing more expensive than a first-rate Air Force is a second-rate Air Force.
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