US Airpower Strengthens Pacific Defense With F-47, B-21, Drones
The U.S. and China are racing to build the air tools that will decide who controls the Pacific — from stealth bombers and sixth-generation fighters to drone wingmen and missile barrages — and the fight will hinge less on dogfights than on protecting planes on the ground and the logistics that keep them flying.
Washington is pushing hard on next-generation platforms: a manned sixth-generation fighter called the F-47, a stealth long-range bomber in the B-21 Raider, and swarms of collaborative combat aircraft or CCAs meant to act as loyal wingmen. These investments aim to keep American crews and systems effective even inside heavily defended zones by tying sensors, AI, and stealth together in a single network.
On the other side, Beijing has chosen a different path: rapid production, improved engines, and carrier capability to mass power and pressure forward bases and fleets. China’s Chengdu J-20 getting WS-15 engines and the new Fujian carrier that can launch jets with electromagnetic catapults show Beijing is focused on erasing past technical gaps and pushing power out to sea.
“I’m not sure that’s really true. In terms of high-end military drones that are really important to this fight, the U.S. still has a pretty significant edge.” said Eric Heginbotham, a research scientist at MIT’s Center for International Studies. That point matters: commercial drone dominance does not automatically translate into battlefield dominance, and advanced integration and stealth remain American strengths.
Still, the danger is stark. Chinese doctrine singles out runways and forward airfields as prime targets, and PLA manuals plan to strike them early to paralyze air operations. “The U.S. bases that are forward deployed—particularly on Okinawa, but also on the Japanese mainland and on Guam—are exposed to Chinese missile attack,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
That vulnerability drives Beijing’s missile-heavy approach: saturate the area, force aircraft to stay away, and win by attrition and access denial. “They didn’t think that they could gain air superiority in a straight-up air-to-air fight,” he said. “So you need another way to get missiles out — and that another way is by building a lot of ground launchers.” Mass and reach become force multipliers when runways and support are on the line.
The Americans are betting on quality and connectivity: fewer but far more capable jets, bombers that can strike from long range, and drones that act as force multipliers without risking pilots. CCAs from new defense firms and legacy contractors push that model further by making one pilot the hub of multiple airborne assets, reducing exposure and increasing lethality per sortie.
War-gaming and exercises highlight how dangerous the opening days of a fight could be. “At the initial stages of a conflict, China would have a distinct advantage,” Cancian said. “Now, over time, the U.S. would be able to reinforce its forces, and that would change.” Reinforcement helps, but it takes time, ships, and bases that are themselves vulnerable.
Survivability, not traditional dogfighting skill, will define the next decade of air competition. “We keep talking about aircraft as if it’s going to be like World War II — they go up, they fight each other. That’s not really our problem,” he said. “Our problem is the air bases themselves and the fact that aircraft can be destroyed on the air base.”
That warning stings because the U.S. has choices: disperse and harden the fleet, invest in long-range strike and stand-off, and pour resources into CCAs, stealth integration, and hardened infrastructure. “They practice runway strikes in exercises, they’re modeling this stuff constantly,” Heginbotham said. “Unlike the United States, China is hardening its air bases. The U.S. is criminally negligent in its refusal to harden its air bases.”
Congress and the Pentagon will decide funding priorities in the next budgets, and how fast F-47s, B-21 Raiders, and CCAs come online will hinge on those votes. The strategic choice is raw and simple: accept a future where forward bases are soft targets, or act now to harden, disperse, and field the systems that can operate inside contested airspace and keep American power credible.
“The ability to protect our aircraft, whatever form those aircraft take, on the ground is going to be central to our ability to fight in the Asia theater,” Heginbotham said. “Survivability is going to be key … The ability to protect and disperse your firepower is going to be central to whether we can really stay in this game.”
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