The Air Force continues to rely almost exclusively on manned fighter aircraft—even though these platforms could not be quickly replaced in a major war.
The US Air Force’s new plan to acquire hundreds more fighter jets sounds bold and is a declaration that America intends to keep air dominance well into the next decade. But behind the confident rhetoric lies an uncomfortable truth: this plan is out of step with the changing character of war, the limits of our industrial base, fiscal reality, and the leadership turmoil within the service itself.
The recent early departure of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin should have been a wake-up call, a moment to rethink the status quo. Instead, the service seems to be doubling down on it. Rather than treating that leadership change as a chance to realign with Secretary of Defense’s priorities, the Air Force is pressing forward with a procurement plan rooted in the past: buying more manned fighters, as if the wars of the future will be won by the number of pilots on the flight line.
This is not a plan for victory. It’s a plan for running out of airplanes, and options, on Day Two of a major war. Simply put, the Air Force is building a force that cannot be regenerated once it takes hits. Every aircraft lost becomes a capability gap that may never be filled during wartime.
What the Air Force’s Acquisition Plan Misses
The Air Force report calls for growing the combat-coded fighter inventory from roughly 1,271 aircraft today to over 1,550 within the decade, through increased purchases of F-35As, F-15EXs, and eventually the F-47 platform. It frames these aircraft as the backbone of American airpower—with “collaborative combat aircraft,” or drones, implied as helpful but not central.
Therein lies the problem. The Air Force still sees unmanned systems as accessories to its manned fleet, rather than the main effort. This thinking is misguided. The recent wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Caucasus have shown how swarms of inexpensive drones can overwhelm expensive systems, saturate defenses, and deliver precision at scale. Adversaries like China and Iran are building mass and resilience through cheap, networked, and autonomous systems. The Air Force, by contrast, is pursuing precisely the opposite: exquisite platforms that can’t be produced quickly or replaced easily.
For decades, the Air Force has focused on the “first day of war”—fighting to blind the enemy, achieve air superiority, and open the battlespace in the opening hours of a conflict. This strategy works admirably against a lesser enemy, such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. But in a great power war against an adversary like China, the first day will not be enough. Aircraft will be lost to long-range missiles, drones, and electronic attack. The real test comes on day two: how fast can we recover, replace losses, and sustain combat power?
Right now, the answer is: not fast enough. The F-15EX line produces at most 36 aircraft a year. The F-35 program, serving multiple services and allies, builds about 150 of the aircraft annually, with fewer than half of these destined for the Air Force. In other words, even under absolutely perfect conditions, it would take years to replace losses from the first week of combat.
Deterrence doesn’t come from the biggest day-one force. It comes from the ability to fight, absorb losses, and keep going. The Air Force’s current plan all but ensures that after the first salvos, we’ll be grounded.
Secretary Hegseth Wants Drones. Will the Air Force Listen?
Allvin’s surprise early exit from the Pentagon should have been a signal to pause and reassess. Leadership transitions often reveal deeper institutional stress, between old ways of thinking and the demands of the future fight.
Yet rather than recalibrating, the service is pressing ahead as if nothing has changed. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has emphasized attrition resilience, drone warfare, and industrial agility. But the Air Force’s priorities remain out of sync with its leadership, focused instead on expanding the manned fleet.
This misalignment matters. When top leadership is not synchronized, when the department’s vision of modern warfare diverges from a service’s procurement instincts, the result is a force structured for the wrong fight. The administration may need to push harder to realign the Air Force toward a sustainable, unmanned, mass-production model before inertia sets the wrong course for another decade.
Even if the Air Force’s plan made strategic sense, it would still be impractical. The US defense industrial base cannot surge fighter production fast enough to meet wartime attrition or even the service’s own goals. Supply chains for engines, avionics, and advanced materials are already under strain. The Air Force acknowledges a $400 million annual shortfall in sustainment funding. Yet it is asking to add hundreds more aircraft that will require pilots, parts, and maintenance hours the system cannot currently support.
This is a recipe for a hollow fleet—impressive in number but short on readiness. We have actually seen this before: during the late 1970s, the military’s impressive strength on paper masked a force unprepared for sustained combat. We risk repeating that mistake in the air domain.
Every dollar spent on another manned fighter is a dollar not spent on what truly matters: unmanned mass, long-range munitions, cyber resilience, and logistics survivability.
About the Author: John Ferrari
Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Over his 32-year US Army career, Ferrari, who is now retired, served as the director of program analysis and evaluation, the commanding general of the White Sands Missile Range, and a deputy commander for programs at the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan. He has an MBA in finance and strategic management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in national resource strategy and policy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (now called the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy), and a BS in computer science from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Image: Shutterstock / Karolis Kavolelis.
