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Topic: Air Warfare Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: C-17 Globemaster, C-5 Galaxy, Cargo Aircraft, North America, Tanker Aircraft, United States, and US Air Force The US Air Force’s Next-Generation Airlift Program Is a Total Nightmare December 10, 2025 By: Brandon J. Weichert
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The C-17 Globemaster III is expected to serve in the US Air Force inventory until 2075—suggesting that the NGAL will not be ready for war for decades.
The US military is an expeditionary army that relies upon vast power projection capabilities, such as heavy airlift, to bring its forces from safe bases to wherever the fight might be. But the United States Air Force’s heavy airlift capacity has been aging and needs upgrading.
The longer that those forces remain as they are rather than be subject to upgrade or replacement, the more likely that the US military’s entire model of expeditionary warfare will collapse.
The US Air Force’s NGAL Program Is Too Little, Too Late
The US military is in a crisis. That crisis has been slowly building for decades, and it is now reaching its critical phase. We’re moving quickly now from an ongoing crisis to a predictable decline.
Knowing that the US Air Force absolutely requires a reliable, robust heavy airlift capacity, the Pentagon has spoken repeatedly on the need to reform and modernize their capabilities in this key area…yet no real movement has been made because of the broken nature of the Pentagon’s acquisitions process.
America’s air service planned to replace their aging fleet of C-5 and C-17 transport planes under the aegis of the Next Generation Airlift (NGAL) program. Sadly, replacing these sky monsters is proving more difficult than originally anticipated.
The original plan called for these birds to be flying for the Air Force until the 2040s, whereby they would be replaced by new systems. Even that, however, was a dangerously slow development cycle for such an important component of America’s power projection capability.
Defense One, an online trade publication, recently reported that those original plans were shelved due to the Pentagon being unable to ensure they could replace the C-5 and C-17 fleets by the 2040s. According to the publication, a solicitation memo was propagated on November 19 of this year that explained how the “the C-5 Galaxy will fly until 2045 and the C-17 Globemaster until 2075, longer than previously planned, to ensure the Air Force has enough airlift capacity while it waits for the Next-Generation Airlift aircraft [emphasis added].”
Let’s get this straight: the Air Force is going to be waiting around until 2075 for its C-17 Globemaster replacement?
Something is amiss here.
Take the C-5 Galaxy, which first entered service in 1970. Last year, it scraped by with a 48 percent mission-capable rate, prompting the Air Force Life Cycle Management to initiate a “Drive to 55 [percent]” campaign to ensure that the readiness of these venerable birds was boosted to a barely above average 55 percent.
As for the C-17, which entered service in 1995, these planes have been involved in an astonishing 21 class-A mishaps—the deadliest accidents in the US Air Force—in the last four years alone. This is more than any of the military’s other planes, particularly other planes used as much as the C-17s are.
America’s Military Cannot Win a Big War Under Current Conditions
The cost of maintaining these two airframes and keeping them relevant to the current, evolving threat environment is high…and will continue to compound over time.
But the fact that the Air Force is having to grandfather these birds into service far longer than they were ever designed to be is another reminder that the Pentagon, despite receiving a one trillion-dollar budget next fiscal year, is utterly broken.
Yet Americans are supposed to believe that the US military can easily take on the Russians—at the same time it needs to hold off the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the Indo-Pacific.
How utterly ridiculous.
Unless the Trump administration and both parties in Congress start getting serious about fundamentally reforming the Pentagon’s sclerotic defense industrial base, along with its acquisitions process, the United States will lose the next major war it is required to fight simply because the weapons and platforms it relies upon will be outdated and overpriced.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is a senior national security editor at The National Interest. Recently, Weichert became the host of The National Security Hour on America Outloud News and iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern. Weichert hosts a companion book talk series on Rumble entitled “National Security Talk.” He is also a contributor at Popular Mechanics and has consulted regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, and the Asia Times. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock / Jon Tetzlaff.
The post The US Air Force’s Next-Generation Airlift Program Is a Total Nightmare appeared first on The National Interest.
Источник: nationalinterest.org