Britains's World（英国に関連する国際情勢や安全保障を中心に取り扱う、専門家たちによるオンラインマガジン）が、GCAPやFCAS（英国の将来航空戦闘システムに関する取組）に関する討論会を開催しました。

本記事ではその討論会の和訳を記載します。（原文の置き場はこちら）

Future Combat Air: Countering threats and strengthening deterrence　
Season 2 | Episode 14
2026/1/24
https://www.britainsworld.org.uk/p/future-combat-air-countering-threats

【討論者一覧】

➀Britain's Worldの共同創設者（戦略担当）
ヴィクトリヤ・スタリッチ＝サムオリエネ
Viktorija Starych-Samuolienė

➁ジャーナリスト・作家・非常勤フェロー
ポール・メイソン
Paul Mason

➂英国国防省　FCAS担当ディレクター
リチャード・バーソン
Richard Berthon

➃BAEシステムズ　FCASシステム担当　マネージングディレクター
ヘルマン・ケーソン
Herman Claesen

【和訳（1/6）】

国防トーク「英国の優位性確保」シーズン2へようこそ。このポッドキャストは、地政学評議会が業界団体ADSグループと提携し、業界大手BE Systemsの支援を受けてお届けします。この番組では、英国の国防、技術、国家安全保障の課題を形作る重要な問題について引き続き考察していきます。

2026年の新年を迎えるにあたり、今後12ヶ月間の国防のあり方を決定づける重要なテーマ、すなわち「将来の戦闘機」について議論します。昨年発表された特別開発報告書（SDR）では、次世代航空戦力の導入が英国の軍事力と緊密な同盟国との連携をどのように強化できるかが概説されています。また、下院防衛委員会による注目すべき報告書の発表から1年が経ちました。この報告書では、将来の戦闘機というテーマにおいて注目すべきいくつかの重要な分野が概説されています。

ポールさん、今朝は私と一緒に番組に出演していただき、とても興奮しています。ビクトリアさん、私は1960年代生まれで、子供の頃にベッドの上にスピットファイアの小さなプラスチック製の模型をぶら下げていた世代ですから。ですから、将来の戦闘機がどうなるのか、とてもワクワクしています。もちろん、私たちは今、防衛投資計画を心待ちにし、あるいは期待を寄せている時期でもあります。そして、前回の放送から起こったもう一つの出来事は、防衛に関する議論がようやく始まったということです。CDS（情報機関）がようやく誕生し、MI6の長官も就任し、主要な政治家たちが脅威と能力について国民に非常に率直に語るようになりました。

まさにその通りです、ポール。今日は未来の戦闘機、つまり未来の飛行能力を実現するものに焦点を当てることに興奮しています。そして、この件について語ってくれる素晴らしいゲストが2人います。
私の左側にいるのは、英国国防省の未来戦闘機部長、リチャード・バーセン氏です。彼は2020年1月からこの役職に就いています。国防省（MOD）における将来戦闘機戦略およびプログラム実施の責任者として、将来戦闘機能力の取得プログラムと投資計画を担当しています。これには、将来戦闘機取得プログラムの策定、技術イニシアチブの実施、業界との提携、そして国際的な提携の推進が含まれます。彼は1998年にMODに入省し、MODとFCDOで幅広い役職を経験しました。

また、BE Systemsの将来戦闘機システム担当マネージングディレクターであるハーマン・クレイソン氏を新たに迎えることができ、大変嬉しく思います。現在、クレイソン氏は英国の次世代戦闘機能力の構築と、グローバル戦闘機プログラム（GCPAP）を通じて提供される第6世代戦闘機の設計・開発を担当するチームを率いています。クレイソン氏はまた、英国およびサウジアラビア、極東、ヨーロッパを含む国際市場で、30年にわたる将来戦闘機システムに関する多様なキャリアを積んできました。以前は、ドイツのミュンヘンに拠点を置くユーロファイターGmbHのCEOを務めていました。彼は2025年6月に設立された合弁会社Edgewingの会長も務めています。さて、皆様、ようこそ。

今朝はお越しいただき、誠にありがとうございます。ポールさん、まずはいくつかの略語の意味を明確にすることから始めたいと思います。

FCAS、防衛業界ではよく耳にする言葉です。私たちにとって、これは明らかに将来の戦闘航空システムを意味します。お二人とも、それが一体何なのか、できるだけ分かりやすく説明していただけますか？これは単なる物やプラットフォームではなく、システムなのですから。

リチャード、ヴィクトリア、ポール、どうもありがとうございます。本日はお越しいただき、ありがとうございます。将来の戦闘航空システムと世界的な戦闘航空プログラムについてお話しできることを大変嬉しく思います。この略語とタイトルの意味を少し紐解き、まずは基本的な「戦闘航空」から始めたいと思います。2つほどお伝えしたいことがあります。

