By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
With the rapidly arriving Next-Generation Air Dominance platform taking to the sky, some are likely inclined to wonder if the Pentagon may consider or even pursue a massive, F-35-like allied international community of networked, 6th-generation stealth fighters.
Clearly the community of international customers for the F-35 continues to bring potentially unprecedented technological and tactical advantages for the growing number of allied forces and the overall ability to engage in multi-national, multi-domain networked warfare. What about NGAD 6th-gen? Should it be exported? Are there possibly technologies too advanced, unique or secret such that the US should not consider building export variants for sale to US allies.
The arrival of the Pentagon’s Next Generation Air Dominance 6th-generation stealth fighter jet might finally signify that DoD is determined to avoid making an F-22-like mistake and truncate or cut short the planned fleet size due to a short-term or limited assessment of the threat environment.
While plans for the actual fleet or force size of NGAD aircraft for the Air Force and Navy are likely not yet set and not available, it would be reasonable to think that the Pentagon might seek to build and sustain a substantial size fleet. This is certainly the case with the F-35, as the Air Force intends to acquire as many as 1,763 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. This reflects a realization that any threat equation or great power conflict must be able to “mass” formation across vast, dispersed operational environments. The need for this is particularly pressing given that any future conflict is anticipated to be information and network-driven as well as multi-domain and dispersed across wide areas of operations. The Pacific, for example, is often thought of in terms of a tyranny of distance, meaning its vast geographic expanse means operations will need to take place across hundreds, if not thousands of miles, of ocean, land, and island areas.
All of these factors may point to reasons why the Pentagon might consider a larger 6th-generation fleet, and seek to prevent what happened with the F-22 wherein fleet size ambitions were abandoned in large part due to shorter-term assessments of the global threat environment.
It is also likely to assume that the emerging NGAD Air Force and F/A-XX Navy 6th-gen aircraft variants will network with one another and share information in real-time. The combination of the sensor and computer-enabled, 5th-generation F-35 multirole fighter and a yet-to-exist force of ultra-stealthy, high-speed 6th-generation maneuverable air-dominance fighters.
Multi-National 6th-Gen
These advantages include massing formations and multi-domain networking, particularly when supported by secure, easily transmittable datalinks such as the F-35’s Multi-Functional Advanced Data Link (MADL). In the case of the F-35, there is a clear advantage to having a large, multi-national force of networked F-35s in high numbers across groups of allies. This is certainly the case in Europe, given the fast-arriving number of F-35 countries. The success of this F-35 effort further positions NATO in a position of massive air superiority throughout the European continent.
What this seems to suggest is that perhaps the Pentagon could export its 6th-generation NGAD to allies. Could there be export variants made for allies, which would increase interoperability and multi-domain effectiveness while still preserving any possible unique U.S.-only advantages? Perhaps stipped-down variants of NGAD could be offered to allies, should that be possible. However, while exporting NGAD brings both cost and operational efficiency advantages, there may be some reason to pause when it comes to the question of foreign sales.
While little or no information on specific NGAD technologies is available at this time, it likely does contain highly sensitive breakthrough technologies the Pentagon might wish to preserve for only the U.S. This is where export variants come in, as with examples such as the Abrams tank, F-15s, and other U.S.-built major platforms, it might be possible to leverage the networking and operational advantages unique to having a large, allied multinational fleet without compromising sensitive breakthroughs best kept only for U.S. operational use. This would be of critical importance when it comes to platforms such as NGAD because the new stealth fighter likely has a large amount of highly unique and sensitive technologies the U.S. might not want to compromise.
Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
