This is partly because the Navy and the Air Force have failed to invest in the manned combat aircraft that would be necessary to defeat China. Not incorrectly, the two services point to constrained budgets and competing priorities. Nevertheless, the cost of creating the air power necessary to beat China is trivial compared with the impossible-to-imagine cost of losing the war.
Of course, our military leaders do not want to lose to China’s growing and increasingly capable air and naval forces. So, because they have failed to make a compelling case for the funding to create the capabilities to counter China, they have embraced an asymmetric solution: the loyal wingman. Unmanned aircraft—robots—that will fly missions together with manned aircraft. Envisioned as inexpensive force multipliers imbued with advanced AI, these wingmen are intended to perform many of the same missions as manned aircraft, but without carrying any pesky humans and at a fraction of the cost.
The problem is that neither the real world nor physics works that way.Consider that the loyal wingman must be roughly the same size as a manned aircraft if it is to perform the same missions. This is because it will have to carry enough fuel to reach the same area of operations, as well as the same payload: bombs, missiles, and sensors. And it will need a powerful—and expensive—engine. The robot does not have to carry a human, but it does have to carry all the bits and pieces that make it function without that human. And it must have a unique (read, pricey) communication suite to maintain contact with its flesh-and-blood overlords.
Moreover, it must possess the same performance characteristics as the manned aircraft it supports—that is, it must be able to go as fast, as far, and as high. And if it is going to be useful against China, it must have some degree of survivability or stealth.Perhaps most expensive of all will be the AI to ensure the system behaves exactly as it should every single moment. Robot vacuum owners roll their eyes at that idea. And those vacuums don’t carry bombs and missiles.
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