In a Nov. 4 letter to Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and Ranking Member Ro Khanna, D-Calif., requested a briefing by Nov. 20 on the service’s resourcing and personnel decisions for the institute, known as CASI. CASI falls under Air University, which oversees the Air Force’s officer and enlisted schools.

“Under-resourcing CASI’s mission could risk undermining the ability of military leaders and civilian policymakers to understand the PRC’s aerospace strategy and capabilities and, by extension, deter Beijing from using them in a military conflict,” the lawmakers wrote. “Any potential loss of such expertise is particularly worrisome given the PRC’s continued efforts to rapidly modernize its aerospace forces while expanding its aggressive activities in the Indo-Pacific region.”

The letter, posted by the select committee, said that without CASI’s in-house experts, the Air Force and other agencies would presumably have to turn to costly outside contractors. It also said understanding the capabilities of China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, is critical for deterring conflict and, citing CASI’s charter, for “improving [the U.S.] ability to be successful in strategic competition.”

CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney told Defense News Friday that official comment on the institute now must come through public affairs at Air Education and Training Command, which runs Air University, or from Air University itself. 

Speaking as a private citizen, Mulvaney said he did not know about the committee’s plans but was “extremely pleased to see that Congressional Leadership acted in a fully bipartisan manner, showing strong support,” even during the midterm election season. “I am gratified that the accomplishments and contributions made by CASI are highly valued across the aisle and across the government,” he said.

Two CASI civilians have already left, Mulvaney said, and their now-defunded positions cannot be refilled.

An Air Force spokesperson told Defense News that the service “will respond directly to the committee.” The spokesperson did not answer questions about the Air Force’s plans for CASI or whether vacated positions would be refilled. It is unclear whether any additional military personnel have been assigned to the institute since Oct. 1.

The lawmakers’ letter to Meink follows the Air Force’s decision, confirmed in September, that civilian positions would no longer be assigned to CASI as part of an ongoing civilian restructure within Air Education and Training Command. 

An Air Force spokesperson told Defense News at the time that “the CASI mission continues, with the organization leveraging assigned military service members to accomplish its objectives.” 

Mulvaney described the move differently in September, saying that eliminating all of the institute’s civilian positions was “effectively ending CASI.” No military positions are affected, he said, noting the institute has two master sergeant positions and a deputy position that has remained unfilled for over a year.

Asked how the civilian cuts would affect CASI’s research, Mulvaney said, “All of the research has always been done by the civilian personnel.”

The cut “had nothing to do with CASI’s mission,” Mulvaney said in September, but stemmed from the fact that the institute does not produce professional military education graduates, Air University’s primary mission.

Asked whether another organization would take on CASI’s China aerospace research, Mulvaney said, “Nothing has been identified.”

In a Sept. 22 statement, later removed from Air University’s website, Mulvaney said Air University had “decided to close” CASI and that all of its civilian positions would go into unfunded status Oct. 1. Employees would keep working and getting paid in “surplus” status while they looked for new jobs, he said, adding, “I will do my best to make sure they all land someplace that will truly appreciate their talents.”

Mulvaney said, “CASI has commitments that it has made and will honor, to the best of our ability, through at least March of 2027.” Once the civilians leave, he said, “CASI will close.”

CASI was established in 2017, formally chartered June 15, 2021, and tasked with studying “everything that flies” in China. CASI’s research is unclassified by design, drawing on publicly available Chinese-language sources. It also runs a free three-day PLA Fundamentals course, most recently in August, according to the lawmakers’ letter.

The biennial CASI Conference, held in May at National Defense University, drew more than 250 attendees and featured the release of the fifth edition of CASI’s “PLA Aerospace Power” primer. In 2025, nearly 80,000 people visited CASI’s website and downloaded more than 50,000 reports, according to the institute.

Mulvaney has said the CASI cuts do not affect the Navy’s China Maritime Studies Institute, the Army War College’s China Landpower Studies Center or the Marine Corps War College’s China Warfighting Initiative.

RAND released the report, “Anticipating Allies’ Responses to U.S. Retrenchment from Europe,” on Wednesday. It examines how France, Germany, Poland and the U.K. would likely respond to different versions of what RAND calls limited retrenchment: cuts to American commitments and forces in Europe that stop short of leaving NATO altogether.

The study draws on Cold War precedents, allied government documents and public debate, and interviews with 51 officials and experts in the four countries, most conducted between April and November 2025.

The authors caution that their findings apply only to those four allies.

