Unmanned and Unprepared: The US Navy's Mine Warfare Gamble at Hormuz

U.S. Navy Stages for Mine Clearance as Hormuz Blockade Begins 

Feature • Mine Warfare

April 2026

The U.S. Navy bet its mine countermeasures future on unmanned platforms. The Strait of Hormuz is now the first real-world test of that wager—and the early returns are sobering.

By Stephen Pendergast, Lt USNR

Bottom Line Up Front

The U.S. Navy's mine countermeasures force facing Iran's mined Strait of Hormuz in April 2026 is built almost entirely around unmanned platforms that have never been validated in a contested operational environment. The service retired its last purpose-built Avenger-class minesweepers from the Persian Gulf in September 2025 and shut down its MH-53E Sea Dragon airborne MCM detachment in August 2025, replacing both with an LCS-based mission package whose unmanned surface vehicles, unmanned underwater vehicles, and helicopter-borne sensors have been documented by the Navy's own training assessments as suffering from unreliable sonar recording, excessive pre-mission maintenance timelines, critical single-point mechanical failures, and inadequate sensor performance in turbid or deep water. Two legacy Avengers are being surged from Japan, but the force structure now confronting Iranian Maham-3 moored influence mines and Maham-7 bottom mines consists principally of three Independence-class LCS, 16 Expeditionary MCM companies operating Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish UUVs, a handful of Knifefish medium-class UUVs that have never operated outside controlled test environments, and Raytheon's Barracuda mine neutralizer—which completed its first untethered autonomous demonstration only nine months ago. The gap between the Navy's unmanned MCM ambitions and the reality of clearing a 100-nautical-mile strait against a dynamic, sensor-fused mine threat represents the most consequential mine warfare test since the 1991 Kuwait clearance operation.

The Operational Problem

On 11 April 2026, USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG-121) and USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112) became the first U.S. warships to transit the Strait of Hormuz since Operation Epic Fury began on 28 February, opening what U.S. Central Command described as the first phase of mine clearance operations. CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper announced that forces would establish “a new passage” and share a verified safe corridor with commercial shipping. Additional forces, explicitly including underwater drones, would join the clearance effort within days.

The scope of the problem is staggering. The strait’s traffic separation scheme stretches roughly 100 nautical miles. As Captain Kevin Eyer, USN (Ret.), detailed in the April 2026 Proceedings, supporting both inbound and outbound oil and LNG traffic would require two Q-routes, each 2,000 yards wide, covering approximately 200 square miles of seabed that must be surveyed, classified, and declared safe. Before the war, the strait handled roughly 130 ships per day—approximately 20 percent of global seaborne oil and a comparable share of liquefied natural gas. In the first week of the blockade, fewer than a dozen ships transited without IRGC authorization.

U.S. intelligence, as reported by CBS News on 23 March 2026, estimated that Iran had deployed at least a dozen naval mines in the strait. These were identified as two types: the Maham-3, a moored influence mine weighing approximately 300 kilograms equipped with magnetic and acoustic sensors capable of engaging targets within about 10 feet; and the Maham-7, a 220-kilogram seabed bottom mine whose hull geometry was engineered to scatter incoming sonar waves, significantly complicating detection. According to the CAT-UXO (Collective Awareness to Unexploded Ordnance) database, the Maham-7 can be deployed by small craft or helicopters in water as shallow as 10 feet or as deep as 300 feet. The Defense Intelligence Agency estimated Iran’s total mine stockpile at more than 5,000 as of 2019, and CENTCOM assessments indicate Iran retains 80 to 90 percent of its small-boat and minelayer capacity.

Critically, reporting from multiple intelligence sources indicates that Iran itself may not have systematically tracked every mine placement—a product of IRGC Navy units operating fast attack boats capable of carrying two or three mines per sortie under combat conditions. This creates a problem qualitatively different from the 1991 Kuwait precedent: the minefield is not static. The IRGC Navy declared on 5 April that the strait would “never return to its previous status,” and evidence indicates mining may have continued even during the ceasefire.

What the Navy Retired

To understand the current MCM force structure, one must first understand what the Navy gave up. On 25 September 2025, the service held a final decommissioning ceremony in Bahrain for the last four forward-deployed Avenger-class MCM ships: USS Devastator (MCM-6), USS Sentry (MCM-3), USS Dextrous (MCM-13), and USS Gladiator (MCM-11). In January 2026—five weeks before Iran reportedly began mining the strait—those hulls were loaded aboard the heavy-lift vessel M/V Seaway Hawk and transported to Philadelphia for disposal.

The Avenger class represented 40 years of purpose-built mine warfare engineering. Their fiberglass-sheathed wooden hulls were specifically designed for minimal magnetic signature, enabling them to operate inside minefields where steel-hulled ships cannot safely go. They carried the AN/SQQ-32 mine-hunting sonar and the AN/SLQ-48 Mine Neutralization System, and their crews trained exclusively for mine warfare. The Navy has stated it has no plans to recommission any Avenger-class vessels.

Concurrently, the Navy’s MH-53E Sea Dragon detachment in the Arabian Gulf—the backbone of airborne MCM operations in the Fifth Fleet area for decades—was shut down in August 2025 as the platform was phased out. The service no longer maintains a dedicated heavy-lift airborne mine countermeasures capability in the region.

Four Avenger-class ships remain in Navy inventory, all forward-deployed to Sasebo, Japan. Two of those—USS Pioneer (MCM-9) and USS Chief (MCM-14)—were spotted departing Singapore westbound on 10–11 April, transiting the Strait of Malacca en route to CENTCOM. Their transit time to the Persian Gulf will be measured in weeks, not days.

The Unmanned Architecture

The replacement force structure rests on three pillars, each relying heavily on unmanned systems: the LCS MCM Mission Package, the Expeditionary MCM companies, and a developmental pipeline of next-generation unmanned vehicles. Each warrants detailed examination.

Pillar 1: The LCS MCM Mission Package

Three Independence-class LCS currently constitute the Navy’s primary MCM surface force in the region: USS Canberra (LCS-30), USS Tulsa (LCS-16), and USS Santa Barbara (LCS-32). Each carries the MCM Mission Package (MCM MP), which achieved Initial Operational Capability on 31 March 2023 aboard USS Cincinnati (LCS-20). The first operational packages deployed from San Diego in March 2025 aboard Canberra and Santa Barbara.

