Aircraft (formerly Air Domain): –
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.
The U.S. must overcome five critical barriers to accelerate the advancement and adoption of uncrewed aircraft technology. First, we must begin to reverse the post-Cold War industry consolidation of the major aerospace defense firms. Second, the U.S. must solve its supply chain shortfalls and ensure a robust inflow of raw materials and intermediate parts from dependable sources. Third, the U.S. government must address its outdated 20th century regulatory environment, specifically Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) civil aviation regulations, and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Fourth, shortfalls in talented human capital throughout private industry, research and development labs, and the Department of Defense retard growth and require holistic action. Finally, the U.S. government’s acquisition process remains protected and laborious, making the rapid fielding of critical new technology nearly impossible. Addressing these five barriers today will enable the U.S. to integrate uncrewed systems into the future fight at full speed.
This paper makes several recommendations to set the conditions for accelerating the fielding of uncrewed aircraft systems: 1. Leverage small U.S. businesses and international partnerships to increase innovation and competition in the uncrewed aircraft systems market; 2. Identify critical uncrewed aircraft components and ensure supply chain resiliency through diversity of suppliers and domestic re-shoring or allied friend-shoring of specific subcomponents; 3. Engage with Congress to: A. Fully fund, resource, and require the FAA to safely expand aviation regulations to fully incorporate uncrewed civilian flight and, B. Reinterpret the MTCR to allow for increased uncrewed technology sharing with partners and allies; 4. Bolster industry and government incentives for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education and government service; 5. Improve long-term acquisition execution through the use of multiyear contracts, Rapid Acquisition Authorities, and Middle Tier Architecture for key uncrewed aircraft programs. Harnessing initiative across these five lines of effort will set the conditions for the United States to maintain credible deterrence, uphold the rules- based international order, and dominate the air in strategic competition – today and into the future.
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