The United States Air Force really wants its Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation warplane program. It’s just too bad that its cost will likely outweigh whatever benefits that the Pentagon thinks the project will give it. Finally, the Air Force is coming to grips with the fact that its reach exceeds its grasp. At a recent congressional hearing, Biden administration Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall officially decided to kick the decision on whether to go forward with the NGAD program to the Trump administration.

It’s a smart move. Not only is the Biden administration in its lame-duck session, but the NGAD program is prohibitively expensive and will require a long-term commitment to make the project work (if it ever can work as advertised, given the complexity of the systems involved and America’s already ailing defense industrial base).

Now, the incoming Trump administration, which is still waiting to hear if its Secretary of Defense designate, Pete Hegseth, will be given Senate confirmation, must avoid the siren song that the permanent Pentagon bureaucracy will sing to lure Trump administration officials into supporting this wasteful project.

And it is wasteful.

Some Interesting Points 

The specs for the NGAD program sound like something from Star Trek. It’ll be artificial intelligence-driven, with a massive cloud computing capability linking the manned sixth-generation warplane (which costs a whopping $300 million per plane, three times higher than the F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation warplane). The plane’s pilot will be more machine than man, with massive technological augmentations to allow for greater situational awareness, over-the-horizon warfighting capabilities, and a sci-fi-like avionics package.

The “loyal wingman” component is particularly impressive.

Basically, for every single manned sixth-generation warplane in the NGAD program, there will be swarms of either semi or fully autonomous drones operating alongside it. These drone swarms will, as the name suggests, provide vital air cover for the manned plane while in combat, but will also serve as long-range reconnaissance scouts and even force multipliers for the planes themselves

How will the Air Force build not just the planes but the underlying systems in a timely fashion? The F-35, after all, has gone significantly over time and budget from what the Air Force had originally planned for. Sure, the F-35 is highly technological. But it’s not a starfighter. The Air Force is basically building a fleet of X-Wings, based on the description of the NGAD as a “system of systems.”

But why can’t the Pentagon just take some of the underlying systems—notably the “loyal wingman”—and apply them to existing airframes? Not just the F-35, but the superior F-22A Raptor? Heck, the Air Force has been practicing dropping drone swarms into combat zones during simulations in the desert, turning old F-16s into drones themselves! Is it really that difficult to simply attach some of the capabilities intended for the NGAD onto existing platforms?

Certainly, the drone aspect of the NGAD is much cheaper than the manned system that the Air Force is dead set on. Even some of the AI capabilities and cloud computing intended for the sixth-generation warplane can likely be tacked onto existing systems like the aforementioned F-22—all at a reduced cost than what taxpayers would be on the hook for paying with the NGAD.

An Unaffordable Program Will Have to Wait for the Next Administration 

The Air Force cannot even guarantee it will be able to mass-produce the NGAD systems in a useful timeline. Even now, the U.S. defense industrial base is barely able to keep up with demand. As was noted earlier, the F-35 program ran massively over budget and time, in large part because the defense industrial base couldn’t keep up.

Meanwhile, the F-22 Raptor, America’s top warplane, had its production line prematurely canceled in 2009 because of short-sighted political and economic reasons. There’s no way that the Pentagon can ensure that the even more expensive and complex NGAD will ever make it into production.

Despite the Pentagon enjoying a nearly $1 trillion budget—yes, you read that right—the Pentagon is somehow struggling to deter its global rivals while at the same time, failing to meet baseline recruitment standards. Now, they want more money and resources to do what they have been unable to do while already enjoying seemingly limitless resources and money.

It’s time for the incoming Trump administration to hold the line against the wasteful Pentagon procurement programs. America doesn’t need the NGAD program at all.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.