The MCM MP is a layered system designed to keep the manned ship outside the mine danger area while unmanned and airborne systems operate forward. Its principal components and vendors are:

MCM Mission Package: Key Systems and Vendors

MH-60S Seahawk	Mine warfare helicopter; carries ALMDS and AMNS (Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin)
AN/AES-1 ALMDS	Airborne Laser Mine Detection System. Pulsed laser and streak tube imaging LIDAR detects, classifies, and geolocates floating and near-surface moored mines. Day/night, untethered operations. (Northrop Grumman, Melbourne, FL)
AN/ASQ-235 AMNS	Airborne Mine Neutralization System. Helicopter-deployed, expendable, remotely operated mine neutralizer with onboard camera and explosive warhead. (Raytheon / RTX)
MCM USV (Fleet-class)	Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle, 11-meter platform. Tows sonar or sweep systems. Originally developed by Textron Systems; production transferred to Bollinger Shipyards (Lockport, LA) in April 2022.
AN/AQS-20C Sonar	Forward-look and side-scan sonar towed by USV for volume and bottom mine hunting. (Raytheon / RTX)
UISS	Unmanned Influence Sweep System. Towed by USV; reproduces magnetic and acoustic ship signatures to trigger influence mines. Minesweep Payload Delivery System by Textron Systems.
Knifefish UUV	Medium-class MCM UUV. Low-frequency broadband synthetic aperture sonar for buried, bottom, and volume mine detection. Based on Bluefin-21 AUV. 21-inch diameter, ~1,650 lbs, up to 25 hours endurance. (General Dynamics Mission Systems, Taunton, MA / Quincy, MA)
AN/WSQ-46 Barracuda	Expendable, semi-autonomous mine neutralization vehicle. Sonobuoy-sized (~3 ft long, 5-inch diameter). Navigates to mine location and detonates. First untethered autonomous demo July 2025. (Raytheon / RTX, Portsmouth, RI)

The concept is elegant in theory: the ALMDS-equipped MH-60S sweeps the near-surface volume with laser imaging; the USV-towed AN/AQS-20C sonar hunts mines in the water column and on the bottom; the Knifefish UUV autonomously searches for buried mines in high-clutter environments; the UISS triggers influence mines; and the Barracuda neutralizes confirmed contacts. The LCS itself never enters the minefield.

The problem lies in execution. A Navy MCM Advanced Tactical Training brief—the final pre-deployment mine warfare assessment for LCS crews—documented systemic deficiencies that were reported by Hunterbrook Media in March 2026. Each Fleet-class USV mission required more than four hours of pre-mission maintenance followed by one and a half hours of GPS and sonar calibration. Multiple hunt missions were conducted where the AN/AQS-20 sonar failed to record data, a failure discoverable only during post-mission analysis. The USV exhibited a recurring tendency to “run away” beyond operator control, and its communications range required the LCS mothership to operate dangerously close to, or inside, the minefield—precisely the scenario the standoff architecture was designed to prevent.

Single points of failure compound the reliability issues. The platform lift moving equipment from the LCS mission bay to the flight deck is a critical node; its failure renders the helicopter combat-ineffective. If the USV tow hook breaks, the vehicle must be recovered by other means. If the Twin Boom Extensible Frame used to launch and recover USVs from the mission bay fails, the entire MCM platform is inoperable. Captain Scott B. Hattaway, Director of the SMWDC Mine Countermeasures Technical Division, acknowledged at the Combined Naval Event 2024 in the UK that the 11-meter USV’s form factor limits both the endurance and the towed sonar depth achievable by the AN/AQS-20C.

Navy doctrine further requires visual identification of mines before neutralization. The camera system on the USV reportedly fails even in relatively clear water, a significant limitation in the turbid conditions common in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.

Pillar 2: Expeditionary MCM Companies

The Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal community maintains 16 Expeditionary MCM (ExMCM) companies—27-person units composed of a command element, an unmanned systems platoon, an EOD MCM platoon, and a post-mission analysis cell. These companies have deployed extensively in the Middle East, with two continuously forward-deployed to Bahrain since 2014, and represent arguably the Navy’s most operationally proven MCM capability.

Each unmanned systems platoon operates 12 UUVs: six Mk 18 Mod 1 Swordfish (based on the Hydroid REMUS 100, approximately 80 pounds, 6–8 hour endurance, 100-meter max depth) and six Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish (based on the REMUS 600, approximately 800 pounds, 20–24 hour endurance, 600-meter max depth). Production of the Mk 18 Mod 2 was completed in 2023 after Hydroid, now a Huntington Ingalls Industries subsidiary acquired for $350 million in 2020, delivered more than 90 vehicles to the fleet.

The Kingfish uses side-scan sonar for search and discovery, Iridium satellite communications for over-the-horizon connectivity, and an autonomous navigation suite combining acoustic Doppler current profiler, inertial navigation, and P-code GPS. Crews launch and recover the UUVs from 11-meter rigid-hull inflatable boats or, in a field innovation developed by ExMCM operators in Bahrain, from a purpose-engineered rubber raft called the “Mallard” towed behind a Zodiac combat rubber raiding craft. The system can also deploy from a containerized “Stinger” launcher fitting a standard MilVan, enabling operation from virtually any vessel of opportunity.

The ExMCM companies are the Navy’s most flexible MCM asset—deployable by C-130 transport aircraft, operable from any port or platform, and staffed by EOD technicians who can visually identify and manually neutralize mines when unmanned systems reach their limits. Their principal limitation is throughput: clearing 200 square miles of seabed with RHIB-launched UUVs is a fundamentally slower process than operating from dedicated MCM ships.

Pillar 3: The Developmental Pipeline

Two significant unmanned systems are in development but are not yet fielded at scale for the Hormuz mission:

Knifefish Block 1 (General Dynamics Mission Systems). The Knifefish is the MCM MP’s dedicated subsurface mine-hunting UUV, purpose-built to detect buried and bottom mines in high-clutter environments using a low-frequency broadband synthetic aperture sonar with automated target-recognition software. Built on the Bluefin-21 platform, it is 21 inches in diameter, approximately 16 feet long, and weighs roughly 1,650 pounds. NAVSEA awarded General Dynamics a $44.6 million LRIP contract in 2019 after Milestone C approval, followed by a $72.8 million retrofit contract to upgrade five Block 0 systems to Block 1 configuration for deeper-depth operation and improved sensor performance. The Navy plans to procure 30 Knifefish systems (48 UUVs total)—24 for LCS and six for other vessels. However, as one analysis of the Hormuz deployment noted, the Knifefish’s April 2026 employment would represent its first use in a contested operational environment; whether its sonar can reliably classify a Maham-7 bottom mine against the acoustic clutter of the Hormuz seabed has not been validated outside controlled test settings.

