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But the Air Force wasn\u2019t going to end the war game before it even started. The red commander pushed forward with an invasion anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the war game, the Air Force made several underlying assumptions that the U.S. military and its partners will be successful in overcoming certain fiscal and technological challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, in the service\u2019s version of the future, the U.S. military had implemented its Joint All-Domain Command and Control <\/a>concept, which would allow the armed services to send data among their previously unconnected sensors and shooters. This meant the Air Force had fielded its Advanced Battle Management System<\/a>, which could work with networks and communications technologies procured as part of the Navy\u2019s Project Overmatch and the Army\u2019s Project Convergence efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, Taiwan had successfully increased defense spending as outlined by President Tsai Ing-wen, who has called for buying drones and electronic warfare equipment along with M1A2 Abrams tanks and F-16V fighter jets, as well as upgrading to its Patriot missile defense system, according to Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Air Force also fought with a notional force that allowed it to operate different technologies that are not currently in its budget plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, before the conflict started, the Air Force took steps to disaggregate both its operational footprint and its command-and-control structure. It made investments to remote airfields <\/a>across the Pacific region \u2014 fortifying and lengthening runways as well as pre-positioning repair equipment<\/a> and fuel \u2014 so that forces could deploy to those locations during a war instead of main operational bases. This approach is something the service calls \u201cagile combat employment.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe tried to design ourselves where we would be a hard target. As an example, we never filled up any airfield more than 50 percent, so even if you lost that entire airfield, you wouldn\u2019t lose your entire fleet,\u201d Hinote said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, instead of separate command organizations for the land, maritime and air domains, the Air Force created small command-and-control teams comprised of five to 30 individuals from all the services. The team members were able to oversee the battlespace and direct forces using portable technology, such as hand-held tablets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou would pass off the command of your forces, and in a way that meant that you were not ever knocked out of the fight,\u201d Hinote said. \u201cThey could knock [Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii] out of the fight. In fact, they do almost every time we play this. But what they can\u2019t do is they can\u2019t knock out every command-and-control element that you have out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, what has emerged is a list of what the Air Force thinks it needs to win a war after 2030:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tactical aircraft<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The air power community has been divided in recent years over how to affordably replace the Air Force\u2019s aging tactical aircraft fleet while ensuring there are enough advanced fighters to battle the likes of Russia or China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should the service move forward with its plan to eventually replace the A-10, F-16 and some F-15C\/D aircraft with stealthy fifth-generation F-35s? Or could a mix of F-35s and new fourth-generation jets like the F-15EX give the service more flexibility?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This disagreement heightened in February, when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown floated the idea of designing a less expensive, non-stealthy follow-on fighter to replace the service\u2019s oldest F-16s<\/a>, instead of replacing them with the F-35, as had been planned for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The service is currently evaluating its options through a tactical aircraft study to inform the fiscal 2023 budget, which could result in cuts to the Air Force\u2019s program of record for 1,763 F-35As.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have to make that decision this year,\u201d Hinote said. However, he added, the roles each aircraft played during the war game could influence the outcome of the study \u201cto a great degree.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the war game, four types of aircraft made up the Air Force\u2019s future fighter inventory. Three of those are ongoing programs of record for the service:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the service operated a non-stealthy, light, tactical fighter for homeland and base defense, which could also be flown in support of counterterrorism missions. That aircraft, which aligns with Brown\u2019s idea for a \u201cfourth-generation plus\u201d replacement for the F-16, doesn\u2019t currently exist in the service\u2019s budget plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For years, Air Force officials have portrayed the F-35 as the aircraft that it would use to infiltrate into enemy airspace to knock out surface-to-air missiles and other threats without being seen. However, in the war game, that role was played by the more survivable NGAD, in part due to the F-35\u2032s inability to traverse the long ranges of the Pacific without a tanker nearby, Hinote said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, the F-35 attacked Chinese surface ships and ground targets, protected American and Taiwanese assets from Chinese aircraft, and provided cruise missile defense during the exercise. But \u201cit\u2019s not the one that\u2019s pushing all the way in [Chinese airspace], or even over China\u2019s territory,\u201d Hinote said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notably, the F-35s used during the war game were the more advanced F-35 Block 4 aircraft <\/a>under development, which will feature a suite of new computing equipment known as \u201cTech Refresh 3,\u201d <\/a>enhancements to its radar and electronic warfare systems, and new weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t even play the current version of the F-35,\u201d Hinote said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be worth it. \u2026 Every fighter that rolls off the line today is a fighter that we wouldn\u2019t even bother putting into these scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Drones and more drones<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the Air Force\u2019s legacy drone inventory \u2014 such as the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper <\/a>and Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk \u2014 operated in combat during the 2000s and 2010s across the uncontested battlespaces of the Middle East, where U.S. adversaries could not present significant electronic warfare or counter-air capabilities. But a war with a competitor like China some 30 years later requires more advanced and survivable drones<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the war game, the Air Force