まず、戦闘航空は航空戦力の役割のうち少なくとも3つを担っています。制空権は主に航空管制ですが、攻撃、情報収集、監視、偵察も行います。戦闘という要素は、これらの要素が危険地帯、つまり戦場に単独で、恐れることなく赴き、困難な脅威にさらされた環境下でも作戦行動し、生存し、戦闘できるという事実から生まれます。

そして、まさにこれが戦闘航空の要素、つまりシステムという要素の由来です。歴史的に、私たちは様々な航空機を用いてその機能を遂行してきました。最も広い意味では、ウェッジテールE7のようなワイドボディ機、ISR機能、空中給油機などを含む、戦闘航空システムのあらゆる要素を指します。つまり、これは戦闘機だけで構成されたシステムではなく、より広い意味では、はるかに広範な軍事システムです。しかし、私たちが担当するプログラムは、脅威にさらされる環境へと進軍するシステム、つまり戦闘航空システムに大きく焦点を当てています。つまり、将来のシステム、つまり戦闘航空システムなのです。

現在、タイフーンとF-35Bの機体を保有していますが、将来を見据えたシステムの在り方を検討しており、特に2035年以降の計画を視野に入れています。さらに、このシステムは、おそらくこれまでにないような統合的な方法で相互接続される必要があります。

システムの個々の要素を個別に検討し、それらを相互接続するのではなく、システム思考という観点から着手しています。効果を発揮するために、システムの構成要素をどのように設計するか？

そしてもちろん、それがどのようなものになるかは敵側にも決定権があります。おそらく、これは、どのような脅威に直面する可能性があるかをかなり明確に把握した上で設計されているのでしょう。私たちはA2AD、つまり拒否環境の時代に入りつつあります。このような環境にほとんど遭遇したことがなかった以前の航空工学と比べて、考え方はどのように変化するのでしょうか？

SDRでは、脅威が加速し、拡散している状況をかなり的確に描写できたと思います。おっしゃるA2AD（接近阻止）、領域拒否、防空能力といった能力は、より高度化し、より連携が強化され、射程距離もはるかに長くなっています。これが私たちの任務を極めて困難にしています。

さらに、電子戦や長距離通信の妨害といった問題も加わります。つまり、長距離、長距離を移動でき、そのような環境に侵入し、その環境で生き残り、そしておそらく最も重要なのは、任務を遂行するために安全に自己接続し、他の要素と接続できるシステムを設計しなければならないということです。そして、これは現在、世界中で非常に困難な状況になりつつあります。敵対国が過去数十年にわたり、戦闘航空システムとミサイル防衛システムに多額の投資を行ってきたことは周知の事実です。彼らはその重要性を認識しています。

ウクライナ紛争は、制空権を失った場合、あるいは制空権を確立できない場合に何が起こるかを如実に示しています。したがって、このような効果を達成できることは、英国本土と海外での軍事作戦の両方における英国の防衛にとって極めて重要です。


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(5/6の続き)

The digital enablers that underpin that, allowing us to work at paces that we could never have done in programs before. That combination of ingredients, all of them are required and we're working on them to plug them all together at the same time. It's incredibly challenging to do that, but exciting.
We sometimes use an analogy here, maybe not an entirely appropriate one, but to give you an idea, the amount of data that flows over the World Wide Web in Edinburgh in any day is about the same amount of data that the aircraft will compute at many points in time.
This is really fascinating. Well, I mean, the pace of innovation is really astonishing and it feels like everything is just speeding up each day. How do you future-proof something like GCAP when you think about not even years but decades ahead? Yes. What is the strategy?

So we're in a very critical phase of the program on the point you mentioned there. So the first thing we're doing today is making sure that all the physical attributes of the system are future proof. Will it be able to carry enough sensors in the future? Will it be able to carry enough payload in the future?
So the concepting work we're doing today in very close collaboration with the government requirements managers aims to address that. But the most powerful part of the answer to your question is the open systems architecture. So it is, again, I made a comparison with your phone. It constantly evolves. It segregates the application software from the operating software.
So it makes it easier when there will be new computing chips available to simply take the hardware out. and stick the other hardware in and the system will continue to operate in the same configuration that you saw before. You know, when you buy your next version of an Apple iPhone. Oh, I keep mine for years. 
Within minutes, you download your profile again, don't you? And all your applications and the world continues. It's the same kind of thinking. And I think that will be the most... powerful aspect to consider the future, prove the solution going forward. But we can't avoid it. We have to embrace it as industry. If we look, and we are very privileged from an industry point of view, where we're able to understand the threats from our customers very well, where the information is being shared, making that connectivity very early in the program. We have no choice but to create these kind of solutions within open architecture to make sure we can create the necessary agility and adaptability for the operators in the future.

