Airlift could be the Achilles' heel in the US Air Force plan for surviving a fight with China

• The US airlift fleet has a readiness problem for a modern war, an airpower expert argues in a new paper.
• The size, age, and lack of variety in aircraft could hinder the Air Force's plan to operate in a war with China.
• The Agile Combat Employment strategy would have aircraft operate across austere Indo-Pacific locations.

The US airlift fleet for moving troops, weapons, and critical supplies around the world is shrinking and growing older — a dangerous trend that could leave the military in a tight spot if war were to erupt with a major power, a new analysis warns.

In particular, the challenges facing the US Air Force's airlift force could undercut its plan for keeping units dispersed and survivable in a fight with China.

In a new Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies paper, retired Air Force Col. Robert Owen, who flew C-130 transport aircraft during his 28-year career and also served in a leadership role at Air Mobility Command, argues the current size and state of the airlift fleet may not meet potential wartime demand.

"In a peer conflict," he warns, "the airlift fleet may not be sufficient to meet the movement, supply, and other logistical demands of the services."

"The US Air Force, in particular, may not have enough airlift to support its ACE concept," Owen says, referring to the service's Agile Combat Employment strategy aimed at disaggregating assets to make it harder for an adversary to cripple US airpower in a single overwhelming strike.

There are fewer aircraft available for carrying personnel and equipment into the fight, and the ones the US does have aren't the right, varied mix for a high-end war.

The US military relies heavily on a mix of C-17s, converted airliners, and helicopters to haul cargo, refuel aircraft, and move people between theaters. But many of these airframes are now decades old and sliding toward obsolescence, Owen writes. At the end of the Cold War, the mobility fleet was significantly younger, and the Pentagon had clear plans to replace it.

Some airlift aircraft, like the C-17, are already flying beyond their originally planned service lives. The Air Force's 52 C-5M Super Galaxies — its largest airlifters — now average 37 years old and suffer from low mission-capable rates, Owen notes. And these planes are not alone. Much of the mobility fleet is aging fast alongside other assets on which the Air Force depends.

Gen. David Allvin, then the Air Force chief of staff, said in March that average aircraft age across the force had jumped from 17 in 1994 to 32 in 2024 as aircraft availability dropped substantially.

Other military leaders have raised concerns about airlift capacity, recognizing significant drops from Desert Storm in the 1990s to now.

"All of these aircraft have been worked hard across three decades of non-stop combat operations around the globe," Owen said specifically of the airlift fleet. That presents challenges as the US focuses its attention more on higher-end threats like Russia or China.

The ACE strategy, Owens writes, envisions "fighter units and support echelons rotating frequently and unpredictably among networks of" permanent bases, semi-permanent installations, and forward arming and refueling points (FARPs).

While the first two basing options can be supported by prepositioned stocks and host-nation support, small fighter teams at dispersed FARPs could be dependent almost entirely on C-17s and other theater mobility aircraft to bring in the fuel, weapons, and people.

The Air Force has been training on its ACE concept for years, having airmen maintain, fly out of, and land across atypical locations like a simple airfield or even a stretch of highway.

The concept is that while many air bases are in range and easily targeted, China would be unable to devastate American airpower if it were dispersed across the Indo-Pacific at a mix of traditional and makeshift airfields.

But, Owen writes, the Air Force "has not acquired significant numbers of aircraft capable of operating at the lower end of this requirement — delivering combat equipment and supplies into short and weakly surfaced forward airfields — and has no publicly released plans to do so. The budgets are not sized for this mission growth."

Thus, efforts to expand and sustain the airlift fleet should be a priority for the Department of Defense, he says.

These issues are just some facing the Air Force, which has shrunk and aged in the decades since the end of the Cold War while also being stressed by counterterrorism and counterinsurgency conflicts.

Senior military leaders, former Air Force personnel, and airpower experts warn that even as the US grapples with shrinking fleets and declining readiness, China's air force is expanding and rapidly modernizing.

The US still retains significant advantages in stealth aircraft, global logistics, combat experience, and allied support, they note, but China's sustained investment in capability is narrowing the gap and changing the balance of risk.