For the United States, the Autonomous Battlefield Must Have a Tether

Real Clear Defense | Jack Schwencke

The United States Air Force faces a critical requirement to embed explicit assured communications mandates into its Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment 2 program to maintain operational control over autonomous weapons systems. Under Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, uncrewed platforms exceeding authorization boundaries must either terminate engagements or obtain operator input.

Without assured datalinks, uncrewed platforms are forced into self-termination rather than retaining combat utility in contested environments. Defense vendors are responding rapidly to satisfy this requirement. In August 2026, Joby acquired Resonant Sciences for $500 million to pair commercially derived autonomy with military-grade radio frequency mission systems. Concurrently, Rohde and Schwarz teamed with Boeing to integrate the NEMACS directional communications suite onto the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, while SRC demonstrated multi-function arrays during live-fire testing. Although Increment 2 mission vectors remain ambiguous under concept refinement contracts, air planners must establish an explicit communications tether to prevent losing command authority.

Comment

Non-traditional aviation vendors entering defence markets are hitting an architectural bottleneck in military-grade radio frequency manufacturing. While commercial firms can independently scale autonomy software, military apertures and low-observable datalinks possess no dual-use commercial pipeline. Joby Aviation’s $500 million purchase of Resonant Sciences illustrates how software-driven entrants depend on targeted corporate acquisitions to secure specialised hardware capabilities. Similarly, BAE Systems' development of the Silver Link conformal aperture series demonstrates that established defence primes maintain a structural advantage in producing specialised RF hardware.

This supply-side friction accelerates structural consolidation within the uncrewed systems tier, forcing emerging autonomy firms to absorb niche payload manufacturers or accept subcontractor status under prime integrators. The resulting concentration of radio-frequency expertise reduces the pool of independent subsystem suppliers available for open-architecture initiatives like Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Consequently, Boeing and SRC are establishing locked hardware-software partnerships that risk re-creating proprietary supply chains within the USAF uncrewed portfolio.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which factor presents a greater barrier to sustaining an open-architecture supply chain for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program — the consolidation of specialised RF aperture suppliers like Resonant Sciences by commercial platform developers, or the tendency of prime integrators such as Boeing to lock in proprietary hardware-software bundles?

The market trajectory indicates that prime integrator locking poses the more acute threat to open-architecture goals because legacy defense contractors control the system integration software needed to enforce proprietary standards. While acquisitions like Joby's purchase of Resonant Sciences consolidate subsystem suppliers, government-mandated interface standards can theoretically mandate interoperability at the payload level. However, if prime integrators bind specialized hardware like SRC's multi-function arrays directly into proprietary mission systems, the Air Force will find it increasingly difficult to avoid single-vendor lock-in during Increment 2 production.

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