Viperfish / Medium UUV (Leidos). The Viperfish is the designated successor to the Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish for ExMCM operations. In July 2022, the Navy awarded Leidos a $12 million design contract for the Medium Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, with options potentially reaching $358.5 million through 2032. In July 2023, Leidos received a $36.3 million contract modification to fabricate four engineering development models. Based on the L3Harris Iver4 900 UUV, Viperfish will combine mine countermeasures and submarine-based oceanographic sensing in a single modular platform, merging the requirements of the EOD community’s Kingfish replacement and the submarine community’s Razorback program. Leidos has described Viperfish as potentially “one of the most densely packed and technologically advanced underwater vehicles ever built,” but it remains in development and is not available for the current Hormuz operation.

Barracuda (Raytheon / RTX). The AN/WSQ-46 Barracuda mine neutralization vehicle represents the endgame of the unmanned MCM kill chain—an expendable, semi-autonomous UUV roughly the size of a sonobuoy that autonomously navigates to a mine contact, identifies it with onboard sensors, and detonates its warhead to destroy it. Raytheon won the initial $83.3 million design contract in April 2018, with options to $362.7 million. In July 2025, Raytheon successfully demonstrated Barracuda in its first untethered, semi-autonomous open-water operation in Narragansett Bay. The updated Barracuda will operate without a tether—a critical improvement over the original tethered concept. Its integration into the MCM MP is ongoing, with the system designed to be deployed from the Fleet-class USV.

The Force Protection Problem

Mine clearance is not merely a technical task; it is a combined-arms problem. MCM forces are inherently vulnerable because they must move slowly and methodically, focused on the water column and seabed, while exposed to aviation, drone, missile, and small-boat threats. The Strait of Hormuz places every MCM asset within range of Iran’s surviving arsenal of antiship cruise missiles, Shahed one-way attack drones, fast-attack boats, and shore-based launchers.

Admiral Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations, addressed this directly in the April 2026 Proceedings: mine search and destruction is slow, deliberate work, and none of the Navy’s current MCM options performs well in a non-permissive environment. This reality explains CENTCOM’s decision to send two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers through the strait as the opening move—not to hunt mines, for which they carry no specialized equipment, but to establish local sea control and provide air and missile defense coverage for the MCM forces that will follow.

The USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) Carrier Strike Group, diverted around the Cape of Good Hope rather than risk the Red Sea Houthi threat, is transiting toward the theater. A-10 Warthogs have been conducting close air support operations over the strait, a choice that suggests CENTCOM judges the airspace sufficiently permissive for slow, non-stealthy aircraft—a prerequisite for MH-60S mine warfare helicopter operations.

Historical Context and the Scale of the Challenge

The 1991 Kuwait mine clearance operation is the closest historical benchmark. U.S. and coalition forces swept approximately 200 square miles of shallow water in 51 days—with a full squadron of Avenger-class ships, uncontested airspace, an enemy that had stopped mining weeks earlier, and precisely mapped mine locations. None of those conditions apply to Hormuz in April 2026.

The 1987–88 Tanker War offers a more cautionary parallel. During the first Earnest Will convoy on 24 July 1987, the reflagged tanker Bridgeton struck an Iranian M-08 moored mine immediately after transiting the Strait of Hormuz. No pre-cleared Q-routes existed; escort ships followed in Bridgeton’s wake, using the tanker itself as an improvised minesweeper. Nine months later, USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) struck another Iranian mine on 14 April 1988, suffering a 15-foot hull breach that broke the ship’s keel—triggering Operation Praying Mantis, the largest U.S. naval surface engagement since World War II.

The Washington Institute has estimated that clearing the Strait of Hormuz could require up to 16 MCM vessels. The Navy has seven—three LCS with MCM packages of unproven reliability and four Avengers, two of which are weeks away from the theater.

The Vendor Landscape

Principal Contractors: Navy Unmanned MCM Systems

General Dynamics Mission Systems	Knifefish UUV (SMCM); Bluefin Robotics UUVs. Taunton & Quincy, MA.
Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) / Hydroid	Mk 18 Mod 1 Swordfish and Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish UUVs (REMUS 100/600 platforms). Pocasset, MA. 90+ Mk 18 Mod 2 delivered.
Raytheon / RTX	AN/AQS-20C towed sonar; AN/ASQ-235 AMNS; AN/WSQ-46 Barracuda mine neutralizer. Portsmouth, RI & Tucson, AZ.
Northrop Grumman	AN/AES-1 ALMDS airborne laser mine detection system. Melbourne, FL. 24 pods delivered to USN; 4 to Japan MSDF; 1 to Republic of Korea.
Textron Systems	Fleet-class USV (original developer); Minesweep Payload Delivery System / UISS. Production of USV hulls transferred to Bollinger Shipyards.
Bollinger Shipyards	MCM USV production (from April 2022). Lockport, LA. $7.7M initial AMO contract.
Leidos	Viperfish Medium UUV (in development). $12M design + $36.3M fabrication contracts. Partnered with L3Harris Technologies.
L3Harris Technologies	Iver4 900 UUV platform (basis for Viperfish MUUV); partner on MUUV development.
Sikorsky / Lockheed Martin	MH-60S Seahawk helicopter (MCM mission platform).

Assessment

The Navy’s transition to an unmanned-centric mine warfare force was conceptually sound. Keeping sailors out of minefields, extending sensor reach through autonomous platforms, and building a modular, deployable kill chain from detection through neutralization all represent genuine advances in mine warfare doctrine. The problem is not the vision but the execution timeline. The service retired proven, purpose-built platforms before their unmanned replacements had been validated in operationally relevant conditions.

The Knifefish has never operated against real mines in a contested environment. The Fleet-class USV’s reliability problems were documented by the Navy’s own training command. The Barracuda completed its first autonomous test nine months ago. The ALMDS excels in clear water against near-surface moored mines but cannot see bottom mines in turbid conditions. The AN/AQS-20C sonar, towed by a USV that requires six hours of preparation per mission, has exhibited data-recording failures that go undetected until post-mission analysis—meaning an entire sortie can be rendered useless without the crew knowing it.

Meanwhile, the ExMCM companies with their Mk 18 UUVs represent a proven, deployable capability—but one designed for expeditionary operations at harbor scale, not for clearing a 100-nautical-mile strait against a dynamic mine threat while under potential fire.

CENTCOM has structured the clearance effort in three phases: area securing, detailed survey with unmanned systems, and creation of a verified safe corridor for commercial shipping. The approach is doctrinally sound. Whether the unmanned systems are operationally ready to execute Phase 2 at the speed, scale, and reliability the mission demands is the question the Navy is about to answer under the most unforgiving conditions possible.

The Foreign Policy Research Institute and the April 2026 Proceedings have both noted that Belgium and the Netherlands jointly developed an advanced MCM capability—the rMCM program—centered on dedicated MCM vessels operating autonomous underwater and surface vehicles with high-definition synthetic aperture sonar. Neither nation has committed those assets to the strait. The broader lesson is clear: unmanned mine warfare is a coalition-wide gap, not merely an American one.

