Allvin: It’s make or break time. America needs more Air Force.

Last month, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) released videos of not just one, but two new sixth-generation aircraft. And while the US Air Force was not surprised by this development, it is my sincere hope that this got America’s attention and serves as a wakeup call, because we need the nation’s assistance advancing the Air Force with the sense of strategic urgency this moment requires.

With the character of war changing before our eyes, it is more important than ever to provide the airpower America’s joint forces need to deter conflict and win the fight if called upon. But that’s easier said than done, because our service lacks the required funding and resources, even as the potential for near-term conflict grows.

In short, America needs more Air Force and it needs it now.

The PRC has invested in a first-rate Air Force and has instituted realistic training programs rivaling our own. The fact that these advances have been built on intellectual property stolen from our industrial base (and, on occasion, with the help of western-trained pilots-for hire) tells us we still maintain an advantage worthy of their dogged pursuit. But to leverage these advantages, we must invest in them.

Today, our aircraft fleet is smaller and older than any time in history, and the gap between our high-end combat training and that of our pacing competitors has closed dramatically. As the arc of the threat increases daily, it is my assessment this risk is unacceptable and will continue to rise without substantially increased investment in airpower — one of our remaining sources of competitive advantage.

This accumulating risk has been insidious in its growth. Decisions made since the end of the Cold War — weighed against other priorities of the moment — made sense one budget at a time, but the aggregate effect is the eroding advantage of American airpower. It’s past time to stop that erosion.

More Air Force doesn’t just mean buying more expensive “stuff.” It means an appropriate mix of exquisite and low-cost capabilities to provide dilemmas for adversaries and stay on the right side of the cost curve. It means funding a nimble force strategically postured on the doorstep of our adversary to asymmetrically deny its ability to rapidly seize territory.

More Air Force means funding a family of medium- and long-range penetrating airframes coupled with modern munitions, survivable refueling, human-machine teaming, and a hardened warfighting network — a combination designed to protect American interests and capable of disabling our adversary’s ability to defend themselves.

More Air Force means defending those systems and supporting them through a robust logistics chain.

More Air Force means backstopping all these elements with a nuclear force that is modernized to surpass the rapid growth of the PRC’s nuclear arsenal and the reconstitution of Russia’s vast nuclear arms.

These elements are a decisive combination, but to unleash them, we need the nation to invest in more Air Force — because we cannot do this as a service on our own, though we have tried.

The US Air Force has a few key “fiscal levers” we can pull to become more efficient and effective. Like any good corporate leadership team, we want to invest in a product that dominates the market, provides a strong return on investment, and does so at a level of risk we can justify. Unfortunately, my predecessors and I have been unable to make these investments because we are unable to move any of these levers in a meaningful way.

For example, we have roughly 30 percent excess infrastructure across the enterprise, but we are prevented from seriously considering a meaningful reduction, as a needed Base Realignment and Closure effort has been politically unpalatable for decades. Imagine car manufacturers holding on to 30 percent unused manufacturing floor space — they would go bankrupt. I love our bases and the communities they support, but we need the ability to make tough choices and free up dollars where we can.

We also lack control of our own force structure, which is the oldest in our history, as we are blocked from divesting aircraft and programs ill-suited for today’s threat environment and even more so for the one emerging. Our fleet today contains aircraft as old as if we had fought the Vietnam War with Wright Flyers.

Meanwhile, we cannot reduce personnel as our overseas commitments and operational tempo remain high. Simply put, America’s Air Force has been on a war-time footing since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The post-Cold War demands for efficiency, coupled with the effects of sequestration a decade ago and an inability to keep up with personnel costs which are rising faster than inflation, have left us with a force already 20,000-30,000 Airmen short of our requirements. Commanders rightly ask, “Where are the rest of the Airmen I’m supposed to have in my unit to accomplish my missions?” My current answer, sadly, is “They’re not coming anytime soon.”

There is one remaining lever and we have pulled it year after year to mitigate the lack of action on the issues above. This lever is labelled “Mission Readiness” and tugging it time and time again has put us where we are today. It has become the most “convenient” of options because the cuts can be broken into smaller pieces, more digestible in the moment with fewer immediate political consequences. We know what a hollow force looks like — we’ve been there and should never go back.

The solution is clear: We must be allowed to grow. That requires significant financial investment on behalf of the American people. Yes, major investments are a tough ask right now. But this is about the security of the nation, and as we saw last month, China is hellbent on lapping us in the skies. It cannot be allowed to do so.

Moreover, America’s sons and daughters deserve the best training, weapons, and equipment we can provide so they can fly, fight, win, and come home. They don’t have all those right now.

To fix that, our Airmen and America itself need more Air Force.

Gen. David W. Allvin is the 23rd Chief of Staff of the Air Force.