The Cold War Air Force was bigger, deeper, and readier than today’s. Here’s why it’s time for a reset.
For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States faces a true peer potential adversary in China and an unprecedented array of threats from others, including nuclear-armed Russia and North Korea and a near-nuclear power in Iran. Yet at the very moment when the nation most needs a ready, capable, deterrent force, its Air Force is in crisis. Its dwindling capacity and readiness are undermining its ability to deter or defeat competitors’ aggression. Because today’s Air Force is the oldest, smallest, and least ready in its history, it is becoming unable to simultaneously fight a peer adversary and fend off threats elsewhere around the globe.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin has reinforced the fact that the nation needs a larger, more ready Air Force through multiple interviews and congressional testimony. At the heart of this is a drive for more funding. The situation facing his Air Force is dire, and the consequences of inaction threaten to be dire for the nation.
Fully grasping the state of the service is best understood by comparing today’s Air Force with that of the Cold War era, the last time the nation faced a true peer rival. Doing so not only highlights how much the service’s capacity, capability, and readiness have withered over the past 30 years but also provides a benchmark for restoring the Air Force to health. Without a bold reset, the United States risks ceding its ability to conduct air dominance, strike, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, with catastrophic implications for global order.
The Air Force endured ups and downs over the course of the Cold War and entered both the Korean and Vietnam wars ill-equipped for the fights it encountered. Yet by 1987, fueled by lessons from Vietnam, massive investment, and resultant advances in technology, weapons, and training, the U.S. Air Force was a formidable and capable instrument of national power. It was an effective counter to the Soviet Union’s numerical military advantage that effectively deterred aggression against NATO.
In 1987, the Air Force’s Active component fielded 1,941 combat-coded fighters organized into 81 squadrons, 29 of which were forward-based in Europe to blunt a Soviet advance. In addition, the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve (collectively referred to as the Air Reserve Component or ARC) bolstered the Active force with another 1,389 fighters in 53 squadrons. The ARC was trained and equipped to reinforce NATO within 60 days. The average age of those fighters was 14 years. USAF’s bomber fleet was equally impressive, comprising 325 aircraft, averaging less than 21 years of age. On any given day, roughly eight out of 10 Air Force combat jets were ready for combat.
The service’s ISR capabilities were similarly robust. The Active Air Force had 54 RF-4s, 22 U-2s, 21 SR-71s, and about 25 RC-135s for additional strategic reconnaissance. The Air National Guard had another 153 combat-coded RF-4s. All told, after accounting for readiness and the ability to deploy, the Total Force had 154 RF-4s, 16 U-2s, 18 RC-135s, and three SR-71s available for employment on any given day.
The United States built that force for a peer fight, one that could absorb significant losses in a lengthy, high-intensity conflict. The service’s depth of 2,091 employable fighters and 217 bombers provided a buffer against attrition estimates, which was meant to ensure sustained combat power. The United States and NATO together could generate as many as 11,500 sorties daily, which was enough because, even though it was far fewer sorties than the Soviet Union could generate—16,500—it was a more ready force. Robust logistics, superior training, and a steady supply of munitions postured allied forces to dominate that fight. The U.S. military’s industrial base was also producing new, cutting-edge aircraft at scale, in all mission categories, bolstering operator confidence. The Air Force took possession of hundreds of new fighters annually.
U.S. aircrews were superior. The average U.S. fighter pilot flew more than three times a week, and U.S. bomber crews flew at least one eight-hour sortie every seven days in high-threat, high-intensity training scenarios. It was the same for ISR crews. Collectively, the U.S. Air Force had the capacity, capability, and readiness to deter Soviet aggression and to crush Soviet forces should conflict arise in Western Europe.
The Modern-Day Air Force
Fast forward to 2025. Today, the U.S. Air Force inventory is the smallest in the service’s 78-year history. As reported by the Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin at the AFA Warfare Symposium in March, the average age of all USAF aircraft is now over 31 years old. Gen. Allvin told Airmen at the symposium that readiness, as measured by aircraft availability rates, is now 54 percent on average for all Air Force aircraft, meaning just over five out of every 10 aircraft are ready to fly on a given day because of funding and parts shortfalls. If called to fight tonight, the Air Force could generate just 56 combat-coded F-22s for air superiority and 354 combat-coded F-15Es, F-16s, and F-35s for strike and interdiction.
