By Peter Apps*
Capable of breaching even the most highly protected airspace, the U.S. Air Force’s new B-21 bomber is arguably the most advanced warplane on earth.
But by the time the last of its initial order of 100 comes off the production line in the 2030s, the Pentagon believes it may already be outdated.
Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff David Allvin said the B-21 “Raider” remained the “future of the bomber force” but by the mid-2030s he expected other technological advancements that the Pentagon would need to understand “before we commit to that as being the platform… beyond that”.
With great power rivalry rising and new generations of drones and missiles now entering service every year, the B-21 is not the only cutting-edge weapons system that risks being outpaced by developments elsewhere.
In February, the U.S. Army announced it was abandoning its Future Army and Reconnaissance Aircraft initiative aimed at delivering a new scout helicopter despite having already spent $2 billion on it, saying the requirement would likely instead be met by drones following a “sober assessment of the modern battlefield”.
According to the Wall Street Journal last month, the U.S. Air Force now intends to have as many as 1,000 unmanned, artificial intelligence-equipped “wingmen” fighter jets in service over the next five years operating alongside its manned aircraft, primarily the fifth generation F-35.
This will allow one pilot to lead a small group of unmanned aircraft, expected to cost around a third of a manned jet with additional savings on pilot training costs. The UAVs will be the result of the U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme which has been running since the early 2000s, but which is now finally seen reaching fruition.
Keeping both new drones and existing aircraft sophisticated enough to survive in the fast-moving battle spaces of the 2020s, however, is becoming increasingly challenging.
Last weekend’s Iranian drone and missile assault on Israel showed how effective cutting-edge defences can be at stopping attackers from getting through.
On the battlefields of Ukraine, meanwhile, systems seen as cutting-edge war winners at the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022 – such as the Turkish-built Bayraktar attack drone – have often been rendered obsolete by more sophisticated defences on both sides.
According to British army chief General Patrick Sanders at a discussion at U.S. think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, during one recent Ukrainian offensive as many as 80 percent of drones used by the Kyiv government were lost in action, largely because of improved Russian electronic warfare.
Both Russia and Ukraine, meanwhile, have been engaged in a high-tech tit-for-tat between their own drones, missiles and broader air defence systems – a balance between using new high-tech systems to evade defences, or simply attacking with such a volume of drones and missiles that any defences are overwhelmed.
The largely unsuccessful Iranian attack on Israel last weekend demonstrated the limits of that approach. Israel, however, has by far the best-defended airspace on the planet with systems such as Iron Dome, Arrow and David’s Sling, as well as several hours of morning in which Israeli, U.S., French and Jordanian jets could intercept the relatively slow-flying Shaheed drones.
Russian radar in Syria will almost certainly have been tracking those interceptions, likely feeding back lessons to both Russian military commanders and Tehran to inform further developments.
On both sides, the Ukraine conflict has repeatedly shown the vulnerability of some critical infrastructure – such as power plants, oil refineries and airbases – to attack, particularly in much larger nations that inevitably struggle to deliver Israel-levels of aerial defence.
They have also shown the effectiveness of air-launched cruise missiles, which can be fired from within a country’s airspace against a neighbour and where new variants can be relatively easily upgraded to keep pace with technology.
Paradoxically, that can give new life to very much older aircraft. The United States intends to keep its B-52 fleet operating well after a century after their first flights in the 1950s, while Russia continues to rely heavily on its ageing propeller-driven Bear bombers, both of which can launch long-range cruise missiles and could be adapted to carry more sophisticated drones.
Building those in enormous numbers may increasingly be key to victory.
Ukraine says it is on track to build more than a million drones domestically in 2024, and hopes to upgrade its production capability to double that again, also working with a coalition of European nations including Latvia to deliver more built outside the country.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, last year announced its “Replicator” initiative which intends to give the U.S. the ability to mass-produce cutting-edge but relatively cheap drones in any conflict, particularly one with China, with the specific aim of matching Beijing’s vast industrial capacity.
Taiwan, which U.S. officials say China may be ready to invade by 2027, is also investing heavily in drones.
According to British Defence Intelligence, the sheer volume of Ukrainian drone attacks appears to at times have overwhelmed Russian defences, which on occasion have shot down their own aircraft in so-called “friendly fire2 incidents – although a shortage of air defences is also now leaving Ukraine’s own cities badly vulnerable to attack.
On the front lines, meanwhile, drone warfare is now a daily fact of life, likely causing more casualties than anything other than conventional artillery – much of which is also now being aimed using drone intelligence and footage.
The battlefield in Ukraine has also seen Russian tank crews and to a lesser extent their Ukrainian counterparts embrace basic “cages” to protect against suicide drone attacks. While some of these appear to have been proven ineffective, recent video footage from the front line has shown at least two Russian tanks entirely covered in what appears to be corrugated iron for additional protection.
Lumbering across the battlefield with only the main gun barrel exposed, these vehicles look more like mediaeval siege engines or tanks from World War One than anything one might expect to see on a battlefield in the 21st century.
At least one video, however, appears to show one of those vehicles surviving a drone hit that might have otherwise destroyed it.
Even if such a cheap approach is working, however, it is likely to be only a matter of time before the technology and weapons systems adapt to overcome it. Ukraine has shown that large numbers of troops and firepower remain necessary to win or even just surviving major modern wars, but such conflicts are also now driving military innovation on a scale unseen in recent decades.
As military budgets rise, that presents a range of opportunities for both breakthroughs and mistakes – as well as the opportunity to waste huge amounts of money the wrong choices are made.
*Peter Apps is a Reuters columnist writing on defence and security issues. He joined Reuters in 2003, reporting from southern Africa and Sri Lanka and on global defence issues. He is also the founder of a think-tank, the Project for Study of the 21st Century, and, since 2016, has been a Labour Party activist and British Army reservist.