For the Navy, the Strait of Hormuz is now a live-fire examination of a force structure built on unmanned platforms. The systems will either prove their worth or expose a generational miscalculation in mine warfare investment. The 130 ships per day that once transited this chokepoint—carrying one-fifth of the world’s oil—are waiting for the answer.

Sources

1. Johnston, Carter, Tayfun Ozberk, and Xavier Vavasseur. “U.S. Navy Stages for Mine Clearance as Hormuz Blockade Begins.” Naval News, 14 April 2026. navalnews.com
2. LaGrone, Sam. “Two U.S. Warships Sail Through Strait of Hormuz to Establish New Route for Merchant Ships.” USNI News, 11 April 2026. news.usni.org
3. Lawrence, Drew F. “Navy to use underwater drones to help clear Iranian mines from Strait of Hormuz.” DefenseScoop, 11 April 2026. defensescoop.com
4. Rogoway, Tyler. “Flurry Of Navy Minesweepers Appear To Be Heading Toward The Middle East.” The War Zone, 13 April 2026. twz.com
5. Eyer, Kevin (Capt., USN, Ret.). “The Crisis in Mine Countermeasures.” Proceedings, Vol. 152/4/1,478, April 2026. usni.org/magazines/proceedings
6. Spendley, Blake, and Carter Johnston. “Demining Hormuz: How the U.S. Navy Arrived at Worst-Case Scenario Unprepared.” Hunterbrook Media, 13 March 2026. hntrbrk.com
7. Johnston, Carter. “Unproven Littoral Combat Ships are replacing retired MCM ships in Bahrain.” Naval News, 26 September 2025. navalnews.com
8. Johnston, Carter. “Update on the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Mine Countermeasures Mission Package.” Naval News, 4 January 2025. navalnews.com
9. Eckstein, Megan. “Navy Deploys First Operational LCS Mine Countermeasures Packages.” USNI News, 18 March 2025. news.usni.org
10. “U.S. Navy Deploys LCS Mine Warfare System to Secure Strait of Hormuz After Avenger Retirement.” Army Recognition, April 2026. armyrecognition.com
11. CBS News. “Amid Iran talks, Strait of Hormuz dotted with about a dozen Iranian mines, U.S. officials say.” 23 March 2026. cbsnews.com
12. CBS News. “U.S. naval destroyers have crossed the Strait of Hormuz, CENTCOM says.” 12 April 2026. cbsnews.com
13. “Report: Two Types of Iranian Mines Detected in Strait of Hormuz.” The Maritime Executive, March 2026. maritime-executive.com
14. Hubbard, Ben, and Farnaz Fassihi. “How the US Navy could blockade Iran’s ports and sweep mines from the Strait of Hormuz.” CNN, 13 April 2026. cnn.com
15. General Dynamics Mission Systems. “Knifefish Unmanned Undersea Vehicle.” Product page. gdmissionsystems.com
16. “General Dynamics Awarded $73M Navy Contract to Update Knifefish Mine Countermeasure Systems.” GovCon Wire, 4 June 2021. govconwire.com
17. “General Dynamics’ Knifefish UUV Program Gets Milestone C Approval.” GovCon Wire, 18 October 2019. govconwire.com
18. Keller, John. “General Dynamics plans upgrades to Knifefish unmanned minehunting submarine.” Military & Aerospace Electronics. militaryaerospace.com
19. “US Navy and HII Complete Production of Mk 18 Mod 2 UUV.” Naval News, 6 February 2023. navalnews.com
20. Eckstein, Megan. “Navy EOD Technology Evolving as 2 UUV Programs Prepare to Merge.” USNI News, 19 March 2020. news.usni.org
21. “Mine Warfare: Ready and Able Now.” Proceedings, Vol. 144/9/1,387, September 2018. usni.org/magazines/proceedings
22. RTX / Raytheon. “RTX’s Raytheon demonstrates autonomous capabilities of its Barracuda mine neutralizer.” Press release, 8 July 2025. rtx.com
23. Raytheon / RTX. “WSQ-46 Barracuda Mine Neutralization.” Product page. rtx.com
24. Keller, John. “Raytheon to build unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) with explosive warhead to destroy or disable ocean mines.” Military & Aerospace Electronics, June 2022. militaryaerospace.com
25. Northrop Grumman. “Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS).” Product page. northropgrumman.com
26. Northrop Grumman. “Northrop Grumman Delivers First ALMDS Pod to Republic of Korea.” Press release, 15 October 2025. news.northropgrumman.com
27. Eckstein, Megan. “Navy nears operational capability on LCS counter-mine mission package.” Defense News, 31 January 2023. defensenews.com
28. Eckstein, Megan. “What’s ahead for Navy unmanned underwater vehicle programs?” Defense News, 29 November 2022. defensenews.com
29. Leidos. “Leidos is developing a new generation of underwater drones.” 20 September 2022. leidos.com
30. Keller, John. “Leidos to develop medium-sized unmanned underwater vehicle.” Military & Aerospace Electronics, July 2022. militaryaerospace.com
31. “Leidos Awarded Navy Contract Modification for Medium UUV Development.” ExecutiveBiz, 20 July 2023. executivebiz.com
32. “Navy awards several contracts focused on LCS mine countermeasures.” Inside Defense, 5 February 2025. insidedefense.com
33. “US Navy Orders Additional LCS MCM USVs.” SeaWaves Magazine, 3 February 2025. seawaves.com
34. Al Jazeera. “What do we know about sea mines in and around the Strait of Hormuz?” 13 April 2026. aljazeera.com
35. “Iran’s Naval Mines in Strait of Hormuz: Strategic Implications and Global Impact.” Gulf News, March 2026. gulfnews.com
36. “Iran Can’t Find Its Own Hormuz Mines, U.S. Says.” House of Saud, 11 April 2026. houseofsaud.com
37. “US Names Iran’s Maham Mines in Hormuz Clearance Op.” House of Saud / Conflict Pulse, 12 April 2026. houseofsaud.com
38. “How Iran’s naval mines could choke global trade through the Strait of Hormuz.” Arab News, 7 April 2026. arabnews.com
39. NAVSEA. “LCS Mission Modules Program.” SNA 2022 brief. navsea.navy.mil (PDF)
40. Eyer, Kevin (Capt., USN, Ret.). “Three Shipbuilding Failures and a Future.” Proceedings, Vol. 152/4/1,478, April 2026. usni.org/magazines/proceedings

The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent those of any government agency or defense contractor. Factual claims are sourced from the referenced publications and official releases as of 14 April 2026.

