The Pentagon’s F/A-XX Fighter ‘Surrender by Spreadsheet’ Mistake

National Security Journal ^ | 8/7/2025 | Andrew Latham

[whyilovetexas111]

Key Points and Summary – The Pentagon’s decision to defund the Navy’s F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter program is a catastrophic mistake that threatens to render the new $13 billion Ford-class aircraft carriers strategically irrelevant.

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TOPICS: Government; History; Military/Veterans; Politics
KEYWORDS: aircraftcarriers; china; military; usnavy; whyiloveblogpimps111

[whyilovetexas111]

I guess we can't park aircraft carriers off the coast of China in a war. They would shoot back. They won't be like fighting ISIS.

[Jim W N]

Wonder what trump has to say about this.

[PAR35]

Ukraine has shown that manned aircraft may be obsolete even in areas where one has air superiority.

What the Navy needs is a fleet of zeppelins to launch and control clouds of drones. Except the feds (Obama era) gave away the helium reserves. Looks like the Krauts are going to end up with the gas.

[rexthecat]

Manned fighter aircraft are nearing obsolescence. The generals and admirals need to plan to fight the next war, not the last war.

[rdcbn1]

Delaying the F/A -XX is unfortunately a necessary and correct decision for a lot of different reasons.

Carrier task forces are going to play a vital role in any war in the Pacific and particularly with China.

China has invested a huge portion of it's military weapons development and weapons procurement to taking out our carrier groups to the detriment of other equally important developments.

This has left China with with a very robust anti carrier capability but weakness in other equally or even more important areas.

Our current strategy is presumably to exploit the vulnerabilities that the Chinese have missed in their singular focus on carrier strike capability to neutralize the Chinese anti carrier build up in order to deter the Chinese from aggressive actions.

At this point, from a practical perspective, an aircraft carrier cannot put together the kind of strike packages that leverage the 6th gen capabilities of a F/A-XX nor can they execute day one type operations in the kind of war the Chinese have equipped themselves to fight because the carrier groups are too vulnerable .

By the time our carriers do have freedom to operate, the value of a 6th gen F/A-XX brings to the fight s greatly reduced and the existing F-35C and F/A -18 fleet may be a better option.

The current Trump DOD plans seem to center on interoperability and using the carriers to add vital capabilities and fill holes for coordinated, combined inter service military operations instead of the traditional stand alone, go it alone capability that the Navy has traditionally used.

That traditional Navy approach is not a near term option going against our primary adversary China with their home field advantage in the near term.

The Navy needs to build up it's force protection capabilities to make that kind of operations a practical reality and that means new ships and defensive weapons that are going to take years to field.

For anyone but the Chinese our carriers have very little need for an F/A - XX because they their existing capabilities are more than enough to take the fight where it needs to go and once the air force and submarine fleets have paved the way to the point where our carriers can operate effectively, the F/A - 18 and F-35s may be equally, if not more, effective.

[Seruzawa]

Here comes this MIC blog again.q

[Jim W N]

So what I gather is optimal overall maximum effective strategy against China strategy would maximize use of the the current F/A - 18 and F-35s and make the F/A -XX less useful.

I’d like the details of how we are outsmarting China vis-a-vis carriers on the “back burner” so to speak vs. up-to-date weaponry but I love that Trump keeps these things close to his chest - “confidential military secrets” until the optimal time to reveal them - possibly surprising the enemy in a war if there is one or, even better, partial revelation of their existence to the enemy to deter their aggression.

Love your analysis. Thanks.

[Sirius Lee]

Ford-class aircraft carriers strategically irrelevant.

In the age of trans-medium drones, aircraft carriers are as relevant as battleships.

[MMusson]

Everything will change when the lasers come online.