When news of Saudi Arabia’s interest in purchasing F-35s first surfaced several months ago, I had an opportunity to discuss the issue with a number of local defense and industrial officials. My initial thought was that the Trump administration would authorize the sale without limiting the advanced capabilities of the jet. The Saudis, I felt, would never accept a “dumbed down” version of the F-35 while President Trump, I believed, would not want to publicly insult his friend, MBS, by offering him an “inferior” product.
Given this fact, I suggested the following idea to serve as our “compensation”: we should ask to co-produce the next generation F-47 in a manufacturing facility that we would build and pay for near Mitzpe Ramon. Although the idea was well received because it would satisfy America’s requirement to guarantee our Qualitative Military Edge- or “QME” while simultaneously providing it with what amounts to a free second F-47 production line, nobody believed that we could successfully pull it off due to opposition from the antisemitic neo isolationists in the Trump administration.
If this happened, I was asked, what other options remained? After some thought, I suggested that we consider domestically producing a quartet of weapons systems consisting of an unmanned “loyal wingman”, a B-2 equivalent unmanned heavy bomber, a hypersonic glide vehicle and a long range hypersonic cruise missile. I emphasized that this combination would not represent a substitute for a 6th generation fighter, but would significantly augment whatever manned strategic strike force we were able to operate in the future.
Once people got over the sticker shock, I explained exactly how such systems could be afforded. But before I address this particular issue, let me just briefly explain what these proposed advanced armaments could provide us.
Numerous countries are developing what’s referred to as “loyal wingman” aircraft. These include the United States, Australia, China, Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Some of these aircraft have payload capacities exceeding 500 kg and can mount both air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions. The planes are equipped with state-of-the-art AI systems and are designed to operate either semi-autonomously or autonomously.
One idea that has been accepted by all the countries developing these platforms is that they should be able to operate in coordinated “swarms” that could overwhelm enemy air defenses.
My idea is that we shouldn’t try to compete with the current models being developed. There are simply too many of them. Rather, we should design a wingman based on the Horton 229, that’s roughly the same size as a F-16. Such an unmanned plane could carry a number of loads that could include jet powered glide bombs, two air-to-ground ballistic missiles or beyond visual range air-to-air missiles. This plane would also be equipped with either laser or High Powered Microwave (HPM) defense systems.
Given our advanced abilities in AI, I have no doubt that these aircraft could even be effective dog fighters.
As for the B-2 sized drone bomber, the main problem with such an aircraft involves cost. But that would only be the case if its construction involved the extensive use of stealth material. I don’t want to do this. Rather, I would use the bare minimum of stealth technology and rely more on defensive systems and high altitude flight to protect the planes from enemy air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles.
The bottom line is that my concern about stealth technology is not just about cost. It’s the fact that advances in detection systems are slowly, but surely, reducing the effectiveness of stealth coatings and airframe design. In light of where this trend is going, I’d prefer to have our bombers fly high enough that their onboard defenses could handle any enemy missile targeting them.
I appreciate the controversial aspect of this approach to bomber defense. But in the thin atmosphere that exists at high altitude, defensive systems based on lasers and HPMs would have an excellent chance of defeating enemy air defenses, especially if “escort” bombers were available to suppress enemy radar systems.
The hypersonic glide vehicles and cruise missiles that round out our quartet of proposed advanced strategic systems are currently being developed by a number of countries. The high speed technologies and maneuvering capabilities associated with these weapons systems are seen as effective ways of overcoming enemy air defenses. However, the biggest problem to be overcome with such systems has to do with the need to develop materials that can withstand extremely high temperatures. As I’ve pointed out to as many people as I can, our scientific community is more than capable of successfully addressing this issue. Moreover, IAI is fully capable of designing the maneuvering glide vehicle while Raphael could easily handle the design and manufacture of the high speed cruise missile.
Operationally, all four systems we’ve mentioned could either provide a significant amount of additional punch to a manned air strike or allow our strategic planners to hit far more targets than we could if we were limited to our manned fighter bombers. Perhaps most important of all, though, I want to point out that if we had a large arsenal of hypersonic glide vehicles and cruise missiles at our disposal, we would have the ability to carry out a surprise strike rapidly, targeting an enemy’s air defenses, early warning radars and deployed ballistic missile launchers. Once this had been accomplished, our drone bombers, loyal wingmen, and manned fighter bombers would be free to obliterate their targets without having to deal with enemy opposition.
As far as the financial aspects of these projects are concerned, let’s keep in mind the following:
First, there’s a certain amount of money that could be redirected by the Ministry of Defense to fund, say, project feasibility studies.
Second, it’s quite certain that other countries like India and Singapore would be more than willing to form joint ventures with us to produce some or all of these weapons systems.
Third, there is an enormous amount of private foreign money just looking for projects like the ones we’re proposing to invest in.
Fourth, we can’t lose sight of the fact that our weapons systems are still in high demand by countries that are willing to pay for state-of-the-art weapons that dont come with political strings attached to them.
Lastly, if our desire to become militarily self sufficient represents more than just aspirational rhetoric, the Ministry of Defense is simply going to have to reprioritize its weapons projects. And if more funds are needed, the Ministry of Finance is going to have to quit their bean counting and provide the funds.
We can no longer tolerate any more bureaucratic delays to our drive for strategic self sufficiency