The report’s main finding is that how the U.S. withdraws will shape how allies respond. The four allies “see a stark difference between a coordinated, orderly U.S. withdrawal, which they feel they could handle, and a rapid, uncoordinated one, which they see as creating major capability gaps and potentially emboldening Russia to attack a NATO member,” the authors wrote.

The authors recommend the U.S. follow through with larger force cuts on a long-term timeline worked out with allies, which they say may help keep allies’ defense spending on track even as it gets harder to sell at home.

RAND weighs those choices against NATO 3.0, the alliance concept Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby presented in February. It calls for Europe to take primary responsibility for its own non-nuclear defense while the U.S. shifts resources to the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific.

The Pentagon has already begun reducing its footprint in Europe. About 80,000 U.S. troops were stationed there across roughly 30 bases as of 2025, according to congressional testimony from the head of U.S. European Command cited in the report.

In May, the Pentagon announced it would pull about 5,000 troops out of Germany. Then in June, the U.S. cut the forces it would make available to NATO in a crisis. A review of U.S. forces in Europe is underway.

Defense ministers from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the U.K. said Monday in a joint statement that Europe “must assume greater responsibility for its own security.” They also called the U.S. “an indispensable Ally.”

Arms sales at risk

A sudden pullout would put allies in a bind, U.K. interviewees told RAND. In the short term, they would have little choice but to buy off-the-shelf equipment, often from U.S. suppliers, to fill gaps. Over the long term, broken trust would push allies toward European or homegrown alternatives, the authors concluded.

In Britain’s case, a sudden withdrawal would “accelerate the UK’s reorientation away from U.S. defense equipment toward sovereign or European alternatives,” those interviewees said. The authors expect Germany, and possibly Poland, to reach a similar conclusion.

Germany has bought U.S. arms partly to keep Washington committed to Europe. A rapid, uncoordinated withdrawal would suggest that approach had failed, and Berlin “may not see a benefit to continuing to privilege U.S. firms for arms sales or other deals,” the authors write.

“Such a shift would be detrimental to the U.S. defense industrial base, which benefits from exports that help create economies of scale,” the report said. “The main cause of this shift would be perceptions of U.S. reliability as an ally rather than the loss of any specific U.S. military capabilities.”

The U.S. supplied 58% of the major weapons European NATO members imported from 2021 to 2025, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, down from 64% in the institute’s previous five-year count.

In Monday’s statement, the five ministers also committed to “closer defence-industrial cooperation.” But British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said Oct. 15 that buying European or American equipment “should not be an either/or choice.” British industry produces about 15% of each F-35, he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

A sudden U.S. pullout would likely have little impact on how much France buys from U.S. defense companies, as Paris is already “the most committed of the four allies to reducing reliance on the United States,” the study said.

During wartime, however, French officials told RAND their military would still count on U.S. forces for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; long-range precision strike; fighter jets; air and missile defense; command and control, the systems used to direct forces in combat; and logistics.

Until France can fill those gaps itself, Paris would see a sudden U.S. pullout as a sign Washington cares little about its allies’ security, the authors wrote. That could make the two countries less likely to agree on military plans or diplomatic initiatives.

Intelligence sharing

The authors also looked at what would happen if the U.S. moved to normalize relations with Russia while the war in Ukraine continued, without addressing Europe’s security concerns. In that case, allies might limit intelligence sharing and joint military planning, fearing leaks to Moscow.

Some allies have already begun limiting intelligence sharing over other disagreements with Washington, albeit modestly, the report said. It cites U.K. concerns about U.S. military operations in the Caribbean, and Dutch concerns about U.S. policy toward Russia, which led both countries to reduce some intelligence sharing.

Still, none of the four allies would side with Russia or China on security under any scenario RAND examined, the authors concluded.

“Some strategists’ fears about allies aligning with Russia as the United States draws down are overblown,” the authors wrote. The four countries and Italy called Russia “the most acute and long-term threat to Euro-Atlantic security and stability” in Monday’s statement.

Spending gap

A limited pullback is more likely to spur allies to spend more and work more closely together, the authors found. All four have committed to NATO’s target of at least 3.5% of gross domestic product, or GDP, for core defense spending by 2035, according to the alliance’s 2025 summit declaration.

Poland has more than doubled defense spending as a share of GDP since 2014 and is aiming for 5% this year, the report said. Germany plans to spend €649 billion on its military over five years, raising spending from 2.4% of GDP in 2025 to 3.5% by 2029, Defense News reported.

