The Farnborough Airshow opens today with the British government yet to publish its “Modernising Defence Programme (MDP),” as previously expected. But the UK’s future Combat Air Strategy, which is an important part of the MDP, might be revealed this week at the show by government ministers. There might also be some indication of whether the Royal Air Force (RAF) will upgrade or replace its Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) fleet.

The MDP is in essence yet another review of what operations and acquisitions are affordable. A five-year plan set out in 2015 has proved unachievable, and UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has been lobbying hard for extra resources. But with Whitehall consumed by the Brexit issue and other funding priorities, he might not succeed.  

At last week’s Air Power Conference in London, Britain's military leadership was also justifying the MDP as a timely and required update. “The threats we identified in 2015 have diversified, proliferated and intensified rather more rapidly than we anticipated,” Gen. Sir Nick Carter, chief of the defense staff, told delegates. “Increasingly assertive and aggressive states are utilizing techniques below the threshold of what we would once have called conventional war,” he continued, in an obvious reference to Russia. Meanwhile, the threat of terrorism from violent extremist organizations remains, he noted.

Carter looked forward to the MDP placing UK defense “on a more sustainable footing” with properly defined "jointery" between the armed services and their domains. Chief of the Air Staff Sir Stephen Hillier made similar points, but clearly called for more spending on the Royal Air Force (RAF) “to build more resilience, more strength in depth, into a current front-line which is already exceptionally busy and hard-pressed.”

Hillier also talked of the need to consider next-generation combat air capability, beyond the Lockheed Martin F-35 now entering RAF service. The UK has world-class capabilities in platforms, propulsion, sensors, weapons, and system integration, he claimed. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Air Power Conference, he said the UK is “not going to follow where other nations go…we are going to draw them to us.”

This was a reference to the developing Franco-German political and industrial alliance for a Future Combat Air System (FCAS). Only last week, Dirk Hoke, the head of Airbus Defence and Space, said the UK could only join such an effort “once Brexit is clarified.” The maneuvering will continue this week at the Farnborough show—if the government makes a meaningful statement about the UK Combat Air Strategy.

But what would an FCAS look like? Hoke and others have referred to a “system of systems” involving multiple types of aircraft, swarms of drones controlled by artificial intelligence, and other advanced concepts. Of note, Hillier made clear for the first time the RAF believes an FCAS must be manned. “People have realized that it’s not that easy to [go unmanned] in demanding and contested environments,” he said. There are also moral and ethical issues, he added.