 

The Air Force's Backwards Logic:

 

Why the Air Force Is Retiring Its Most Lethal Cheap Platform While Losing Billion-Dollar Drones

The U.S. Air Force faces an institutional crisis it refuses to acknowledge. Unable to risk human pilots, the service deploys expensive, undefended UAVs into contested airspace and watches them get shot down at catastrophic rates. When those losses spiral into attrition that approaches 10 percent of the entire Reaper fleet, the Air Force calls in the very platform it has spent 15 years trying to eliminate: the A-10 Warthog. The contradiction is not accidental. It reveals a defense procurement system that has inverted the relationship between cost, effectiveness, and operational necessity.

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The Perverse Incentive Structure at Work

For seven years, the U.S. Air Force has waged bureaucratic war against the A-10 Thunderbolt II—a platform so operationally effective that Congress has had to intervene repeatedly to keep it in service.

The justification is always the same: The A-10 is expensive to operate, vulnerable to modern air defenses, and unsuited to great-power competition. The service proposes retirement. Congress blocks it. The cycle repeats.

Now, in 2026, the Air Force has discovered something uncomfortable: The A-10 is indispensable.

As of March 2026, the USAF confirmed that A-10 Thunderbolt II close air support aircraft were employed during the first 48 hours of Operation Epic Fury against Iranian targets, operating daily in combat sorties throughout the campaign. Against Iranian drone swarms, fast-boat formations, and mobile missile launch teams—threats the Pentagon says are central to future conflict—the A-10 outperforms every other platform.

Recent imagery shows one A-10C returning from CENTCOM operations with painted kill-marks that suggest it destroyed two Iranian-style Shahed attack drones during its deployment. The aircraft is armed with the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rocket, a laser-guided Hydra variant modified with "Fixed-Wing Air-Launched Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems Ordnance" (FALCO) software designed specifically for counter-drone intercepts.

Yet the Air Force's 2026 budget proposal calls for the retirement of all 162 remaining A-10 Warthogs by fiscal year 2026, accelerated by two years from the previously planned phase-out that would have ended by 2028.

The timing is not coincidental. The Air Force plans to retire a platform that is proving operational necessity in real time, while it stands over the grave of 24 MQ-9 Reapers lost in contested airspace where the aircraft should never have been deployed in the first place.

This is not strategy. This is institutional contradiction.

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The Numbers Tell the Story

The economic absurdity is elementary:

A-10 operating cost: Approximately $20,000 per flight hour.

F-35 Lightning II operating cost: Approximately $44,000 per flight hour.

MQ-9 Reaper acquisition cost: Approximately $30 million per airframe.

MQ-9s lost in Operation Epic Fury (2026): 24 aircraft in three months.

Financial loss from MQ-9 attrition: $700 million.

The Air Force is spending roughly 2.2 times more per flight hour to operate its supposed replacement for the A-10 than it costs to operate the A-10. Simultaneously, it deployed undefended ISR platforms into contested airspace without proper suppression of enemy air defenses—a doctrinal violation that cost $700 million in 90 days.

Had the Air Force invested that $700 million in A-10 operations instead, the service could have flown approximately 35,000 flight hours of close air support, armed overwatch, and counter-UAS operations.

Instead, it lost drones and then called in the very platform it was accelerating toward retirement.

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The Doctrine That Collapsed

The operational failure is not the A-10's vulnerability. It is the Air Force's unwillingness to conduct suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) operations that would protect any ISR platform, including the MQ-9.

For seventy years, the U.S. Air Force has adhered to a single, unambiguous principle: Suppress enemy air defenses with stealthy, survivable platforms before deploying slower reconnaissance and strike aircraft into contested airspace. This doctrine was born in blood during the Vietnam War, perfected in Operation Desert Storm, and remains doctrine today.

Yet in Yemen and Iran, the Air Force inverted this principle. Rather than conducting SEAD operations with F-35s and F-15Es armed with anti-radiation missiles to suppress Iranian air defenses first, the service simply deployed MQ-9 Reapers into defended airspace and accepted the losses.

Why? Because the Air Force calculated that losing $30 million UAVs was politically acceptable; losing manned aircraft and pilots was not.

This is not a platform problem. This is a doctrine problem. This is a risk-aversion problem. And the Air Force's solution to its doctrinal failure is not to restore SEAD capability—it is to spend billions on stealthy ISR replacements that won't be operational until 2035.

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When the Contradiction Became Visible

Operation Epic Fury exposed the institutional logic inversion in unmistakable terms.

The A-10's characteristics—long loiter time, gun-based firepower, survivable airframe, low-speed handling—are precisely what's required to counter the threat the Pentagon says will dominate future conflict: massed, cheap, expendable unmanned systems.

Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war highlighted the challenges of countering low-cost, massed one-way attack drones. High-performance fighters employing costly air-to-air missiles or precision-guided munitions prove inefficient and resource-intensive against swarms of inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles. High-speed, low-altitude maneuvering further complicates engagements for fast jets. The A-10's low-speed maneuverability, extended loiter time, airframe armor, and high sortie generation rate make the A-10 the ideal platform.

Yet the Air Force remains incorrigibly hostile to the A-10's continued existence. Leadership has stated repeatedly that the platform no longer fits the demands of future conflict.

The evidence of Operation Epic Fury directly contradicts this assessment. But institutional inertia favors the retirement plan over the operational evidence.

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The Contrast: Air Force vs. Army Philosophy

This institutional inversion is distinctly an Air Force problem.

The Army operates under fundamentally different strategic logic. When Apache attack helicopters proved effective across three decades of combat, the Army did not retire them. It upgraded them, procured more, and built doctrine around them.

When Ukrainian forces demonstrated that small, cheap, attritable drones (commercial quadcopters rigged with munitions) were devastatingly effective in ground warfare, the Army did not respond by retiring small drones. It embraced small drone tactics, funded drone programs, and integrated drone operations into doctrine.

The Army's principle is straightforward: What works in combat gets better resources. What doesn't work gets replaced.

The Air Force's principle is inverted: What's expensive and technologically complex gets better resources. What's cheap and operationally effective gets retirement notices.

This is not a difference in judgment about particular platforms. It is a difference in institutional values.

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The Incentive Structure Explanation

The Air Force's institutional behavior becomes coherent when viewed through the lens of career incentives and procurement politics.

From a Pentagon career perspective:

Scenario A: Sustain and upgrade cheap, effective platforms

• A-10 sustainment, F-16 upgrades, small UAV programs
• Modest budget allocations, routine congressional oversight
• Limited career advancement potential, no major contractor relationships
• Result: Institutional invisibility

Scenario B: Develop expensive, technologically advanced replacements

• F-35 program ($1.7 trillion lifetime cost), NGAD/F-47 development, Ghost UAV, MQ-Next concepts
• Multi-billion-dollar annual budget allocations, extensive contractor partnerships
• Decades of program justification, continuous career advancement opportunities
• Result: Institutional prominence, contractor support, strategic visibility

Pentagon planners build careers on new programs, not on maintaining existing platforms. Advocating for A-10 retention is career-limiting. Defending a F-35 or NGAD program generates prestige, contractor relationships, and perpetual budget justification.