The ARC combined have 640 fighters; subtracting training and test jets, that leaves 434 fighters in operational units. Subtracting further due to mission capability rates, the ARC can muster just 66 air superiority fighters and 155 strike and interdiction fighters against China on any given day.
The Air Force has roughly 272 known air-breathing ISR aircraft that include 22 RC-135, 9 RQ-4 Global Hawks, 27 U-2s, an estimated 20 to 30 RQ-170 Sentinels, and 184 MQ-9 Reapers for armed ISR. While the different aircraft all have unique attributes, the MQ-9 demonstrates the broadening of the mission area, providing a unique sensor-shooter capability that did not exist in the Cold War. While space plays an increasing role in ISR, airborne assets remain essential to modern combat.
Factoring in readiness, the Total Force could deploy only 523 fighters and 51 bombers into the Indo-Pacific today if war broke out, and just 308 of those fighters and 27 of the bombers would be mission ready upon landing in theater. While the macro ISR number has held steady since the Cold War, demand signals from combatant commands continue to increase, which risks stretching the force too thin. Combat losses, inevitable against a peer threat, would reduce those numbers further.
This significantly reduced combat force structure compared to the Cold War era comes just as China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is growing. Over the past 14 years, China fielded some 1,300 combat-coded fighters, including 320 fifth-generation J-20s. Another 120 J-20s alone come hot off production lines annually, more than double the number of new combat jets the U.S. Air Force is buying. China’s 185 H-6 bombers, less advanced some than U.S. bombers, provide significant regional strike capability, and China’s industrial base, unencumbered by budget constraints, delivers the PLAAF a numerical edge, and a superior ability to backfill attrition.
The Roots of Decline
The Air Force’s current force structure and readiness crisis stems from decades of underfunding and strategic miscalculations. To pay for a post-Cold War “peace dividend,” the Pentagon and Congress slashed Air Force procurement funding by 52 percent between 1989 and 2001—cutting USAF buys deeper than either Army or Navy procurement. The Air Force adopted a “divest to invest” strategy, intended to retire legacy aircraft to fund modernization. In actuality, it became a divest-only policy. The Air Force retired 33 B-1s in 2003 and 250 fighters in 2009; it acquired no new bombers and only 120 fighters over that same six-year period.
High operational tempos during the Global War or Terrorism elevated demand for USAF fighters, bombers, and ISR aircraft over those same years, with every weapon system in the USAF inventory flying thousands of hours in low-threat environments. But instead of convincing lawmakers to buy more combat aircraft, those actions only further eroded the service life of Air Force combat aircraft. The one exception to this was ISR: The Air Force acquired large numbers of MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, yet demand for their services soared and supply was never sufficient.
Modernization in the rest of the Air Force lagged. F-22 production, initially planned for 750 jets, was cut short at 187. The Air Force envisioned 800 F-35s by 2020, but instead acquired only 272. Instead of dominating the Air Force inventory, stealthy fifth-generation aircraft that can penetrate China’s layered air defenses make up just 28 percent of U.S. fighters. Fourth-generation fighters like the F-16 and F-15, while still capable, lack the stealth and sensor fusion needed to survive those defenses, which include Russian S-400 air defenses. Curtailed production buys were not restricted to fighters. Funding was slashed for the B-2, with just 21 of the stealth bombers purchased versus the 120 stipulated in the original requirement. On top of all this, slow weapons procurement means a single week of sustained combat against China could deplete the U.S. inventory of long-range munitions, such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM).
Yet the worst indicator of Air Force health is pilot readiness. For more than 12 years, the Air Force has not funded the flying hours or sortie rates, nor the spare parts required to sustain all mission ready aircrew training requirements. Over the past seven years, fighter pilots have averaged two or fewer sorties a week—below the minimum sortie requirement for any pilot or squadron to be considered combat mission ready. Pilots are flying at basic mission capable rates, which is below what is needed to form the habit patterns and develop the judgment that comes with frequent reps of individual combat tasks and regular large force employment training. At best, U.S. front-line fighter pilots—and therefore every combat fighter squadron in the Air Force—are qualified to conduct only limited wartime missions.