France and the U.K. will struggle to meet NATO’s target because of high debt and slow growth, the report said. French public debt rose from 98% of GDP in 2019 to an average of 112% from 2020 to 2024. One interviewee called the budget problem France’s “Achilles’ heel” in rearming.

The U.K. Ministry of Defence asked for an extra £28 billion to cover a shortfall through 2030 and received £15 billion, the report said. The British government said Oct. 28 it would fully fund its Defence Investment Plan, Reuters reported.

Troops as leverage

The authors also warn against using troop levels to reward or punish individual allies. Questionnaires the Pentagon sent allies as part of the review asked about their defense spending and support for U.S. foreign policy priorities. Some allies read that as a sign troop decisions would hinge on political alignment, the report said.

Poland has already seen how quickly U.S. troop decisions can change. In May, the Pentagon abruptly canceled a planned deployment of about 4,000 soldiers to Poland. President Donald Trump later pledged to send 5,000 troops at an unspecified date. Warsaw credited the reversal partly to reminding Washington that Poland is a “model ally” that buys U.S. systems.

The authors said the episode demonstrates both the payoff Poland expects and the weakness of its approach: U.S. troop levels and commitments rest on “abrupt, easily reversible decisions.”

Call for a plan

“NATO 3.0 is a vision for a reduced U.S. role and reallocation of resources. But there is no concrete, long-term plan,” the report said.

The authors urge the administration to work with allies to set how many U.S. troops stay in Europe in peacetime and how many the U.S. would send in a war, along with a timeline to get there.

It is unclear whether the Europe review will produce such a plan. Under a Pentagon document seen by Reuters in August, the review is due to give Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at least four sets of troop options by Nov. 6. The full review is due in December.

Predictable long-term plans that give allies a say “could sustain a continued, if reimagined, transatlantic partnership,” the authors wrote. Adding that treating troops and commitments as bargaining chips, by contrast, “could undercut regional cooperation and, in turn, NATO 3.0’s goal of European strength.”

The framework, announced Thursday, includes initial spare parts plus 10 years of modification kits and sustainment. It also covers orders from foreign customers, with production continuing at 156 aircraft per year, according to Lockheed.

In exchange for the decade-long commitment, Lockheed will self-fund at least $7 billion in initiatives supporting the F-35 program, the Pentagon said.

“With the greater certainty that comes from the U.S. government’s transformative approach to F-35 production and sustainment, we can make the upfront investments needed to expand capacity, improve efficiency, and build a more resilient supply chain,” Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said in a statement. “That’s good for the taxpayer, good for our suppliers and, most importantly, good for the United States and its allies.”

Neither announcement gave a total value or per-jet price. Lockheed said the F-35 Joint Program Office and the company will work out terms, pricing and schedules in a formal contract if Congress approves a multiyear buy and provides the money in the coming months.

A multiyear buy lets the Pentagon purchase a weapon across several years under one contract instead of negotiating annually, which generally lowers unit cost. Lockheed said the framework is expected to save taxpayers billions of dollars through “long-term pricing and industry volume discounts.”

“We have fundamentally changed how we stabilize the American defense industrial base to produce at speed and scale,” said Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment. “This agreement with Lockheed Martin proves it. By aligning financial incentives with actual performance, we are ensuring our warfighters are equipped with the lethal capabilities they need to fight and win.”

Neither the Pentagon nor Lockheed described those performance-based incentives.

At 850 jets over 10 years, the framework averages 85 U.S. aircraft per year. That matches the Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 request for 85 F-35s across the services. In fiscal 2026, Congress funded just 47 F-35s.

The framework comes days after the Air Force told Congress it needs 1,509 combat-coded fighters, or jets assigned to combat units, by 2035. The request came in a force structure report sent Oct. 16. F-35As would make up about 40% of that fleet.

The House and Senate versions of the annual defense policy bill would both let the Pentagon sign multiyear F-35 contracts. The House passed its bill in July. Senate Democrats blocked theirs from reaching the floor that month, and leaders have put it off until after the November midterm elections. The framework can’t become a contract until both bills pass and are merged into a single law.

The framework also faces a funding hurdle. Congress has not yet approved a full-year defense budget. A stopgap funding law keeping the government open through Dec. 11 holds spending at last year’s levels and generally bars the Pentagon from starting new programs or multiyear buys.

Lockheed pitched the framework as a readiness fix, saying steady orders will improve the F-35’s mission-capable rate, the percentage of time jets can fly at least one assigned mission.

