Aircraft (Formerly Air Domain) Oct. 17, 2025

Reforging the U.S. Aircraft Industrial Base

The U.S. Aircraft Industrial Base (AIB) stands at a critical inflection point. As strategic competition intensifies, particularly with China, America’s ability to project airpower and maintain deterrence will depend on the health and resilience of the AIB. While the Department of Defense’s 2023 National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) and its 2025 Implementation Plan (NDIS-IP) chart an ambitious course for revitalizing the broader defense industrial base, they devote limited attention to the aircraft sector. This paper bridges that gap by assessing the strengths and vulnerabilities of the AIB and offering recommendations to apply, supplement, or complement the implementation initiatives identified in the NDIS-IP in ways that will make the aircraft industry more robust and resilient.

Aircraft (formerly Air Domain) May 31, 2024

Is The United States Aircraft Industry Ready for Sustained Global Conflict?

This paper examines the readiness of the United States aircraft industry to prevail in conflict in the current geopolitical landscape. It emphasizes the industry's crucial role in strengthening national security. The research focuses on two key areas: supply chains and the defense industry workforce. In terms of supply chains, the paper highlights the need to construct resilient supply chains amidst geopolitical turbulence. It analyzes the availability and sources of raw materials and rare earth elements, and the vulnerability and resiliency of the aircraft supply chain. The paper identifies challenges in gaining insight into supply chains and offers recommendations to enhance resiliency, reduce dependence on China's raw material industry, improve supply chain visibility, and explore friend-shoring opportunities.

Aircraft (formerly Air Domain): May 30, 2023

Air Dominance in Strategic Competition: Expanding Uncrewed Systems

The aviation industry provides the bedrock of military power and has for over a hundred years. In the 21st century, technological advances in international weapons systems challenge the survivability of traditionally crewed aircraft. China’s meteoric rise in military power and intent to rebalance the rules-based international order for its benefit necessitates an elevated U.S. emphasis on improving its aircraft capabilities and quantities. The capabilities of currently fielded Chinese and Russian surface-to-air and air-to-air weapons systems necessitate a recognition that crewed U.S. systems will be at significant risk in a peer-to-peer engagement and losses of platforms will be high. The U.S. must look to uncrewed aircraft systems to both increase the number of aircraft in the U.S. arsenal and reduce risk to crewed platforms.

Aircraft (formerly Air Domain): May 30, 2022

Aerial Mass for Strategic Competition: The Quality-Quantity Paradox

As the United States (US) returns to strategic competition and contemplates large scale conventional conflict once again, several factors make a World War II-era surge of military aircraft production highly unlikely. The need for aerial mass, and the associated limitations to mass production in the military aviation industry, together constitute the problem addressed by this report, whose research question is: given constraints in tools, technology, training, and policy within the military aviation industry, what steps can the US government take to ensure sufficient mass for strategic competition?

Aircraft (Formerly Air Domain) Aug. 15, 2021

Modernizing the 2030 Future Force For Great Power Combat

The dawn of the 21st century presented America with a unipolar world free from large-scale competition with great powers. September 11, 2001, forever changed the world and shifted America's focus, significantly impacting the United States’ National Defense Strategy. This dramatic shift in focus embroiled America into a decades-long counter-insurgency regional conflict in the Middle East and Central Asia. The post 9/11 emphasis on non-state actors and unconventional warfare drove new requirements centered on small-scale regional conflict, reducing resourcing and acquisitions programs needed to compete in Great Power Combat. Twenty years later, the United States is experiencing a global shift in strategic competition as Russia and China grapple with expanding their spheres of influence. It is now clear the world is entering an era of multipolar Great Power Competition. America is facing a different world, containing multiple peer competitors striving to gain a worldwide strategic advantage. Moreover, Russia and China's advanced military modernization programs are rapidly reducing the technical and military superiority the U.S. has enjoyed over the past several decades. As a result, America must refocus on Great Power Competition to ensure the military is ready and resourced to fight tonight while developing a future force for 2030. The 2030 force drives new resourcing requirements to meet the challenges of this complex global security environment.1 The return to Great Power Competition presents the United States with an increasingly lethal and disruptive battlefield, across multiple domains with ever-increasing speed and reach of forces that render long-standing forward “sanctuary” bases vulnerable.2 This new paradigm obliges America to preserve its “fight tonight” force while modernizing and resourcing a future 2030 force capable of high-end, near-peer conflict and long-range strike in a contested and degraded operational battlespace.

Aircraft (Formerly Air Domain) Oct. 10, 2018

Aircraft

The United States (U.S.) aircraft industry, also known as the Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industry, is a Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security (NS) asset. This research explores the importance of the A&D industry. The influence of U.S. government policy and regulation intended to protect and sustain the domestic A&D industry are counterbalanced with federal budget constraints and technology transfer concerns. Specific areas influencing the A&D industry include the balance between export control regulation and industry fiscal health, the implications to domestic defense competition when considering affordability, and the bolstering of the global supply chain in order to preserve U.S. NS interests. To improve the U.S. position in these areas, this paper examines the need for the U.S. to inculcate innovation in the A&D industry. Additionally, the U.S. must continue to reform export control regulations while balancing national security and economic growth opportunities through trade and exports. Finally, the U.S. must confront the challenges of an aging workforce, cyber security, and an increasingly fragile supply chain. A concerted effort on all fronts will ensure a viable A&D industry capable of generating economic growth and meeting security challenges of the 21st century.

Aircraft (formerly Air Domain) Dec. 30, 2017

Aircraft Industry

The 2017 Eisenhower School Aircraft Industry team analyzed the strategies of select aircraft firms in the United States and Europe over the last five years in an effort to assess in aggregate their implications for both the Department of Defense (DoD) and the overall national security of the United States. The team conducted research using a variety of methods, including a guest lecture series, visits to key domestic and international defense firms, and independent research. This study analyzed the strategies of the following firms: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Airbus, BAE Systems, Dassault, Leonardo, and Saab. The study also examined the different national frameworks within which the firms reside as well as China and Russia’s aircraft industry structures. The group identified opportunities and challenges for these firms and characterized various government and firm interactions and the emerging implications for DoD and the U.S. government.