Restoring Strategic Coherence: The 2026 National Defense Strategy as Industrial and Operational Realism
The 2026 National Defense Strategy has generated considerable controversy for its blunt language about allied burden-sharing…
Read More »The Monroe Doctrine’s Convenient Amnesia: Historical Reality versus Contemporary Rhetoric
The recent U.S. intervention in Venezuela prompted predictable invocations of the Monroe Doctrine, with policymakers and…
Read More »F-35 Quarterbacks and CCAs: The Behavioral Path to Sixth-Generation Airpower
The concept of fifth-generation air warfare was clearly articulated by former Secretary of the Air Force…
Read More »Learning from Colonel Spaid: The Osprey’s Indispensable Role Across Two Decades
Colonel Wes Spaid’s journey with the V-22 Osprey spans nearly two decades, from flying the first…
Read More »Marine C2’s Shift from Enduring Bases to Expeditionary Hubs: A Perspective from Steel Knight 2025
The Marine Corps has long understood that the character of warfare is shaped not merely by…
Read More »A Decade of Strategic Analysis: My Australian Defence Research (2014-2025)
This month, my latest book on Australian defence has been published. Fight Tonight Force: Combat Readiness…
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Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) have moved in just a few years from a conceptual “loyal wingman” idea to concrete flight testing, down‑selects, and multi‑service adoption, with 2025–2026 shaping up as the period where the United States proves whether it can actually field affordable combat mass at speed. Across the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and now the Army, CCAs are evolving into a family of large, jet‑powered uncrewed systems, tightly linked to manned platforms and backed by a growing budget, a more incremental acquisition strategy, and intensive experimentation with autonomy and manned‑unmanned teaming. The U.S. Air Force remains the pacing service in the United States for CCA development, having launched the first formal program in 2023 and moved it into early operational prototyping during 2025. In August 2025,...