“Predictable demand from long-term contracts with suppliers will enable bulk procurement of raw materials and critical parts, slashing turnaround times and reducing logistics bottlenecks,” Lockheed said. “This will result in better mission-capable rates by eliminating the annual contracting cycle that has historically strained the industrial base.”

A Government Accountability Office report in June found that the rate fell from 67% in fiscal 2021 to 44% in fiscal 2025, while the share of time jets could fly all assigned missions dropped from 38% to 25%. Later that month, F-35 program chief Lt. Gen. Gregory Masiello told senators the fleet had outgrown its support system.

The F-35 deal follows a string of Pentagon framework agreements aimed at speeding up weapons production.

In January, Lockheed reached an agreement to speed PAC-3 MSE output, then signed another weeks later to quadruple THAAD interceptor production. The THAAD deal led to a contract worth more than $35 billion in June. Last year’s defense bills had already approved multiyear buys for both interceptors.

On Oct. 19, the Pentagon announced a framework with BAE Systems covering up to seven years of buys of Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System laser-guidance kits.

Lockheed said the program will support 317,000 U.S. jobs and roughly $79 billion in yearly economic activity over the decade.

Lt. Gen. David Tabor, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, described the report at an Oct. 20 Pentagon roundtable with reporters, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported. Reporters did not receive a copy of the report, and the service did not respond to a Defense News request for it by publication.

F-35s would make up about 40% of the fleet by 2035, up from about 30% today, according to figures Tabor cited. F-22s and their replacement, the F-47, would make up about 20%. The service plans to replace its F-22s with about the same number of F-47s, Tabor said.

F-15s and F-16s would split the remaining 40% about evenly. The figures exclude A-10s, which are not currently part of the Air Force’s plans for 2035.

Tabor said the analysis was based on what regional commanders say they need to carry out their missions at medium risk. The military rates risk on four levels: low, medium, significant and high. At medium risk, forces would likely achieve their goals but could be strained in long operations.

The analysis began before the war with Iran this year and was not driven by it, Tabor said. He cautioned that the 1,509 figure is likely to change with world events, new requirements and the rise of new technology.

Reaching the goal depends on Congress funding the jets and on Lockheed Martin and Boeing building them in time, Tabor said. Industry has “assured us that they can, and we believe them,” he told reporters, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Air Force officials have long said the service needs to buy 72 fighters a year. The fiscal 2027 request seeks 38 F-35s and 24 F-15EXs, a total of 62. Tabor said purchases can increase over time.

The budget counts on $2.34 billion to pay for 14 of the 38 F-35s. That money would come through a reconciliation bill, a budget package that can pass the Senate with a simple majority. If that bill fails, Tabor said, the service could pull money from other programs or push the buys to 2028.

The Air Force is seeking multiyear contracts for the F-35 and F-15EX, a request now pending in Congress. Tabor said such deals would give industry more stability to expand production.

Older F-16s reach the end of their service lives in the mid-2030s, Tabor said, but the service has not decided whether to buy a new-build F-16, tentatively called the F-16G. That decision likely won’t come in the fiscal 2028 budget, he said.

The 1,509 figure does not count Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCAs, the drone wingmen that will fly alongside crewed fighters. The Air Force plans to field 500 CCAs by 2032. Tabor said the drones are not yet changing the fighter requirement but could reduce it in future reports.

APKWS kits convert unguided 2.75-inch rockets into laser-guided munitions. All four services field them, and the weapon has become a cheaper alternative to air-to-air missiles for shooting down drones.

Congress still has to approve and fund the buy, the department said. BAE said it will increase production while the two sides work out a multiyear contract. Neither side announced the deal’s cost.

The framework also outlines a path to increase output to 35,000 kits a year for U.S. allies. The department said that added capacity will come online as partner nations formally request kits through the Foreign Military Sales program.

“By securing multi-year demand, this agreement keeps production lines running at capacity, provides our forces with interceptor inventory, and flips the cost calculus in the taxpayer’s favor,” Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said in the announcement.

BAE, which builds the kits in Hudson, New Hampshire, and Austin, Texas, said in February that it had delivered its 100,000th kit.

The 25,000 figure in this framework agreement matches capacity BAE has cited before. A company official said in 2023 that APKWS was in full-rate production with room to grow to 25,000 units a year.

“APKWS delivers proven, reliable and affordable precision at scale to counter evolving threats and ensure our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage,” said Tom Arseneault, president and CEO of BAE Systems Inc.