The Air Force is proposing to retire 340 aircraft, including A-10s, F-16s, and various support planes, while requesting just 45 new fighters—far below the ideal 72 per year—but simultaneously increasing F-47 sixth-generation fighter R&D funding and planning to "sharply cut" F-35 purchases. The service wants to shift resources away from proven platforms to futures platforms that won't be operational for a decade.

This is rational behavior within a system that rewards expensive complexity and penalizes cheap effectiveness.

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The Congressional Intervention: A Safety Valve

Congress has repeatedly intervened to prevent the Air Force from eliminating the A-10 because lawmakers understand what the Pentagon apparently does not: Institutional prestige is not equivalent to operational effectiveness.

In December 2025, the National Defense Authorization Act prohibited the USAF from reducing the A-10 inventory below 103 aircraft and required at least 93 primary mission aircraft through September 30, 2026. Without Congressional action, the A-10 would have been completely retired by 2026—just as the service was discovering it was the most effective platform for defending against the threats it actually faced.

This is not Congress second-guessing military judgment on technical nuance. This is Congress preventing institutional suicide in the face of real operational evidence.

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The Operational Contradiction Laid Bare

The A-10 Thunderbolt II, once destined for the scrap heap, has found a second life in the 2026 battlespace. As Operation Epic Fury intensifies, the "Warthog" is proving that sometimes the best way to handle futuristic drone swarms is with a rugged, loitering relic from the Cold War.

The specific capabilities that make the A-10 effective against 21st-century drone swarms are identical to the capabilities that make it ineffective against 5th-generation air superiority competitors:

• Long loiter time (ideal for drone defense, problematic against near-peer air defenses)
• Low-speed handling (ideal for precise engagement of slow targets, disadvantageous against high-speed threats)
• Gun-based firepower (cost-effective against swarms, obsolete against modern fighters)
• Survivable airframe (useful in low-threat environments, irrelevant in contested airspace)

The Air Force's solution is not to maintain the A-10 for the missions it's suited for and develop separate capabilities for contested airspace (the historically proven approach). Instead, it proposes to retire the A-10 entirely and depend on the F-35—a high-end fighter optimized for contested airspace but demonstrably suboptimal for close air support and counter-UAS operations.

This is not resource optimization. This is institutional contradiction.

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The Broader Pattern: MQ-9 Attrition as Case Study

The A-10 situation is symptomatic of a larger institutional dysfunction.

The Air Force spent decades developing and procuring MQ-9 Reapers for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in low-threat environments. The platform performed well in Iraq, Afghanistan, and early Yemen operations against non-peer adversaries.

Then the Air Force deployed MQ-9s to contested airspace (Iran, Yemen with modern air defenses) without proper SEAD suppression. The predictable result: 24 MQ-9s lost in three months—approximately 10 percent of the entire Reaper fleet—representing $700 million in aircraft, advanced sensors, and mission equipment.

Rather than acknowledging the operational error (deploying undefended platforms without SEAD), the Air Force is investing billions in Ghost, MQ-Next, and other stealthy replacements that might not be operational until 2035.

Had the Air Force instead:

1. Conducted proper SEAD with stealth aircraft and anti-radiation missiles first
2. Deployed MQ-9s into airspace where defenses had been degraded
3. Maintained A-10s for close air support and counter-UAS operations

...the attrition problem would have been resolved using existing platforms at a fraction of the cost.

Instead, the service is attempting to solve a doctrinal problem through platform redesign, spending 10 times more money and requiring a decade of development to implement.

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The $2 Billion Rescue: The Ultimate Cost of the Philosophy

The institutional inversion reaches its logical extreme in the rescue operation that followed the April 3, 2026 shootdown of an F-15E Strike Eagle over southwestern Iran.

The pilot was recovered within hours. The weapons systems officer evaded Iranian forces for 36 hours in the Zagros Mountains, bleeding from ejection injuries and hunted by hundreds of IRGC soldiers offering $60,000 rewards to locals for his capture.

The U.S. launched what military officials described as "one of the most challenging and complex [missions] in the history of U.S. special operations". To recover two airmen:

President Trump announced that the rescue mission involved 155 U.S. aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and other supporting platforms.

The cost was staggering. Confirmed American aircraft losses included aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with analysts estimating the total cost may exceed $2 billion, making it the most expensive combat search and rescue mission ever.

The aircraft destroyed or damaged in the operation included:

• Two MC-130 special operations transport planes were deliberately destroyed at an abandoned airstrip after replacement aircraft arrived
• An A-10 Warthog shot down during the operation, with the pilot ejecting over Kuwaiti territory and being recovered
• Multiple helicopters hit by small-arms fire
• Additional aircraft damaged by Iranian air defenses

The loss of two HC-130Js reduces the available fleet of specialized rescue aircraft. The HC-130J fleet is relatively small. Replacing those aircraft could take years. That means the United States has lost not only expensive hardware, but also a portion of its ability to conduct similar rescue missions elsewhere in the world.

Let this sink in: To recover two airmen, the Air Force spent $2 billion in aircraft, generated operational distractions that halted other planned operations, and permanently reduced its rescue capability globally.

Consider the alternative calculation the Air Force refuses to make:

• $2 billion in rescue aircraft could have funded 100,000 flight hours of A-10 operations ($20,000 per flight hour)
• That 100,000 hours would have provided sustained close air support, drone defense, and maritime strike capability that could have prevented the F-15E from being shot down in the first place
• The institutional commitment to rescue reflects genuine American values—no one is left behind
• But the institutional refusal to maintain adequate SEAD before deploying manned aircraft reflects a different set of priorities entirely

The contradiction is explicit: The Air Force values human pilot safety sufficiently to spend $2 billion to recover two airmen, but not sufficiently to conduct proper doctrine-compliant SEAD operations that would prevent pilots from being shot down.

This is not a principled commitment to pilot safety. This is risk transfer: Shift risk from pilots to expensive unmanned platforms, accept massive UAV attrition, then spend whatever is necessary to recover pilots when they are lost.

The $2 billion rescue, however heroic and successful, reveals an institution that has abandoned cost-benefit analysis in favor of institutional mythology: the sanctity of rescue regardless of the financial and operational costs.