relied on a mix of systems that are either under development or not currently sought by the service\u2019s acquisition arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Autonomous \u201cLoyal Wingman\u201d drones flew alongside penetrating fighters<\/a> in contested zones, providing additional firepower and sensor data to human pilots. Hinote pointed to Australia\u2019s Loyal Wingman aircraft,<\/a> which is produced by Boeing and flew for the first time in February, as an \u201cimpressive\u201d capability that the U.S. sought to mirror in its war game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the Taiwan Strait, the service operated a mass of small, inexpensive drones <\/a>that formed a mesh network. Although they were mostly used as a sensing grid, some were outfitted with weapons capable of \u2014 for instance \u2014 hitting small ships moving from the Chinese mainland across the strait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAn unmanned vehicle that is taking off from Taiwan and doesn\u2019t need to fly that far can actually be pretty small. And because it\u2019s pretty small, and you\u2019ve got one or two sensors on it, plus a communications node, then those are not expensive. You could buy hundreds of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the second island chain, the Air Force operated low-cost attritable drones out of installations such as Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. These aircraft, like the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie<\/a> currently undergoing tests by the service, delivered ordnance against ships, aircraft and ground-based targets. Attritable drones are cheap enough that combat losses can be endured by commanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even farther out, the service flew a notional successor to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, which Hinote said would not survive a conflict with China in the mid-2030s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of concentrating on ISR, the Air Force primarily used the RQ-4 replacement as a long-range communications node, sometimes outfitting it with more exquisite radar that can track moving, airborne targets. Hinote likened the platform to an unmanned version of Australia\u2019s E-7A Wedgetail<\/a> aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re using the huge aperture in there and all the power that\u2019s there, but it\u2019s crewed by people on the ground somewhere else,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a transition from where we are today to the future. You can\u2019t do that with the E-3 [airborne early warning and control plane]; it\u2019s just too old of an aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bombers, tankers and airlift<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither China nor the United States resorted to using nuclear weapons during the war game \u2014 a consequence, Hinote said, of being able to present a credible threat to China that the U.S. has the arsenal necessary to retaliate to a Chinese strike. However, the B-21<\/a> and B-52 bombers played active roles, providing conventional firepower during the scenario, with the B-21 penetrating into contested zones and the B-52 remaining at standoff distances<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the war game started and the fight began, it became difficult for the Chinese and U.S. militaries to conduct airlift missions within range of each other\u2019s missile threats. That made it critical for the U.S. Air Force to be able to pre-position food, water, medical supplies and the equipment needed run an airfield \u2014 including aircraft parts, fuel and weapons \u2014 at the locations from which it plans to operate, Hinote said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though airlift assets like the C-17 and C-130 couldn\u2019t transport cargo or people to the fight in the early days of the conflict, the aircraft still played an offensive role by launching palletized munitions<\/a> that are bundled together with a guidance package and airdropped from a plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne interesting thing about possible war with a peer competitor is you\u2019re pretty agnostic as to where the fires come from; you just need the fires,\u201d Hinote said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to give the impression that we\u2019re going to create bombers out of every C-17 out there. But in certain phases of a campaign like this, you really need the extra missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A full complement of KC-46 tankers fulfilled the aerial refueling mission<\/a> during the scenario, but were kept out of high-threat environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Air Force also experimented with several notional next-generation tanker designs <\/a>to understand the trade-offs between fielding many small tankers capable of refueling many aircraft at a time versus operating large tankers that can carry a massive amount of fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that that\u2019s going to help us as we think about what is the next step in air refueling. Do we just go buy more KC-46s? Do we look at some other type of tanking concepts and try to create a capability around that?\u201d Hinote wondered. \u201cI don\u2019t have an answer for that yet because the excursions were somewhat inclusive, and they depend on a lot of things that you\u2019re making decisions on now,\u201d such as the mix of fighters and bombers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happens now?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The outcome of the war game was a United States victory, where the U.S. Air Force helped rebuff the Chinese military from taking over Taiwan. But any U.S. fight with a nation-state like China has the potential to be catastrophic for both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both the United States and Taiwan suffered high levels of attrition during the exercise, with an even higher rate of casualties among Chinese forces. Hinote declined to share exact figures due to the classification of the exercise, but said the Air Force incurred losses an \u201corder of magnitude\u201d lower than those projected by the service in its 2018 war game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe force that we had programmed, say, in 2018 took devastating losses. This force doesn\u2019t take those devastating losses,\u201d Hinote said. \u201cThey do take losses. We do lose a lot of airmen. It is a difficult fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd that kind of gets to the point of what does it take to stand up to China in the Indo-Pacific, literally on their front doorstep. And the answer is: It takes a willingness to be able to suffer those losses. It\u2019s just a difficult, very sobering reality that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The service plans to take its findings to Capitol Hill <\/a>in the hopes of gaining the support of lawmakers for the difficult force posture decisions coming down the line in upcoming budget discussions. Brown, the Air Force\u2019s top general, has indicated that programs could be canceled and legacy aircraft retired <\/a>as the service seeks to revolutionize its technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6295249.jpg.jpg\")
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