The Navy’s current five-year APKWS contract with BAE, awarded in August 2025, is worth up to $1.74 billion. It covers up to 55,000 kits for the Navy, the Army and foreign customers, with work expected to be completed by December 2031.

Among allied buyers, Saudi Arabia won State Department approval in July for a possible $1.96 billion package that includes up to 20,000 APKWS kits, split evenly between air-to-air and air-to-ground versions. Italy is also weighing a buy of 5,031 kits for counter-drone defense.

The APKWS agreement is the latest in a series of framework deals the Pentagon has signed this year to boost munitions production.

In January, Lockheed Martin agreed to more than triple production of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or PAC-3 MSE, interceptor.

In March, BAE and Lockheed agreed to quadruple production of seekers for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptor. A separate THAAD framework signed in January led to a June contract worth more than $35 billion for the interceptors themselves.

The Oct. 5 revision adds jets damaged in a September Iranian strike on a base in Jordan, helicopter losses drawn from a Pentagon inspector general report and a sharply higher count of lost Reaper drones.

CRS cautions that the total is not a count of destroyed aircraft, noting, “Some damaged aircraft may have been returned to active service.”

The research service works from public information, drawing on news reports and statements from the Defense Department and U.S. Central Command. This version also draws on the inspector general report published Sept. 14. CRS said its count “may remain subject to revision due to multiple factors, which may include classification, ongoing combat activity, and attribution.”

The deadliest loss on the list remains the March 12 crash of a KC-135 Stratotanker. Two of the seven KC-135s in the report were involved in an incident over friendly airspace. One crashed in western Iraq, killing all six crew members. The other made an emergency landing at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, Defense News reported. Central Command said the loss was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

A Navy squadron commander was lost when one of the newly listed aircraft went down. An MH-60S Sea Hawk from the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush made an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea on July 1. The Navy said there was no indication of hostile action.

Three of the four crew members aboard were recovered. The Navy identified the fourth as Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards, commanding officer of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5, and suspended its search for him July 5 after more than 102 hours. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao directed that Edwards be posthumously promoted to captain.

Several of the aircraft on the list trace to the April mission to recover the two-person crew of an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down over Iran. Both crew members were rescued in separate search-and-rescue operations. That jet is one of 12 Strike Eagles on the list.

An A-10 Thunderbolt II supporting the rescue mission crashed after taking enemy fire, Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine said. The pilot flew the damaged jet out of Iran and ejected over friendly territory, where he was quickly recovered.

An HH-60W Jolly Green II combat rescue helicopter in the same task force was damaged by small-arms fire, Caine said.

The second crew member was rescued nearly two days later in a separate special operations mission. Two MC-130J Commando II transports that had flown the commandos into Iran suffered a mechanical failure and could not take off, Reuters reported.

U.S. troops pulled the rescue force out in stages and destroyed the two transports and four helicopters rather than leave sensitive equipment behind. The inspector general later said U.S. forces destroyed four AH-6 Little Bird helicopters during rescue operations, likely those four. The May version listed no Little Birds, a gap Defense News noted at the time.

Iranian strikes on two air bases account for 15 of the aircraft on the list, all damaged on the ground.

An Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, damaged five KC-135s on the ground in mid-March, Defense News reported, citing two U.S. officials who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. Iran hit the base again on March 27, damaging an E-3 Sentry in what the CRS report, citing a September article, described as “a direct hit.”

The seven KC-135s on the list come from a fleet that was already stretched thin. As of March, the Air Force had 373 KC-135s and 103 KC-46As, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said in a June report. GAO found the fleet fell short of the Air Force’s own readiness goals every year from fiscal 2019 through 2025.

The E-3 fleet is far smaller. The Air Force operated only 16 E-3s before the war began, and six had deployed to Prince Sultan. CRS cites the E-3 as an example of aging, scarce aircraft where losses could leave the military short elsewhere in the world, and suggests Congress may want to weigh that risk.

The other base struck by Iran, Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, came under ballistic missile attack Sept. 8-9. The second A-10 on the list lost a wing, and eight F-15Es took light damage and were returned to service, a U.S. official told Reuters.

The official said U.S. forces fired roughly 30 Patriot interceptors to defend the base. Three Army soldiers were killed there in a separate missile attack in July.

