Opinion: Why The U.S. Military’s NGAD Could Be The Loneliest Generation

The U.S. Air Force contract award to Boeing for the F-47 fighter component of the Next-Generation Air Dominance system, coupled with an imminent Navy F/A-XX contract for a similarly advanced carrier jet, marks a likely sea change in Washington’s combat aircraft plans. The new plans and aircraft reflect what will probably be a very different national defense strategy.

The good news is that the sixth-generation jets will redefine airpower. Years of investment in new capabilities—focused on propulsion, weapons and targeting, connectivity and collaboration and the traditional metrics of air vehicle performance— should make these the best fighters in the world. A few months ago, NGAD looked set to be delayed indefinitely; it now enjoys high priority.

The bad news is that these programs mean diminished fortunes for Lockheed Martin’s F-35. We will learn more when the fiscal 2026 budget is unveiled in a few months, but given the Pentagon’s mandate for each service to find 8% cuts, with cash diverted to the Golden Dome missile defense plan, nuclear weapons, new technology programs built by new contractors and other priorities, the F-35 is one of the few possible Air Force, Marine and Navy bill-payers for the new jets. Besides, President Donald Trump’s close assistant, Elon Musk, frequently disparages the F-35 as a dinosaur.

But the F-35’s most important role has been as part of a U.S. strategy of global engagement. Not only were the B and C versions designed for rapid deployment and positioning abroad, but the fighter itself was intended for coalition warfighting, offering commonality and interoperability with many allied countries—about 20 international customers so far. Many of these customers also have an industrial role in the program; the F-35 drew upon international funding and technologies from some of the best aerospace companies around the world.

Unfortunately, F-35 export orders, which constitute about one-third of demand, are under serious threat. The fighter’s international program leveraged the goodwill and trust built up between the U.S. and its allies since World War II, and that trust is disappearing as Washington pointlessly threatens the territory of these allies and imposes equally pointless tariffs on them. The F-35, with or without a remote “kill switch,” like most modern weapons is useless without support from its producer country. Why would anyone menaced by the U.S. feel good about sourcing weapons from it? Canada has announced that it is reviewing its order, while Portugal is reconsidering plans to acquire the F-35, too. Such customers as Germany or Switzerland will likely follow.

The new sixth-generation aircraft, by contrast, will have no export prospects to speak of and will probably be built solely by U.S. contractors and suppliers. This administration has made its disdain for international force positioning clear, so these aircraft will be largely U.S.-based, too.

The F-35 helped the U.S. retain and grow its massive aerospace trade surplus; that surplus will shrink as the fighter’s numbers decline. And of course, the big non-airpower recipients of the Pentagon’s announced funding shift—missile defense and nuclear weapons—also imply disengagement from the world.

The F-35 is far from doomed. Many international customers will stick with their procurement plans, even if they also think about transitioning in a few years to different fighter types as a backup plan or joining non-U.S. initiatives such as the Global Combat Aircraft Program. The F-35’s deep red-state industrial roots will likely prevent outright cancellation, to the extent that Congress pushes back against Trump’s orders.

Also, since the new fighters will not be deployable in meaningful numbers for another 10 years, at the very least, the U.S. services will resist these F-35 cuts. But again, this depends on their ability to push back—after all, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other key national security leaders owe their positions to Trump and have limited powers, at best.

The plan right now appears to be to shift U.S. resources away from a program that represents engagement with the world and toward aircraft built for and by the U.S. alone. The F-47 and F/A-XX may reflect an intention to make the U.S. an isolationist power. If history tells us anything, it is that “great powers” without friends and allies do not stay great for long.