Last week, the United States sent combined messages, perplexing allies and potential adversaries. The U. S. Air Force is a major contributor. The U. S. Air Force announced it will retire the F-15C/D air superiority fighter jet from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, after 43 years at the station. It will not be completed anytime soon through permanently assigned fighter jets. The day before, the U. S. The U. S. has launched its new national defense strategy, which highlights China as the “pace challenge” of U. S. defense capability. U. S.
The cause of the obvious gap between the new defense strategy and U. S. force discounts in the Pacific can be traced back to a series of bad decisions made by presidents, Congress, and Department of Defense (DOD) leaders over the past three decades. These decisions have consistently defunded the Air Force and scaled back its combat force design without buying enough replacements. Over the past 30 years, the country has invested less in its air force than in its army or navy. As a result, the Air Force is now the oldest, smallest and least in a position it has been in its 75-year history. Another confirmation of the impact of those decisions is the resounding alarm contained in the Heritage Foundation’s recent annual report assessing the readiness, capability and capability of the U. S. military. U. S. It lowered the Air Force’s score from “low” last year to “very low” this year.
The Air Force has stated that it is not sized to meet the project requirements imposed on it by the various commands of the American fighters. A 2018 study, the air force we want, showed a 24% deficit in the Air Force’s ability to meet desires. These conclusions remain valid, unless that call is even greater today due to global events, and the air force is now smaller than in 2018.
The Department of Defense will enforce the interim measure of rotating fighter jets through Kadena Air Base, but this option has several drawbacks. serious problem. It also deprives other regional combat commands of complex fighter jets at a time when demand for them is very high. For example, F-22s from a location that would supply fighter jets to Kadena are now deployed in Europe to deter Russia.
The withdrawal of the permanent presence of two F-15C/D squadrons from the Pacific is the inevitable result of resolutions that have reduced investment in successor aircraft. But the program was stopped prematurely in 2009 with only 187 cells, less than the validated requirement part, a short-sighted resolution by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said he did not see China as a threat.
Without enough F-22s to reposition the old F-15C/D force and fulfill other missions, the F-15C/Ds have been extended beyond their original service life. The first flight of the F-15 took up position 50 years ago. in 1972.
Now, thirteen years after Secretary Gates made his disastrous decision, F-15C/Ds are structurally exhausted. The Air Force no longer trains new active-duty F-15C/D pilots. The Kadena-based F-15 pilots are the only ones left. F-15 pilots on active duty, and remain there beyond the general excursion time without hindering their career progress. The Air Force has put itself in position to terminate the F-15C/D force in active service.
The deficit in force design in the Air Force is also due to a particularly reduced F-35 production rate that never materialized. to the circumstances.
The new F-15EX, a complex and scalable edition of the original F-15, is years away from the operational volumes needed to meet squadron-level requirements. The next-generation airborne domain aircraft, the tracking F-22, may not see operational service until 2030. Future collaborative fighter jets — complex, autonomous, unmanned aerial cars — are still largely conceptual, and perhaps a decade away.
Compounding the Air Force’s aircraft capability problems, the budget plan for next year gets rid of about 1,000 more aircraft than it buys over the next five years. This will create an even smaller, older, and less position force. Why a plan with significant discounts on additional aircraft?The Administration and Congress do not fund what is mandated to fulfill the National Defense Strategy force design wishes. Therefore, without the resources to fund the force it wants, the Air Force is doing the only thing it can: shedding the existing force design to lose budget to invest in long-term desires.
The new national defense strategy focuses on a concept called “integrated deterrence,” but does not provide force-sized constructions to outline the forces needed to achieve the U. S. purpose. UU. de deter China, Russia and other adversaries, or win if deterrence fails. , seems to rely on allies to compensate for the decline in the functions and functions of the U. S. military. UU. Si ally and partners will surely deter and, if obligatory, defeat our adversaries, only the United States can provide sufficient necessary forces to effectively achieve. those purposes.
Usa. The U. S. will now have to acquire fighter jet capability at a rate high enough to oppose the decline in the structure of the fighting force, the decline that forced the Air Force’s hand on Kadena today. That number is at least 72 new fighters consistent with the year, more than 57 in the administration’s fiscal year 2023 budget request. It’s not just about fighters either, with similarly bad cases with bombers and other key areas of the project. National defense strategy that relies so heavily on deterrence. Without the strength to secure a decisive and overwhelming victory in forced combat, deterrence is only an aspiration, not a reality.