Drones account for most of the increase since May. The report now counts 45 MQ-9 Reapers lost, citing an Aug. 13 article in which three U.S. officials said the military had lost “at least 45.” That is up from as many as 30 destroyed through June 30, according to the inspector general report.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach has called the Reaper perhaps the most valuable player of Operation Epic Fury. The Air Force had 135 MQ-9As as of May, down from 351 in fiscal 2022 as the service retired older models and lost aircraft to accidents and combat, according to a separate Sept. 23 CRS report.

The service had already stopped buying the drone in favor of a planned successor, and its fiscal 2027 request included no money for new Reapers, Military Times reported.

The remaining three of the 12 Strike Eagles on the list were the war’s first aircraft losses. A Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet mistakenly shot them down over Kuwait on March 1-2, Defense News reported. All six aircrew ejected and were recovered, Central Command said.

The list also includes an Army AH-64 Apache that the inspector general said was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials said a Navy drone boat rescued its two-person crew after the June 8 crash, calling it the first rescue of its kind.

Iranian ground fire also damaged an F-35A Lightning II during a combat mission over Iran on March 19, forcing an emergency landing at a U.S. air base in the region. The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot was in stable condition, Central Command spokesman Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said at the time.

The report also counts three MQ-1 drones downed by Iran, one confirmed by Central Command in May and at least two more reported by U.S. officials in September. Central Command has not specified which variant was lost. The Air Force retired its MQ-1 Predators in 2018, but the Army still flies the related MQ-1C Gray Eagle.

A Navy MQ-4C Triton surveillance drone crashed April 9 at an undisclosed location, according to Naval Safety Command data, which did not give a cause.

The revision leaves unresolved two discrepancies Defense News flagged in May.

The report still lists the E-3 as damaged. Multiple outlets reported the aircraft was destroyed. Photos published by The War Zone purportedly show tail 81-0005 with its rear fuselage burned through, and Air & Space Forces Magazine reported the damage likely renders the aircraft unrepairable.

The report also still counts one damaged HH-60W. At an April 6 news conference, Caine described two helicopters in the rescue flight taking fire, with a crew member on the trailing aircraft suffering a minor injury.

The war’s cost has also climbed significantly since May. Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst told House appropriators on May 12 that it was closer to $29 billion. The Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, estimated in September that the war had cost the Pentagon about $38 billion through Aug. 1.

That total includes the cost of replacing equipment lost in battle, which CBO put at $1.9 billion, or as much as $3.3 billion if the Pentagon sought emergency funding to replace all of it. Among that equipment is a THAAD missile defense radar Iran destroyed. CBO said its estimate relied on government databases and public reports because the Defense Department did not respond to its requests for information.

The White House asked Congress in June for $87.6 billion in emergency funding, including $67.1 billion for the Pentagon. Congress has not approved the request.

The announcement comes during a busy week for Boeing. On Tuesday, the U.S. Navy selected the company to build its F/A-XX sixth-generation carrier-based fighter under a development contract worth more than $20 billion. The same day, the Air Force signed a $2.38 billion order for 22 more F-15EX Eagle II fighters.

The Grey Wolf contract, worth roughly $85 million and including some sustainment work, was awarded Sept. 25, a Boeing spokesperson told Defense News. The company expects to deliver the four helicopters in 2028 or 2029.

The order brings the total number under contract to 42, with 27 already delivered. Six of the earlier helicopters were test aircraft, and the rest came from production lots ordered before this first full-rate lot.

“This milestone validates key readiness levels for Grey Wolf and supports the service’s fielding plans to secure vital national assets across the country’s strategic missile fields,” Kathleen Jolivette, vice president and general manager of Vertical Lift Programs at Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said in the company release.

Air Force Global Strike Command announced Aug. 31 that the Grey Wolf reached initial operational capability, or IOC, Aug. 10, meaning the first crews and helicopters are cleared to fly real-world missions.

The IOC declaration allows the Grey Wolf to begin taking over intercontinental ballistic missile security from the aging UH-1N Huey, which it will replace at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming; and Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.

The MH-139A is a militarized version of Leonardo’s commercial AW139. Global Strike Command says it is nearly 50% faster than the Huey, carries twice as many troops and has improved defensive systems.

Two helicopters from the 40th Helicopter Squadron flew the Grey Wolf’s first operational mission Jan. 8 at Malmstrom. During the six-hour mission, they escorted missile maintenance and armored security vehicles to and from a launch facility more than 100 miles east of the base without refueling.

“For more than half a century, the UH-1N Huey has been a key element of our Intercontinental Ballistic Missile security, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the crews who flew and maintained it over all these years,” said Gen. S.L. Davis, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command. “Securing these missiles demands our best efforts and the MH-139 will significantly improve our capabilities.”