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The Russian Cautionary Tale: What Happens When SEAD Is Abandoned Entirely

The U.S. Air Force's doctrinal inversion—avoiding SEAD in favor of risk-transfer to expensive UAVs—finds its darkest parallel in the Russian Air Force's complete failure to conduct SEAD operations over Ukraine.

Unlike the USAF, which abandoned SEAD out of risk aversion, Russia abandoned SEAD because it lacked the institutional capability to execute it. The consequence is instructive: Four years of attritional warfare with no prospect of air superiority.

Russia's SEAD Failure

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) failed to achieve air superiority, operating with poor intelligence, slapdash operational planning, and no concerted attempt to neutralize Ukraine's integrated air defense network. Russia possessed numerical and technological advantage over the Ukrainian Air Force but made fundamental doctrinal errors.

Russia proved incapable of suppressing Ukrainian air defenses. Reports indicate when the Russian Air Force conducts SEAD missions, they often jam themselves in the process—unable to coordinate electronic warfare assets with strike packages in a coherent suppression strategy.

The failure of the Russian Air Force to achieve air superiority in Ukraine stems largely from inadequate SEAD/DEAD operations and Ukraine's ability to sustain its ground-based air defense network. While Russia succeeded in the opening week of the war when Ukrainian SAM systems could be well-mapped and few defensive measures were in place, once initial operations subsided, the VKS began to stumble.

The critical point: While 75% of Ukraine's air bases were struck in the opening 48 hours, only around 10% of their mobile air defense assets were attacked. Within 3-4 days, Ukraine re-established basic air defense operations. By the end of the opening phase, Ukraine's mobile SAMs, MANPADS, and anti-aircraft artillery had forced the Russian Air Force to abandon attempts at air superiority.

The Consequence: Attritional Deadlock

Unable to achieve air superiority, Russia shifted strategy. The VKS operated largely in parallel to ground forces with limited coordination; it did not unify electronic warfare units, missile forces and tactical aviation under a coherent suppression strategy. When Ukrainian resistance proved fiercer than expected, Russia simply shifted to standoff missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, and curtailed deep air operations.

The result is the war that exists today in 2026: An attritional deadlock in which neither side achieves air superiority, both sides operate under risk of sustained losses, and air power serves not as a decisive instrument but as a support element to ground forces conducting a grinding, casualty-intensive campaign.

By 2025-2026, the air war has stabilized into a "meatgrinder" in which both sides operate in a contested environment, neither achieving full air superiority, with Russia using its numbers to conduct a high-attrition, long-range campaign.

Russia has lost at least 25 percent of its aerial strength relative to the start of the invasion. Manufacturing facilities cannot produce sufficient aircraft to offset losses. More than half of the VKS's tactical airframes are older than 30 years with few remaining flight hours. The VKS has adjusted tactics by reducing flights over Ukrainian-controlled territory, operating mainly from Belarus, Crimea, or Russian mainland at night with strategic bombers carrying cruise missiles and flying at high altitudes.

This is what abandonment of SEAD doctrine produces: An air force reduced to standoff strikes, unable to support ground operations effectively, losing aircraft at unsustainable rates, constrained to night operations and distant launches to avoid enemy air defenses.

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The Doctrinal Contrast: Why Air Superiority Requires Integrated SEAD

Russia's failure exposes what the U.S. Air Force is attempting to avoid acknowledging: Air superiority is impossible without SEAD. Period.

Russia was unable to destroy Ukraine's powerful network of S-300 SAMs and other air defense systems. While Ukraine is now supplied with Western Patriot, IRIS-T, NASAMS, and other systems, it drove off the Russian Air Force for the first year or more with legacy Soviet systems.

The contrast between Russian and Ukrainian approaches is illuminating:

Ukraine's Approach: The Ukrainian Air Force developed SEAD doctrine that places a premium on sanitizing areas up to 15 kilometers deep from the tactical edge. Ensuring electronic and kinetic attrition of Russian ground-based air defenses is key to assisting Ukrainian close air support. This involves using Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles to support SEAD missions, employing electronic intelligence (ELINT) to locate Russian radars, keeping SAM systems moving, reducing radar electronic signatures, and integrating MANPADS and anti-aircraft artillery with longer-range systems.

Russia's Approach: The Russian Air Force did not unify electronic warfare units, missile forces and tactical aviation under a coherent suppression strategy. Operational planning was slapdash, and there was no concerted attempt to neutralize Ukrainian air defenses. When the Russian Air Force conducts SEAD missions, coordination between electronic warfare assets and strike packages is ineffective, often resulting in Russian platforms jamming themselves.

The outcome is stark: A small nation without a modern air force, equipped with legacy Soviet systems and Western donations, denied air superiority to a larger nation possessing greater numbers of newer aircraft—because Ukraine understood SEAD doctrine and executed it, while Russia did not.

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The Lesson for American Doctrine

The Russia-Ukraine contrast should alarm U.S. Air Force leadership. Russia failed to achieve air superiority because it could not conduct SEAD. The U.S. Air Force will fail to achieve air superiority because it refuses to conduct SEAD—choosing instead to transfer risk to expensive unmanned platforms and then spending $2 billion to rescue pilots when that risk transfer fails.

The philosophical difference is significant: Russia abandoned SEAD out of incapacity. The U.S. abandoned SEAD out of choice, preferring to deploy undefended UAVs and manage the resulting attrition through rescue operations and platform redesign rather than through proper doctrine.

Both approaches produce the same outcome: Air forces constrained to standoff operations, unable to achieve air superiority, degraded to attrition-based warfare.

Four years into the Ukraine conflict, Russia still cannot dominate Ukrainian airspace. Its jets are hemmed in by Ukrainian air defenses and forced to launch standoff munitions from afar. This has contributed to over a million Russian casualties and a war with no prospect of Russian military victory.

The USAF should contemplate what a similar attrition-based air war against a near-peer competitor would look like. If the U.S. was committed to a major war elsewhere or otherwise politically unwilling to shoulder primary SEAD/DEAD responsibilities, NATO air forces would face similar problems establishing air superiority over territory contested by Russia.

The Russian experience in Ukraine is not an anomaly. It is a warning: Abandon SEAD doctrine, and you abandon air superiority. You accept attritional warfare. You reduce your air force to a support element for ground operations. You lose the ability to conduct deep strikes. You become hemmed in by enemy air defenses and forced to operate at standoff distances where effectiveness is degraded.

The U.S. Air Force is attempting to avoid this outcome through platform redesign (Ghost, MQ-Next, NGAD) rather than through doctrinal restoration (SEAD capability, Wild Weasel operations). Russia provides a cautionary tale: When air forces lack SEAD capability, no amount of platform sophistication compensates.

Career Incentives: Pentagon planners build careers on new programs (F-35, NGAD, Ghost), not on maintaining existing platforms. Advocating for A-10 retention generates minimal institutional prestige compared to defending billion-dollar modernization initiatives.

