The future eclipse of U.S. air domination

So the Russian PAK FA stealth fighter has flown. What does it mean?

There will be those that state that bloviating about the PAK-FA is alarmism run amok. In the long run, I’m not so sure.

With an uncertain U.S. defense budget, an uncertain U.S. worldwide defense posture—along with several ailing defense programs— and a broke U.S. federal government it may be important. There is no proof at this time that the U.S. will recover its economic solvency or DOD procurement skill.

The few smart people in USAF air power circles that actually know something on the topic and are not playing sycophant to Mr. Gates have warned us that parity in air power is not the way to go. An unfair fight is the solution. It saves lives and secures air campaign goals for the joint war-fighter.

The F-22 production is going to be shut down. For the U.S., this is the only advanced air domination fighter and survivable SEAD/DEAD platform in production. Performance, high-end stealth, super-cruise, extreme altitude and long range passive and active sensors are the ownership of the F-22. Sometime in the late 2020’s the U.S. will start retiring the F-22. What then?

The F-35 program is in serious trouble. Enough so that combined with a this-waritis DOD leadership that thinks Afghanistan is winnable—it is not—the ability of the U.S. to secure air campaigns in the long range future is not certain. The F-35 does not really qualify for anything relating to advanced air domination. It is designed to be a strike fighter after the F-22 has cleared all of the big threats. Hoping that thousands of F-35s will be made is a crack-pipe dream.

With that, all the PAK-FA has to do is deliver a moderately survivable aircraft. Unproven? Yes of course. But since its pedigree follows more of the F-22 thinking—stealth for stealth’s sake is not enough you need performance—it has the makings of being a threat that is dangerous enough to protect coalitions that want to keep their backyard secure. These coalitions will have no trouble with several hundred of these aircraft backed up by lower band (stealth unfriendly) sensors and advanced area SAMs. No fly-zones near this kind of firepower means that the F-35 is below-parity and F-22s—in such small numbers—are near-parity to the threat.

If these bad predictions come to pass, U.S. power projection of the future will be defined by geographic locations that are not near these kinds of threats. The big mouth of the all-knowing U.S. State Department that likes to imply that others should know who their betters are, will be limited. That isn’t always a good thing.

So congratulations to the DOD “leadership”. If they ever get the F-35 sorted out, it will be deployed just in time to be obsolete.

Technorati Tags: F-22, F-35, air domination, air force, russia, pac-fa, air power, DOD, military

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