IOC comes years late. The Air Force picked Boeing for the $2.4 billion Huey replacement contract in September 2018, and officials expected to reach the milestone in 2021. Testing delays, FAA certification setbacks and integration problems stretched the timeline, Military Times reported in January.

The program has shrunk over the years. The Air Force once planned to buy as many as 84 Grey Wolves, with some intended to shuttle officials around Washington. To meet spending caps in the 2023 debt-ceiling deal, the Air Force dropped that VIP mission in its fiscal 2025 budget and cut the buy to 42.

With fewer helicopters sharing the program’s costs, the unit cost rose past the critical threshold under the Nunn-McCurdy law, which forces the Pentagon to justify or cancel programs whose unit costs climb too high. The Pentagon later raised the buy to at least 56, bringing the price back under the critical threshold, according to a Selected Acquisition Report released in late August 2024.

For fiscal 2027, the Air Force asked for four more. The House-passed defense policy bill and the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version would allow eight, double the request, but neither has become law. The House appropriators’ spending bill, which actually provides the money, covers only four.

HH-60W combat rescue helicopters will take over the VIP mission instead of Grey Wolves, replacing Hueys that the Air Force says lack the speed, range and lift to provide cost-effective support.

The five-year contract, which includes two option years, is part of the Pentagon’s Arsenal of Freedom campaign to bolster weapons production. The department awarded it Sept. 25 and announced it Monday with RTX, Raytheon’s parent company.

The department said the award is a joint buy by the Air Force, the Navy and allies.

“We are working across the defense industry to ramp production and build the Arsenal of Freedom,” said Michael Duffey, the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, in a statement. “This award strengthens our ability to equip the Joint Force and our allies with a proven air-to-air capability, ensuring our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage.”

The $20.7 billion ceiling dwarfs the Pentagon’s previous record AMRAAM award, a $3.5 billion contract issued in July 2025. That deal covered missiles for the Air Force, the Navy and allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The department thanked Congress for multiyear procurement authority, which lets the Pentagon commit to buying missiles over several years instead of one at a time. It said it hopes lawmakers will provide more authority and funding to sustain production.

Congress hasn’t yet funded the full deal, according to Reuters, which called the award provisional. Industry executives have warned that defense contractors may hold off on big investments in parts and factories until lawmakers act, Reuters reported.

The award comes as the Pentagon works to rebuild munitions stockpiles drawn down by the war with Iran.

The contract follows five framework agreements Raytheon signed with the department in February, which set long-term production targets ahead of formal contracts. Under those deals, RTX committed to raising annual output to more than 1,000 Tomahawks, at least 1,900 AMRAAMs and more than 500 Standard Missile-6 interceptors.

Neither the Pentagon nor RTX specified how many missiles the new contract buys or an associated annual production rate.

Raytheon President Phil Jasper said in a statement that the company continues to invest in its workforce, supply chain and facilities to “rapidly scale production capacity and meet surging demand” from the Air Force, Navy and international customers.

RTX said it nearly doubled production of AMRAAM and other munitions in 2025 compared with 2024 and is now exploring international co-production.

According to RTX, AMRAAM is the world’s most widely deployed air-to-air missile, fielded by 44 countries, and the primary interceptor for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System. Reuters reported that the ground-based air defense system defends the Washington area and is used by more than a dozen other countries.

The Pentagon is also preparing to build AMRAAM’s successor. Earlier this month, the department signed a framework deal with Lockheed Martin to boost production of the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, which is being developed for the Air Force and Navy to outrange and eventually replace AMRAAM.

“As a part of the ongoing civilian restructure within Air Education and Training Command, civilian positions will no longer be assigned to China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI),” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to Defense News on Tuesday. “The CASI mission continues, with the organization leveraging assigned military service members to accomplish its objectives.”

Civilians affected by the restructuring will stay in their current positions until further notice and will be evaluated for reassignment, the spokesperson said.

CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney described the fallout differently. All of the institute’s civilian billets are being eliminated, “effectively ending CASI,” he said Tuesday. No military positions are affected, he said, noting the institute has two master sergeant billets and a deputy position that has remained unfilled for over a year.

Asked how the cut would impact the institute’s research, Mulvaney said, “All of the research has always been done by the civilian personnel.”

According to Mulvaney, the decision was made by the previous Air University commander and forwarded by AETC under a requirement to cut civilian jobs across the Department of the Air Force. The quota originated with the Air Force’s manpower and reserve affairs office, he said.

