In the transition phase from one Washington administration to another, as per practice, each newly elected president must receive from the Pentagon the report on the situation in the various “hot” scenarios of the world, in the interest of the Nation. Donald Trump knows this well because he has already been there, but to avoid direct knowledge of the situation obtained in non-canonical ways, today he cannot and should not be aware of what Joe Biden and his collaborators know. Questions therefore arise regarding the elusive Russia-Ukraine rapid peace plan drawn up by Keith Kellogg, who was National Security Advisor to US Vice President Mike Pence from 2018 to 2021, but who is now also out of the Pentagon, therefore, on paper, devoid of the information that counts and on which the Trump administration will instead have to rely to implement its policy. The Kellogg plan has now taken on the image of a joke, also because in the last two years the USA has modified and increased its production of armaments precisely to supply them to Kiev without being left defenseless at home as in the hot scenarios, primarily of Taiwan, and going back would be an industrial suicide that not even Donald Trump could face, despite having announced that he wants to eliminate waste and inefficiencies.
Elon Musk’s statements made matters worse on military spending: another character who, despite his undisputed genius, lives outside the Pentagon. But coincidentally these media “shootings” took place until Friday 20 December, when, with the time available now running out, the United States Congress approved the resolution for public funding until the end of March, an act which averts the Shutdown of activities and consequent blocking of payments to public employees, including the military. The Republicans also voted against the law and Musk also expressed his opposition, while Trump was quick to propose to NATO members to raise military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP. Well, last week the outgoing USAF secretary, Frank Kendall, downplayed the SpaceX owner’s statements according to which manned fighters like the F-35 would be obsolete in the drone era and suggested to the billionaire industrialist to learn more about the military by becoming better informed. “I have a lot of respect for Elon Musk as an engineer,” Kendall said, “but he’s not a fighter and he needs to know more before making these types of announcements.”
In fact, however, Trump nominated Musk, together with the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, to head a task force called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to examine ways to cut federal spending. Musk’s dig at manned fighter jets is not the first time it has irritated the Air Force: in 2020, appearing at an Air Force Association conference, Musk declared: “The era of fighter jets is over ”. Kendall said Elon Musk’s idea of a drone-equipped Air Force capable of replacing the current manned fleet is still far from having the technology needed to work, even though the USAF is moving rapidly towards the adoption of autonomous gregarious units of drones known as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), which would be associated with the F-35 fighters and, perhaps, with the future fighter of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, which is also a possible victim of the Doge’s cuts.
Following Musk’s idea, it would be a sixth generation fighter that would be born old, but since India, China, Europe and Japan are also planning one, the US will hardly be able to give it up. In fact, the Franco-Spanish-German “FCAS” and the Anglo-Italian-Japanese “Gcap” will be the successors of the F-35. Today, pilots are already starting to learn how to manage CCA while continuing to operate their jet during their operations in simulators and are excited about the new possibilities and ways they have to safely complete their missions. “My vision,” says Kendall, “is that our operators will embrace these new methods, push them forward and implement them in a cost-effective way. I was a little unsure how our operators would react to this, but when I asked them what they thought, they said that CCAs will increase their chances of coming back alive.” Kendall also said that US Defense should continue to acquire F-35s, which he called a “state-of-the-art system that is continuously upgraded” and in high demand by allied militaries around the world. To date, the USAF plans to purchase 1,763 units until the end of the program (officially 2035), but Kendall said the final number could change depending on how the CCAs work and if and how the NGAD project is implemented.