Contractor Relationships: Major primes (Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop) maintain relationships with Pentagon leadership built on high-dollar programs. A-10 sustainment—performed by smaller contractors—generates far less contractor prestige and political influence.

Doctrinal Narrative: The claim that the A-10 is "vulnerable to modern air defenses" became conventional wisdom in Pentagon circles. Conventional wisdom is easier to maintain than to overturn, even when operational reality contradicts it.

Risk Aversion: Pilots have become a premium resource whose safety is priceless. Air Force leadership prefers to lose billions in equipment rather than risk a single pilot. This creates a perverse incentive to deploy undefended UAVs repeatedly rather than conduct proper SEAD with manned aircraft.

None of these factors favor operational effectiveness. All of them favor institutional inertia.

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The Test Case for Pentagon Dysfunction

The A-10 Warthog represents a test case of defense procurement dysfunction. A platform that:

• Costs approximately $20,000 per flight hour to operate (compared to $44,000 for the F-35)
• Has proven effective across three decades of combat
• Remains uniquely suited for current and near-future threats (drone swarms, maritime targets, low-altitude close support)
• Was proven indispensable in 2026 operations despite plans to retire it completely

...was nearly eliminated because institutional prestige and career advancement favor expensive complexity over cheap effectiveness.

The proper question is not: "Why does the Air Force keep trying to retire the A-10?"

The proper question is: "What is wrong with an institution that tries to eliminate its most cost-effective and operationally relevant platform while pouring billions into untested replacements that won't be ready for a decade?"

The answer exposes a fundamental inversion in defense procurement logic: An institution that treats cost as irrelevant, platform effectiveness as subordinate to technological prestige, and human pilot safety as justification for decisions that actually reduce operational effectiveness and increase total financial cost.

Until the Air Force realigns its incentives around operational effectiveness per dollar spent rather than technological prestige and career advancement, it will continue to make decisions like proposing to retire the A-10 while simultaneously deploying 24 MQ-9 Reapers into contested airspace without SEAD, losing $700 million, then calling in the A-10 to defend against the drone swarms that procurement system created.

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The Stark Institutional Contrast: Investment vs. Abandonment

The Russia-Ukraine comparison reveals a fundamental institutional difference that extends far beyond SEAD doctrine. The U.S. Air Force inverts military logic through institutional choice. Russia abandons military logic through institutional incapacity. The contrast illuminates the underlying problem with the USAF's approach.

Russia's Pilot Crisis

Russia entered the Ukraine conflict with as few as just 100 fully trained combat pilots, forcing the rest of its aviators into the fight without completing full instruction. The number of pilots Russia is able to push through training has been negatively affected for years by a lack of modern and serviceable training aircraft, which creates training bottlenecks for VKS aviators.

The consequence is catastrophic: A shortage of experienced pilots has resulted in an influx of inexperienced new pilots bolstered by older retirees brought back into service after years away from the cockpit. Ukrainian military has noted a rise in both very young and very old pilots in the VKS, with aging pilots returned to frontline service.

Russia conducts no systematic combat search and rescue operations for downed pilots. Pilots who eject over contested territory are abandoned. There is no Russian equivalent to the U.S. Air Force CSAR system. No specialized pararescuemen trained in advanced medical care and direct-action rescue. No HH-60 helicopters with air support packages. No 24/7 dedicated recovery forces.

This means Russian pilots flying over Ukraine understand one essential fact: If they are shot down, they are on their own. Enemy forces will be hunting them. There will be no rescue attempt from their own military.

The U.S. System: Institutional Commitment to Pilot Recovery

By contrast, the U.S. Air Force maintains the most sophisticated personnel recovery system in military history.

The three-element CSAR triad—the rescue helicopter (HH-60W Jolly Green II), the fixed-wing HC-130J Combat King II, and the PJ ground team—represents the most sophisticated dedicated personnel recovery force in the world. No other branch of the U.S. military, and no other military in the world, fields operators who can HALO-parachute from 25,000 feet, fight their way to a downed pilot through enemy resistance, and then perform emergency surgery in a jungle clearing before calling in a helicopter for extraction.

Personnel on CSAR missions work under high pressure, knowing that every additional minute they take to arrive on target means an additional minute for enemy forces capturing the isolated personnel. This work requires extreme coordination, with each asset having a specific role. Usually the survivor moves in accordance with an Evasion Plan of Action, and must be authenticated based on the Isolated Personnel Report.

The April 2026 rescue operation in Iran crystallized this commitment: 155 aircraft, hundreds of ground personnel, 339 munitions fired over 50 hours of operations, $2 billion in equipment destroyed or damaged, just to recover two airmen.

Was this excessive? Possibly. But it sent an unmistakable message to every American pilot in the U.S. Air Force: We will come for you. No matter the cost. No matter how dangerous the mission. You will not be left behind.

The Institutional Logic Inverted

This is where the USAF's institutional inversion becomes clear:

The service invests extraordinary resources in rescuing pilots who are shot down. It is willing to spend $2 billion and divert 155 aircraft to recover two airmen. It maintains a dedicated, specialized, decades-refined CSAR system with PJs trained to perform emergency surgery in hostile territory.

But the same service will not conduct the SEAD operations that would prevent those pilots from being shot down in the first place.

Instead, it deploys undefended $30 million UAVs into contested airspace, watches them get shot down at attrition rates that approach 10 percent of the fleet, and then invokes pilot safety as justification for not conducting proper SEAD.

This is not logic. This is psychological inversion: The willingness to spend $2 billion recovering a pilot from behind enemy lines, combined with unwillingness to spend the resources conducting SEAD that would prevent the pilot from being shot down.

The Contrast With Russia

Russia has no CSAR system because it lacks the resources and doctrine to maintain one. Russia sends pilots into combat knowing they will not be rescued. Russia loses pilots at a rate that has created a pilot shortage so severe that the VKS is now fielding both teenagers and retirees—any body that can pull an ejection handle.

The USAF has both: a CSAR system that commits to recovering every pilot, and a refusal to conduct SEAD that prevents pilots from needing recovery.

Russia's institutional failure is clear: inadequate pilot training, no rescue system, no commitment to personnel recovery.

The USAF's institutional inversion is more subtle but perhaps more damaging: extraordinary commitment to rescue combined with deliberate avoidance of the prevention mechanisms that would make rescue unnecessary.

The U.S. Air Force is attempting to have it both ways—maintaining moral commitment to "we will come for you" while simultaneously refusing the operational discipline that would make that commitment less necessary.

Russia abandoned both commitments out of inability. The USAF maintains one commitment while systematically avoiding the other, out of choice.

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