The cut “had nothing to do with CASI’s mission,” Mulvaney said, but due to the fact that the institute does not produce professional military education students, which is Air University’s primary mission.

Asked whether another organization would take on CASI’s China aerospace research, Mulvaney said, “Nothing has been identified.” It is also unknown whether CASI’s reports, translations and course materials will remain publicly available, or whether its website will remain online, he said.

The cuts became public Monday, when a note from a CASI civilian circulated on social media. The employee wrote that every CASI civilian position would be unfunded as of Oct. 1 and that the staff would become “surplus federal employees,” a federal personnel term for workers whose positions are being eliminated.

The note described CASI’s future as “uncertain,” adding that “CASI punched above its weight given our small team and budget.”

Will Yale, a Navy surface warfare officer who posted the note on X, wrote that it was “extremely unfortunate and regrettable” that the Department of the Air Force “has decided to shutter” CASI. He described the institute as one of the most prominent in its field and wrote that it had “measurably increased knowledge about the PLA” inside the U.S. government and outside it.

Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College professor and CASI associate, noted that the news is “specific to CASI only.” Mulvaney said the action does not affect the Navy’s China Maritime Studies Institute, the Army War College’s China Landpower Studies Center or the Marine Corps War College’s China Warfighting Initiative.

CASI was established in 2017 and formally chartered on June 15, 2021, by then-Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. The charter tasked the institute with studying “everything that flies” in China, calling CASI the Air Force’s leading center for the study of China and its aerospace capabilities. It has offices at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, and Fort McNair in Washington.

The institute’s research was unclassified by design, according to its charter, which directed CASI to use publicly available native-language sources and publish its findings. CASI translated PLA textbooks and doctrine, published reference primers and ran a free three-day PLA Fundamentals course that required no security clearance.

Its biennial CASI Conference, held in May at National Defense University, drew more than 250 attendees and featured the release of the fifth edition of its “PLA Aerospace Power” primer, CASI said.

In 2025, nearly 80,000 people visited CASI’s website and downloaded more than 50,000 reports, according to the institute. The site remains live and posted a new paper on Sept. 21, “From Vision to Vigilance: How Beijing’s Space-Science Roadmap Builds a Real-Time Kill Web.”

CASI had already lost staff a year ago. In an October 2025 quarterly update, the institute said a Defense Department efficiency drive had eliminated its director of education and education program manager positions as the Department of the Air Force was “reorganizing, inactivating, and realigning organizations.” CASI said things were “in flux” and it would provide a status update once it knew more.

Ryan Fedasiuk, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, called the move “a devastating loss for the analytic community” and an “incomprehensible decision.”

The Air Force said CASI’s mission will continue, with military members carrying on the work Mulvaney said civilians have always done.

The wing said the deployment, in support of the Air Force Weapons Instructor Course, produced “a historical milestone, dropping live bombs from operational F-15EXs for the first time.”

The images show jets on the ramp and in the air on Aug. 27, some carrying a live 500-pound Mk-82 on the centerline station and others carrying an AN/AAQ-33 Sniper targeting pod. The Air Force has not said how many bombs were dropped.

The unit first dropped inert bombs in May at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The wing announced in July it dropped 24 BDU-50s in the 500-pound class and 12 BDU-56s in the 2,000-pound class, all concrete-filled practice bombs, across 10 missions.

The Mountain Home drops were the first of any kind by an operational F-15EX unit.

The 142nd flew the F-15C, an air-superiority fighter, before receiving the Air Force’s first operational F-15EX in June 2024. Three of the unit’s pilots already had air-to-ground experience and built a compressed syllabus for the rest of the wing’s pilots.

A small group of loaders with prior bomb-loading experience became certified to load bombs on F-15Es at Nellis earlier this year, then trained the loaders who went to Mountain Home.

The wing’s July statement said live-bombing at Nellis would follow as the next step toward the unit becoming air-to-ground mission capable.

“It’s about building a dynamic and versatile organization, and we are just getting started,” Col. Joshua Hovanas, commander of the 142nd Operations Group, said in a statement.

The Eagle II is rated for a 29,500-pound payload and can carry up to a dozen air-to-air missiles. The jets photographed at Nellis flew without conformal fuel tanks, which carry additional weapons stations.

The planned F-15EX fleet has grown since a fiscal 2023 budget request proposed capping the buy at 80 aircraft. In April, the service said it now plans a fleet of 267.