The 6th Gen Fighter: A Chimerical Security?

Not at all surprised to see (already) discussions of 6th generation fighter aircraft. I am in some ways dismayed.  As concerns mount over the cost of the 5th generation JSF and JSF sustainment program this seems a little much.

F/A-XX

Part of my unease stems from the fact that the sample size for air-to-air warfare between peer air forces is so small and spans–roughly–a generation. Our pool of IADS rollbacks is larger, but all concern FSU networks. It is, as such, rather heroic to generalize a course of action from historical precedent (I’d be curious if someone could point out of case when an IADS rollback wasn’t against an FSU network. There’s a case for the PLAAF in Korea, and obviously if you want to be obnoxious WWII was a long IADS campaign).

More broadly, a 6th Gen platform seems to miss that building complex weapons systems during peacetime contributes to an ephemeral security. Long term kinetic power, the kind that wins existential wars, is derived not from the quantity or quality of weapons systems available to state in peace, but rather from a large and dynamic techno-industrial base capable of building paradigm shifting weapons quickly during war.

That’s particularly true because existential wars (as they have in the past) are likely to frustrate our expectations. Technology is autocatalytic and thus the last sixty years have almost certainly changed warfare more than the previous sixty, and so on and so on.

I’ve argued before that weapons systems are subject to paradigm shifts and that as a result a number of US programs will look shockingly myopic to historians a generation from now. It availed Britain little to build a battleship like the HMS Prince of Wales only to have it sunk by Japanese fighter-bombers.  Or the United States Navy to invest in sailing ships rendered instantly obsolete by the CSS Virginia. Tom Ricks took a break from beating the shit out of people at FOX and blogged about similar concerns.

Those are naval examples, but they apply equally to air power, as Paul Kennedy points out in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. Inter-war Italy’s armed forces, for example, found themselves “the victim of early rearmament–and swift obsolescence.” In the 1920s and 30s the Regia Aeronautica and Fiat set speed records and shocked the world with their performance “supporting” ground operations in Spain and Abyssinia.

The Fiat CR.42 FALCO. Despite Italy’s impressive showings in peacetime, aircraft like these were obsolete in WWII. Still production continued through 1942.

Unfortunately for Italy the application of,

Science and technology to military developments in the [late 1930s], was transforming weapons systems in all the services. Fighter aircraft, for example, were swiftly changing from maneuverable (but lightly armed and fabric covered) biplanes which could do about 200 mph to ‘duralumin monoplane aircraft laden with multiple heavy machines guns and cannon, cockpit armor and self-sealing fuel tanks.’…Futhermore all these weapons systems were beginning to be affected by the changes in electrical communications…early radar and improved radio equipment–which not only made the newer weapons so much more expensive but also complicated the procurement process.

An exacerbating factor, Kennedy continues, was that “part of the Italian defense spending in [the 30s] was devoted to operations [in Spain and Abyssinia] and not to the buildup of the services or the armaments industry.”

Italian Troops in Abyssinia, 1935.

Paradoxically, at least relative to Italy, Nazi Germany actually benefited from disarmament in 1919. It stripped the country of obsolete weapons systems and encouraged civil industrial development. Krupp wasn’t making guns, but it was making steel. In 1932 Germany built just 36 modern planes, but by 1936 that number jumped to over 5,000 frontline, first-rate aircraft.

Ultimately Allied victory owed to the creativity to develop new categories of weapons in response to combatant requirements, and the productivity to build great quantities of them. Or as Kennedy notes:

To an “enormous industrial productive staying power….In 1943 the US was producing one ship a day and an aircraft every five minutes. What is more, the Allies were producing many newer types of weapons (Superfortresses, Mustangs, light fleet carriers) whereas the Axis powers could only produce advanced weapons (jet fighters, Type 23 U-boats) in relatively small quantities.”

Oh yeah and this other new fangled weapon called…what was it? The Atomic Bomb.

A 6th Gen Fighter might be remarkable, or it might be like the CR.42. A general 21st century war will require novel weapons systems, not new generations of old ones. I worry that we’re planning for another (advanced) FSU IADS rollback instead of critically examining and developing new paradigms of war.

I want to say that the US isn’t nearly as bad as inter-war Italy, and it’s not. That said recent wars of choice and peacetime projects distract the United States from developing a techno-industrial base with which to fight an existential war; which, lest we forget, are the kind you have to win.

When the left harps about infrastructure development, do they realize they’re doing so with national security on their side?