The USAF is Having a Good Year

a nod of respect

Coming up on seven months of the second Trump Administration, I think it is time to survey the services’ competition for attention, funding, and prioritization. Navalists need to take a deep breath and take a bite of humble pie…and perhaps try to learn something.

Of course, I am talking about the U.S. Air Force. The boys (and girls) in blue are having a hell of a year, and it isn’t by accident.

Yes, there is timing—but as the Roman philosopher Seneca reminded everyone a couple of thousand years ago:

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity"

This is more than just bragging rights. People are drawn to success and performance. So is money, influence, and the power that comes with it.

Over the last few years, especially during CNO Gilday’s disastrous tenure, we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the Navy’s missteps. Our Navy squandered institutional capital on foolish initiatives and damaged its reputation with a series of poorly led, managed, and executed programs that failed to produce anything useful that can displace water or cast shadows on the ramp.

A decade ago, then candidate Trump went out of his way to promote the idea of our nation needing a strong Navy. Here we are in his second administration, and he continues to voice support…but what has our Navy done in the last decade to prepare for this moment when the executive branch, legislative branch, and the global strategic environment highlights the need for an unchallenged Navy to face the rapidly growing People’s Liberation Army Navy led from Beijing?

This should be the moment. This should be our time, and yet were it not for the Cold War-era designed Arleigh Burke-class ships’ serial upgrades and modernizations, we would have no surface fleet. Our carriers cannot meet their full promise because we have taken every step possible this century to decrease its airwing’s size, flexibility, and strike range. We cannot maintain the submarine force we have, and we are not sure how to fix our maintenance—much less expand capacity to fulfill the promise of AUKUS.

Our Navy’s inability to get off the mat is not because of our economy, geography, and it sure has little to do with funding. It has everything to do with our bureaucracy, and the system of incentives and disincentives—in place since the fall of the Soviet Union—that have promoted, supported, and failed to hold to account our most senior leaders.

I will continue to beat the drum that the U.S. is a maritime and aerospace power. By both geography and national interest, that is where our nation’s comparative advantage is to protect and project our and our allies’ national interest and will across the globe.

The moment is now.

Clear your mind of all service bias for a moment. You have a few billion dollars to invest in one service or another that seems best ready to blunt any advance by the People’s Republic of China—where do you put it if you agree that the U.S. in the Pacific gets the most bang for its buck in the maritime and aerospace domains?

I’m sorry: it is the U.S. Air Force.

The Blue Suits are swinging a hot bat.

1. Sure the B-2 and F-22 were designed to defeat the Soviet Union (like the Arleigh Burk DDGs). Sure, they had their production ended WAY TOO EARLY in the Jesus Jones Era, but they are the best technology we have (with a nod to their surviving little brother F-35), and in the strike on Iran they validated the requirement for their replacement. Make no mistake, B-2/F-22 show over Iran sold the future of B-21/F-47;

While the US Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber has become synonymous with the military’s high-stakes air campaign in Iran, other key aerial platforms helped make Operation Midnight Hammer possible and successful. Last week, President Donald Trump revealed that F-35 Lightning IIs and F-22 Raptors also participated in the air campaign targeting Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.

2. While NAVAIR continues to, well, do whatever they are doing since ensuring the light strike fighter Fighter Attack Guys mafia is the last mafia left in TACAIR, the USAF has already stolen a march by getting the green light on the F-47:

“F-47, the first crewed sixth-generation fighter, is moving forward with $3.5 billion in funding following President Trump’s March 2025 decision to proceed with Boeing’s development,” a senior U.S. military official said. “The Navy’s FA-XX program will maintain minimal development funding to preserve the ability to leverage F-47 work while preventing over-subscription of qualified defense industrial base engineers.”

…

“We are maintaining a request of $74 million for the F/A-XX program in this budget to complete the design of that aircraft. We did make a strategic decision to go all in on F-47,” a senior U.S. defense official added. This is “due to our belief that the industrial base can only handle going fast on one program at this time, and the presidential priority to go all in on F-47, and get that program right.”

Funding the completion of the design work on the Navy’s program will allow for “maintaining the option for F/A-XX in the future,” the senior U.S. defense official continued.

Earlier this month, Boeing Defense and Space CEO Steve Parker very publicly pushed back on the idea that the U.S. industrial base was not capable of working on the F-47 and F/A-XX at the same time. Northrop Grumman has also been in the running for F/A-XX, something the company pressed ahead with after dropping out of the Air Force’s NGAD combat jet competition in 2023. Lockheed Martin was reportedly eliminated from the Navy’s next-generation fighter competition in March.

Regardless, the F/A-XX program has been very clearly in limbo for months now. In March, reports indicated that a contract announcement for the Navy’s next-generation fighter would follow quickly from the F-47 news, but that never materialized. A report earlier this month from Bloomberg News, based on budget documents the outlet had seen, said that the Pentagon was instead moving to redirect $500 million in funding from F/A-XX to F-47, and called attention to the industrial base concerns.

“At this time, I would say pretty much everything is under consideration to get the TACAIR [tactical aviation] capability that our warfighters need as quickly as possible,” the senior U.S. defense official added in response to a question about whether a navalized variant of the F-47 might now be on the table. “That’s really what we’re looking at the most, is the schedule of all these programs.”

All the wrong people are now going to find all the wrong reasons to go after the F/A-XX’s money on one axis, and the mirage of ending manned aircraft from the other. Already there is Lucy tee’n up the football for Charlie Brown to “skip generations” and transform etc—all that snake oil—such that we will have nothing but museum pieces and promises to take west of the International Date Line.

3. In a properly run aviation side of the Navy that could find an ally to push back against Dick Cheney, as we waited for whatever we will call F/A-XX, we would have a follow-on to the F-14D, let’s call a properly managed ASF-14 the F-14E, in addition to a EF-14G. Lots of range and capability—and we could have just had a F/A-18E with no need for the foxtrot.

The F-14’s contemporary, the F-15, is having such a renaissance. The USAF refused to let he die, and so we have the “good enough to get the job done now” F-15EX:

…F-15EX Eagle II fighter that is being delivered now to the USAF is seeing a significant boost. The program, which has seen drastic fluctuations in planned fleet size, will grow from 98 aircraft to 129.

In all, the proposed FY26 budget has $3B set aside for the latest iteration of the iconic 4th generation fighter, according to a senior U.S. Air Force official who answered TWZ‘s question as to the Pentagon’s latest F-15EX’s plans at a press event today. They added that the program of record would become 129 aircraft under the new budget request. The growth in fleet size comes nearly two months after Trump made the surprise announcement that the Michigan Air National Guard, which is losing its A-10 Warthogs, will be reequipped with the F-15EX.

4. As the icing on the cake, the new CJCS is an Air Force 3-star, taken out of retirement, given a 4th star, and so far seems to be doing an exceptional job.

There you have it: advantage U.S. Air Force. It isn’t just because, as I mentioned toward the end of last Sunday’s Midrats Podcast, that their blue uniforms are becoming like USMC uniforms—so retro they are cool. No, the USAF has just done a good job being ready for this moment. Not perfect, but better than our Navy.

All is not lost for the Navy. We can look at the work the USAF did to be ready for this moment. We have a new team running the Navy and hopefully a confirmed CNO sooner rather than later.

Focus on fundamentals. Be skeptical of the people, processes, habits, and institutions that helped put us in the shoal water we are in…and chart a course to better waters.

The winds and tides are to our advantage. All we have to do is execute.