The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy could soon be tasked with exploring whether extending the range of existing AIM-120 and AIM-9 air-to-air missiles is one path to help right-size stocks of those weapons. Congress is pushing for a broader assessment of U.S. air-to-air missile inventories amid growing concerns that obligations in the Middle East and Ukraine are eating into key munition stocks that would be especially crucial for any future high-end fight with China.
An entire section dedicated to “Assessments of Inventory Requirements for Air-to-Air Missiles” is included in the latest iteration of the annual U.S. defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2025 Fiscal Year. The text of the bill, which represents a compromise between previous House and Senate drafts, was released this past weekend.
If passed and signed into law, the new NDAA would require the offices of the Secretaries of the Air Force and the Navy to “develop recommendations to adjust the planned mix of missiles, including an assessment of whether extending the range or capability of existing air-to-air missiles would better support combined combatant command requirements at medium risk” no later than April 1, 2025.
The air-to-air missile section would also prompt the Air Force and Navy Secretaries to do the following:
- “Assess planned deliveries of air-to-air missiles through 2029 and the total available missiles by type in each year through 2029.”
- “Assess combined requirements for air-to-air missiles to support operational plans of the United States Central Command, the United States Indo-Pacific Command, the United States Northern Command, and the United States European Command, at low, medium, and high risk.”
- “Consider emerging requirements for surface-to-air defense and collaborative combat aircraft and how those additional missions will affect inventory requirements for air-to-air missiles.”
- “Consider the sufficiency of planned acquisition for air-to-air missiles through 2029 to meet operational requirements.”
- “Consider whether continuing production of the advanced medium-range air-to-air missile [AMRAAM] program of record through 2029 would enhance available inventories of air-to-air missiles.”
The Air Force and Navy currently have two main air-to-air missile types in their inventories, the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the shorter-range AIM-9 Sidewinder. The two services are working together on a new longer-range air-to-air missile, the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM), details about which remain limited. The Navy has also fielded, at least on a limited level, an air-launched version of the multipurpose Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) called the AIM-174B, which you can read more about here. The Air Force has also been exploring other new air-to-air missile concepts, including compact and modular designs, in recent years.
The possibility of further extending the range of the AIM-9 and AIM-120 is particularly notable given that U.S. officials have publicly presented AIM-260 as being intended to meet the demand for increased reach in aerial combat. The Air Force has also said that the emergence of China’s PL-15 air-to-air missile was a key factor in prompting the development of the JATM, which is expected to have the same general form factor as the AMRAAM. China, as well as Russia, have been developing and fielding other even longer-range air-to-air missiles, along with airborne early warning aircraft and other capabilities that could help maximize the effectiveness of those weapons.
Increasing the range of existing missiles could be another valuable option. The stated goal had been to start fielding the AIM-260 JATM by 2022, but there are no indications publicly that this has occurred despite very active testing of the missile. Whether this reflects issues with JATM’s development to date is unknown.
In the meantime, the latest subvariants of the current generation AIM-120D already have significantly greater reach than earlier AMRAAMs and there has been talk in the past of extending the range of the AIM-9X Sidewinder. Improved rocket motors with highly loaded propellants have been cited previously as a possible relatively low-effort way to increase the capability of existing missiles. The War Zone has explored in detail how a short-to-medium range variant or derivative of the AIM-9X, specifically, could offer a substantial boost in capability.
Building off existing designs would offer the additional benefit of being able to leverage present production pipelines and supply chains. Depending on what changes are required, older missiles could conceivably be upgraded to newer extended-range standards, as well.
At the same time, the other portions in the air-to-air missile section of the latest version of the Fiscal Year 2025 NDAA underscores broader concerns about present inventories and the ability to not only replenish them, but expand their size, in the coming years. As one of the other provisions highlights, the Air Force and Navy are, at least publicly, looking to stop buying AIM-120s entirely by the Fiscal Year 2028-2029 timeframe, which might align with current plans for the AIM-260.
“Up to this year, where most of the employment of weapons were really artillery pieces and short-range weapons, I had said not at all,” U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), said in November when asked about whether U.S. military aid to Ukraine and ongoing fighting in and around the Middle East was having a negative impact on U.S. military readiness in his part of the world. Paparo’s remarks came at an open event at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C.
“Now, with some of the Patriots that have been employed, some of the air-to-air missiles that have been employed, it is now eating into [our] stocks. … and to say otherwise would be dishonest,” he continued.
When it comes to air-to-air missiles, AIM-120s and AIM-9Xs have been expended in the course of operations to protect friendly warships and commercial vessels from attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen and in the defense of Israel. Ukraine has been making significant use of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems the U.S. military has helped provide, especially in combination with the AIM-120. NASAMS can also fire AIM-9Xs.
This latter point highlights the additional provision in the latest version of the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2025 that calls for looking at how “emerging requirements for surface-to-air defense” will have an impact on all this. The U.S. military operates a small number of NASAMS to help defend the airspace around Washington, D.C. The U.S. Army is also in the process of fielding a new short-range air defense system called Enduring Shield, the primary interceptor for which will be the AIM-9X, at least initially. That, in turn, will create additional immediate demand for more Sidewinders. There are similar questions about what increased fielding of the AIM-174B might mean for the SM-6 pipeline, which is already under strain.
As the latest version of the 2025 Fiscal Year NDAA highlights, questions about the mix of platforms that will be armed with air-to-air missiles in the future, including Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) type drones that the Air Force and Navy are pursuing, are another factor in these deliberations. Plans to deploy large numbers of CCAs, which the Air Force already envisions arming with AIM-120s and AIM-260s, together with crewed platforms would increase the total number of air-to-air missiles required for any single mission.
The Air Force’s plans for a new sixth-generation stealth crewed combat jet as part of its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative) are now extremely uncertain, while the Navy says it is pressing ahead in the development of a similar aircraft referred to as the F/A-XX. The Air Force has also laid out much larger concerns about the affordability of a host of top-tier air combat modernization efforts. There has even been talk about the possibility of expanding the aerial combat role of the forthcoming B-21 Raider stealth bomber to help meet future requirements.
However the Air Force and Navy might choose to proceed, calls to not only sustain, but increase air-to-air missile inventories are only likely to grow in the coming years, especially in the context of preparing for a potential high-end fight with China in the Pacific. Missiles like the AIM-120 and AIM-9X contain high-end and often unique components that can take months or even years to procure, which puts additional emphasis on making decision about new developments as soon as possible.
“We should replenish those [munition] stocks and then some. I was already dissatisfied with the magazine depth,” Adm. Paparo said bluntly at the Brookings event back in November. “I’m a little more dissatisfied with the magazine depth. You know, it’s a time for straight talk.”
Congress looks increasingly poised to demand the Air Force and Navy look into whether extended-range AIM-120s and AIM-9X, as well as other avenues, could help address future air-to-air missile needs.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com