alt Hacker News“ In a future peer conflict, the US Army will not be granted a six-month, uncontested build-up phase, nor will it operate under friendly skies.”
Depends how the war starts. Russia? USA somehow attacks? Easily 6 months of buildup in Europe.
China? Again USA somehow attacks? Again buildup in Australia, Japan, Korea.
Also US air power is absolutely supreme. I don’t see how they will be fighting in actually contested skies even only 2 months in.
Air power relies on fuel and maintenance and runways. It's not necessary to contest the skies if the adversary can destroy the "tail" that supplies the aircraft.
Stationary bases can easily be targeted globally. The United States has 11 nuclear powered aircraft carriers. We can assume any peer adversary will have knowledge of their approximate whereabouts at all times. It's unclear how they would fare in next generation conflict but we can assume USA's enemies are designing their weapons around taking those carriers down.
The Air Force is currently upgrading many of its aircraft for longer range operations to increase standoff range