Don't Add a Gap to NGAP

In preparing its budget for 2024, the United States Air Force faced a crucial decision: Continue funding the program to develop an entirely new technology for future jet engines, or defer that development to a future program. Typically, that kind of deferral means a gap of several years while the new program is developed. But in this case, unusually, the budget line for a next generation program already existed. So, in its last decision in that budget, the Air Force deferred its main engine development to the future.

Fortunately, that decision isn’t final. Congress is considering the proper level at which to fund NGAP for 2026. But unless Congress acts to amend the 2026 appropriations conference report, the 2024 deferral can become a bridge to nowhere.

In making that decision, it’s important for Congress to understand what NGAP is. It’s not just a program to build a new engine; it's building the technology base for all future high-performance military engines. This isn’t an earmark; NGAP isn't about one company winning. It's about the United States winning.

Other countries aren’t deferring their engine development. For many years, China has been hobbled by a lack of current technology jet engines for its fighters and bombers. Beijing is acutely aware of that, and so has devoted time, attention, and money to not only catching up but surpassing the West. It's a pattern we've seen before in Chinese technology development – as when they decided that instead of wiring the entire country for telephone service, they would jump straight to cellular. China doesn’t base their ambition on matching the rest of the world, but by using current technologies as a springboard to go directly to a future technology. And that appears to be exactly what they are doing with regard to military aircraft engines. Even before widely deploying current-technology military turbines, they have already built a three-stream adaptive engine prototype. This cuts their nearly 30-year deficit in engine development by almost two-thirds.

To be sure, the United States is reconsidering its place in the world. But a national security strategy that reduces its emphasis on the world beyond the western hemisphere doesn't mean our military technology needs to be in stasis. Indeed, whatever our strategy, we don't know where the next conflict will break out or the next need for U.S. capability will arise. And if we don't know that about today, we know much less what the situation will be 15 years from now, the time when the aircraft and engines we are developing today will be in service.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates famously accused the U.S. Air Force of “next-war-itis,” focusing too much on the future, when cutting programs like the F-22. As has become clear, though, the United States doesn't get to decide where the next war is or what it requires. We do get to decide whether the United States will be prepared for that next conflict. Freezing military engine development in 2026 does not seem to be a wise or effective preparation for the world ahead. Proper funding for NGAP to prepare for the next generation of aircraft and beyond keeps the U.S. in the game.

The world keeps changing. To keep up, the United States has to be… adaptive.

Jeremiah Gertler is senior analyst at the Teal Group market forecasting firm. These views are his own.