U.S. bomber crews are in even worse shape. Years of underfunding flying-hour programs and weapons system sustainment accounts make it unlikely that a single bomber squadron can execute peer-level mission requirements within their respective designed operational capability statements. Employing forces that are not trained for a high-end fight would undoubtedly suffer higher loss rates, not just in combat, but during the more benign phases of flight, like taking off and landing. Recent accident reports, like one that followed the January 2024 crash of a B-1, confirm this. That $300 million bomber was lost during a routine instrument approach into its home field. The mishap pilot had three sorties in the previous month, and the instructor pilot had just two in the previous 60 days.
Independent operational readiness exercises, once a regular part of annual training to prepare for semiannual operational readiness inspections, are no longer part of the regular unit training and evaluation regimen, nor are rigorous survive-to-operate scenarios currently integrated into training plans. Without intense, regular training under simulated combat conditions, Airmen are ill-prepared to operate on an airfield under attack. This shortfall is nearly certain to present a critical factor in the event of an adversary attack on a U.S. base. Those skills—operating while under attack—are ones U.S. Airmen must regain. Perhaps that is why Gen. Allvin before a Senate subcommittee in 2024 testified, “We are also committed to building forward basing resilient enough to enable continued sortie generation, even while under attack.”
At the tail end of the Cold War, the Air Force and the broader U.S. defense enterprise invested in superior training to offset the Soviet adversary’s numerical advantages—both in the air and for base defense contingencies. Today, U.S. Airmen no longer train more than their Chinese rivals.
During the Cold War, U.S. fighter pilots flew more than 200 hours each year, far more than Soviet fighter pilots who flew closer to 120 hours. Today, Chinese fighter pilots are reportedly getting more than 200 hours or 160 sorties in the air annually, or three or four sorties per week. That’s far more than U.S. fighter pilots, who are lucky to get 120 hours a year, equating to fewer than 1.5 sorties a week.
Allies and partners are also critical to any peer-level fight, and Australia, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and India are the nations most closely aligned to the United States that hold the highest potential for partnership should a war with China erupt. While each of those nations have multiple combat- coded squadrons, they would need to hold back a significant portion of their fighters for homeland defense should war arise, meaning only a fraction of those aircraft could be committed to a forward fight. Assuming Australian fighters move to the first island chain, and that all five allies fly their apportioned fighters for five missions every day, they could add roughly 400 missions a day, before accounting for attrition. These nations do not have bombers and field limited ISR capabilities.
Perhaps the biggest limitation with the United States’ Indo-Pacific allies (as well as those in NATO) is their lack of munitions. Assuming fighter pilots expend every long-range missile they carry on every sortie they fly, Australia, Japan, and South Korea would exhaust their existing weapons supply executing the first day’s air tasking order (ATO). After that, they would be reliant on the limited U.S. stockpile and USAF’s ability to get those weapons into theater in a relevant time.
Mismatched Capacity, Readiness, Geography
China possesses 799 mission-capable fighters and 138 bombers. Operating from mainland bases with internal lines of communication, China can generate nearly 4,000 sorties daily, and every jet has the unrefueled range to easily reach Taiwan with more than adequate station time to employ weapons over that island.
The United States, by contrast, must operate from afar to overcome the tyranny of distance in the Pacific, imposing severe logistical challenges on its combat operations. The 3,400 nautical mile round trip from Guam to Taiwan would limit the U.S. Air Force to about 740 fighter sorties and 33 bomber sorties daily, even after reinforcements. The total number of fighter and bomber sorties the U.S. and allied air forces could muster from the second island chain, including Guam, would be roughly 26 percent of what China’s PLAAF can generate. If the decision were made to move U.S. fighters to forward basing in the first island chain—Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines—the USAF could almost double its sortie rate to roughly 1,850 sorties a day, but that is still less than half what the PLAAF could generate.
The Attrition Problem: No Buffer for Losses
The Cold War Air Force was designed with attrition in mind, maintaining a deep bench of aircraft to absorb losses while sustaining combat power. It has been decades since leaders have had to account for these realities. They have no experience with attrition. Backfill aircraft and crews were cut years ago in the name of efficiency. Modern wargames simulating a U.S.-China conflict estimate 5 percent daily attrition, a factor that would cut Air Force capacity by more than two-thirds within 19 days.
