Air Force Leaders Are Right to Rethink NGAD

The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter aircraft meant to secure U.S. air superiority in the 2030s and beyond might be facing an adversary it can’t defeat: budget constraints.

Convincing or not, it’s unavoidable that the Air Force, like the other services, will be facing a budget crunch in the coming years. The need to prioritize funding for more relevant budget items means that Air Force leaders are right to rethink and if needed, cancel the NGAD program.

Air Force officials have stated that they want the NGAD fighter to have range, stealth, and payload capacity superior to the F-22 fighter to contest Chinese air power in the Pacific. The manned NGAD platform will also operate with unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) as part of a “family of systems.”

Fiscal trends do not favor the defense spending increases needed to accommodate the NGAD’s costs. This year, interest payments on the federal debt eclipsed U.S. defense spending for the first time. The pain will be felt across every department and agency in the coming years as interest payments eat into a greater share of the discretionary federal budget.

Greater fiscal strain will place more pressure on an already overstretched military. Some analysts project that overall defense spending would have to increase annually by $25 billion just to keep pace with inflation. The 2024 Commission on the National Defense Strategy, rather than contemplate long overdue cuts to missions and force structure, called for entitlement reforms and higher taxes to fund defense spending increases of 3 to 5 percent above inflation. But it’s unlikely that Congress will do an about-face on these political nonstarters anytime soon.

Mindful of the looming budget squeeze, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall stated last month that he wants the NGAD fighter to cost the same as an F-35. Yet, procuring 200 NGAD fighters, as the Air Force reportedly wants to, would still cost upwards of $20 billion. And this doesn’t include the multi-decade operation, maintenance, and sustainment costs that have made the F-35 program so expensive.

It’s also not clear a cheaper and less capable NGAD fighter would reduce overall program costs. The manned fighter would likely end up transferring critical components for its air superiority mission, such as electronic warfare capabilities, sensors, and datalinks, to CCAs. This would push the cost of CCAs up and undermine the objective of procuring thousands of cheap unmanned aircraft to fly alongside the manned NGAD platform.

The NGAD program’s prospective price tag looks even more daunting with two big-ticket items higher on the Air Force’s priority list: the modernization of the land and air legs of the nuclear triad.

The Sentinel ICBM program is a generational revamp of America’s half-century-old land-based nuclear missile force that involves modernizing 450 silos in several states, building 600 new missiles, and installing new launch control facilities. But the two-decade effort is already years behind schedule and 81 percent over budget at $141 billion.

Modernizing the air leg of the nuclear triad isn’t cheap either. The B-21 Raider will provide the Air Force with a new strategic bomber capable of executing conventional and nuclear strike missions anywhere in the world. Updated unit costs haven’t been released but industry estimates indicate the bombers could cost nearly $700 million apiece. If the Air Force follows through on purchasing 100 Raiders for its fleet, that would be a $70 billion investment with hundreds of billions more in operating expenses to be paid over 30 years. And it doesn’t end there: procurement costs for the B-21’s nuclear-armed AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off missile will increase from nearly $300 million in FY 2026 to $2.2 billion in 2029 as production ramps up.

Finally, it’s worth asking whether the goal of achieving air superiority in a conflict with China is a realistic one. China’s geography and military modernization could offset U.S. air power’s technological advantages in several ways. Chinese air bases would largely operate in a sanctuary; regional U.S. air bases would be under constant threat from thousands of Chinese missiles. Chinese aircraft would have shorter and more secure logistics lines; U.S. warplanes would need to be sustained over thousands of miles across the Pacific.

The Pentagon’s inability to prioritize threats benefits China too. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which has 1,300 fourth-generation fighters and hundreds of fifth-generation platforms, is largely concentrated on the Asia-Pacific while America’s shrinking Air Force is split between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Matching Chinese air power in a Pacific war would be a difficult task with or without the NGAD fighter. And fiscal realities are forcing the Air Force to make tough choices about what priorities need to be funded. Service leaders are right to take a hard look at the NGAD concept before writing another expensive chapter in the Pentagon’s acquisition history.

Matthew C. Mai is a contributing fellow at Defense Priorities.