Vol. 60, August 2025
Key Points
The Air Force must ensure its force design and
operational concepts can compete with and
overcome the forces of near-peer adversaries like
the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Crucially,
U.S. penetrating strike capabilities must enable
decisive combat operations against near-peer
forces in the event U.S. deterrence fails.
Prevailing U.S. military concepts like pulsed
airpower and expanded maneuver to facilitate long-
range kill chains presume a level of communication,
networking, and connectivity that PRC military
information dominance capabilities are specifically
designed to counter and defeat.
Disaggregated collaborative air operations (DCAO)
is a proposed operational concept that uses a
penetrating stand-in force of fifth-generation and
beyond aircraft as core elements in independently
operating force packages that defeat near-peer
strategies and capabilities.
DCAO leverages the advanced information
collection and processing capabilities of fifth- and
next-generation aircraft to significantly reduce
dependencies on centralized command, control,
communications, computers, intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). These
aircraft can operate with fourth-generation
and uninhabited aircraft in formations that are
disconnected from long-range networks but
locally networked to collaborate in ways that
counter PRC attacks.
This proposed operational concept will not solve
the U.S. Air Force’s ongoing modernization crisis
or the alarming erosion of the capability and
capacity of its current fighter and bomber force.
While the Air Force must carefully consider how to
apply the forces it has in near-term contingencies,
the service must also rapidly modernize and grow
its fighter and bomber aircraft inventories.
Uninhabited systems like CCA promise
additive capabilities that increase the lethality,
survivability, and capacity of Air Force operations,
especially in highly contested environments.
However, uninhabited aircraft cannot currently
replace the decision-making and combat
management capabilities of crewed aircraft,
especially in operational concepts like DCAO that
emphasize disconnected, disaggregated forces.
Facing increasingly grave threats, U.S. Air Force strike capabilities must enable
decisive combat operations against adversary forces in the event U.S. deterrence
fails. e service’s force design and operational concepts need to compete with and
overcome near-peer adversaries like the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However,
existing Air Force operational concepts for long-range kill chains and penetrating
strikes into contested areas assume forces will have highly networked connectivity
and reach-back to data and command centers. e PRC’s informationized
warghting strategies are specically designed to counter the networked U.S.
approach. In a conict, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will launch
overwhelming attacks against U.S. military information links and nodes to cut o
and isolate U.S. airpower force packages from these networks and then pick o the
disconnected elements.
Given the vulnerabilities inherent in beyond line-of-sight (BLOS) datalinks
and other long-range communications, disaggregated collaborative air operations
(DCAO) is an operational concept that sidesteps these adversary strategies to
dominate the battlespace information environment. DCAO combat air forces
are locally networked formations that can operate even when disconnected
from broader networks. e concept relies upon a force of fth- and next-
generation aircraft that can penetrate adversary air defenses, independently
sensing, coordinating, and executing individual actions at the tactical edge of
the battlespace. e DCAO operational concept builds upon the proven U.S.
Air Force employment of eects-based operations (EBO) and parallel warfare.
Just as precision weapons and stealth aircraft enabled eects-based operations in
numerous conicts following the Cold War, fth-generation and beyond aircraft
provide battlespace information dominance capabilities to enable new warghting
concepts that can achieve decisive eects forward in highly contested areas.
To make this operational concept viable in near-peer threat environments,
the Air Force requires more advanced capabilities and greater capacities than its
current ghter and bomber inventories can deliver. DCAO leverages forces and
technologies that are available now to address the signicant near-term threats
facing the United States. In the near term, the Air Force should combine fth-
and fourth-generation aircraft as well as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) to
oer a range of force employment options. Fifth-generation aircraft currently
in production should be supplemented by next-generation aircraft like the B-21
bomber and the F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance penetrating counter-air
(NGAD PCA) aircraft. e U.S. Air Force should aggressively eld these newer
aircraft to bring even more advanced capabilities to the DCAO concept.
Abstract
Disconnected by Design:
5
th-
& 6
th-
Gen Aircraft in Disaggregated
Collaborative Air Operations
by J. Michael Dahm
Senior Resident Fellow for Aerospace and China Studies
MITCHELL INSTITUTE
Policy Paper