The Air Force’s acquisition pace exacerbates its vulnerabilities. In 2025, the USAF will buy just 42 F-35s and 18 F-15EXs, far below the rate needed to replace losses or rebuild capacity. B-21s have yet to achieve operational-level production. The service is no longer buying new ISR types, with the last MQ-9 purchased in fiscal year 2021. During the 1980s, the U.S. industrial base produced hundreds of aircraft yearly, supported by a robust supply chain and multiyear procurement contracts. Today, ramping up production of F-35s, F-15EXs, B-21s, or MQ-9Bs would take years due to supply chain constraints, workforce shortages, and budget limitations. China, by contrast, is better positioned to rapidly scale production of its J-20 and other combat aircraft.
The shift from a U.S. and allied capacity, capability, and readiness advantage toward a PLAAF advantage is growing. So much so, in fact, that if we succeed in thwarting Chinese aggression in the region, we may suffer significant attrition, and it may rely more on the PLAAF’s inexperience in employing its force than on the allied capability to defeat it. Reversing the decline in Air Force capacity and readiness must become a DOD and congressional priority to avoid losing.
Restoring Capacity, Capability, Readiness
To close the capacity and readiness gaps and restore airpower dominance, the Air Force must adopt a multipronged strategy, drawing on lessons from the Cold War era. The following steps are critical:
- Halt “divest to invest.” The 2018 “Air Force We Need” study called for 1,200 combat-coded fighters and 210 bombers, increasing the number of operational squadrons by 25 percent. Similar requirements were also set for ISR. Today’s force is far short of those targets. The Air Force must immediately freeze retirements of serviceable fighters, Bombers, and ISR aircraft, and keep them until new acquisitions rebuild capacity to the levels required to meet the National Defense Strategy.
- Accelerate procurement. The Air Force should increase acquisition plans and acquire annually 72 F-35s, 24 F-15EXs, and 21 B-21s by 2029. Robust purchases of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) will also be crucial to growing combat capability and capacity. To achieve that, Congress should approve multiyear procurement contracts to stabilize production and reduce costs. Shifting funds from research and development to procurement in fiscal 2026 could jump-start this effort, but sustained budget increases are essential.
- Significantly improve readiness. Fighter and bomber aircrew should fly a minimum of three sorties a week and four sorties a month respectively. Increasing mission-capable rates to 80 percent for fighters and 70 percent for bombers requires investments in maintenance, personnel, spare parts (weapons sustainment), and training. Similar standards are needed for ISR aircraft.
- Expand munitions stockpiles. Long-range weapons like JASSM and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), are critical to sustaining combat operations.
- Strengthen the industrial base. The United States must revitalize its defense industrial base, addressing supply chain bottlenecks and workforce shortages. Public-private partnerships and incentives for domestic production can accelerate aircraft and munitions manufacturing.
- Leverage allies. While Indo-Pacific allies cannot match NATO’s Cold War contributions, U.S. forces should enhance interoperability with Japan, Australia, and South Korea, including joint munitions stockpiling and base hardening to improve resilience.
The Cost of Inaction
The Air Force of 1987 deterred the Soviet Union with the requisite capacity, overwhelming readiness, and capability of its systems. Today, failure to restore airpower dominance risks strategic loss in the Indo-Pacific, undermining U.S. credibility and the rules-based international order. The cost of rebuilding the Air Force—estimated at $30 to 40 billion annually above current budgets—is significant, but pales in comparison to the economic and strategic consequences of defeat. A U.S.-China conflict could disrupt $5 trillion in annual trade throughout the Indo-Pacific, destabilize global markets, and embolden authoritarian regimes worldwide.
The U.S. Air Force’s capacity, capability, and readiness crisis is a clarion call for action. Congress and the Trump administration must act decisively to rebuild America’s airpower backbone. The Cold War model of sustained investment, robust procurement, and strategic foresight stands as a useful model. By halting divestitures, accelerating acquisitions, and strengthening readiness, the Air Force can restore its ability to deter China and protect U.S. interests. For details see https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org/air-force-and-space-force-vectors-for-the-incoming-trump-defense-team/.
Col. John “JV” Venable, USAF, (Ret.), is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons Instructor Course and a veteran of three combat operations with more than 3,300 hours in the F-16C.