And then building on that, we have to make some decisions about physics, as Herman said. Ultimately, you do need to design a vehicle. We are designing that for our understanding of how the threat's likely to evolve. And we think we've got a pretty good understanding of that. But we still have to make some decisions.
But only make the decisions you have to make now that you have to make now. Sorry, only make the decisions now that you have to make now. where you can maintain design choice, maintain the flexibility for as long as possible, where you can have an underpinning architecture that allows you to insert 
technology to do exactly that and make sure you've got a supply chain that is continuing to develop the apps of the future to look at how to use technology in the future to put it into the program as soon as it's mature enough and ready. And we think we've got that architecture, we've got the underpinnings of that.

We're working hard with our existing industrial supply chain. There will be a lot of others out there that we need to bring into the supply chain to help us bring that imaginative thinking of technological opportunity into the program as quickly as possible. And we think that an open architecture solution allows you to respond really rapidly. But both, 
I mean actually all the way from when you're on the ground being able to insert a chip to when you're actually up in the air in operations to be able to provide a data feed or a software upgrade even when you're flying into an operation. That's something we've never been able to do before.

I think what's also important and the benefit of the FCAS programme, so the UK programme of record, is that we are doing a huge amount of operational analysis and we have a really good high power computing capability. We run thousands of scenarios overnight and they just don't focus on what the aircraft needs to be, 
but they focus on what the system needs to be. So we're flying a manned asset with two or three unmanned collaborative combat aircraft or one, and we're exploring what capability that needs to have. So that gives us more flexibility, again, to deal with the future proofing, because it might be easier in the future to adapt and change an autonomous collaborative combat aircraft, particularly when we're looking at low cost manufacturing for them, then continue to worry about the quarterback, as I referred to it earlier. So the future proofing extends itself beyond the man-aircraft into the total system solution as well.

The other aspect of the future combat air system that's been really important in the last few years, it's not just an aircraft programme, it's a recapitalisation of the UK's combat air industry. Over the last seven years or so, we have rebuilt the skills, demonstration of technology, the infrastructure,
as well as designing and starting to operate in a programme to build an aircraft. And I think that's a characteristic of the future combat air system. that fits very neatly with our defence industrial strategy. It's clear we want resilience, sovereignty, adaptability, and we've got to create an industrial base that allows us to have that national sovereign capability, 
yes, in partnership with others, into the future. And we've invested very hard and need to keep investing in that. and keep people interested, keep developing those skills, keep the infrastructure, particularly on the digital side, evolving over time so that we have essentially the industrial base that can respond to the threat of the future.
To conclude our discussion today, when we think about the immediate future, 2026, we know that the Farnborough Air Show is coming up later this year. Maybe there will be some announcements on GCAP before, during the show?

But we have quite a good track record of every year making some big announcements. So no doubt we will make a good attempt next year again to make some announcement. But we've got more than 6,000 people, probably close to 10,000 people working across the three nations on this now. There's a huge amount of effort being dispensed.
We're hitting milestones every week, every month, in conjunction with our governments. Some of them we don't advertise, some of them we will. But the pace in the programme is there and will continue to be there. And when we have some really interesting news to tell, then no doubt we will shout from the rooftops.

Yeah, I think we're almost in the stage of the program now where we're doing the hard yards of delivery, the hard yards of engineering. And a lot of that isn't very amenable to announcements, but it's for Herman and myself, what we know is going on between the teams is just delivery, acceleration of pace, extraordinary technological evolution, 
buildings being built. This is a real going concern now, the FCAS and the Global Combat Air programme within that. In a way, we've made the announcements. We've established the programme. We're now driving hard to get on and deliver it. So there's a lot to look forward to.

Absolutely. And thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a truly fascinating conversation. And I'm afraid that's all we've got for you today. But hopefully we will have another episode coming up on an update when it comes to what's happening with GCAP later this year or in the upcoming years.
And that's all that we've got for you today. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of Defence Talk Securing UK Advantage, brought to you by the Council on Geostrategy in partnership with ADS and BE Systems. Until next time.

Goodbye.

以上

(4/6の続き)

And it's occurring to me as you're speaking that that level of asymmetry between the producer and owner of this technology and an end user who may be an export client is going to be large, probably larger than fifth gen. Am I right?
I think yes and no. And why is it an ambiguous answer? So if you look at any air force around the world, they constantly need to adapt their solution. Yeah. And in the current mechanisms for a country which is not part of the core nation, like the core nations let's say,
they are relying on the core nations to do that for them. But this solution that we're currently developing is because it needs to be highly agile. The notion of it takes two years before there is a new piece of kit on the aircraft that doesn't work anymore, we're working with open system architectures.
It's a little bit like your phone. Take two iPhones, they're not the same, but the same hardware and the same operating system, open architecture, but you each choose your applications. So bringing it back to your example of an export nations, they could write their own applications. They could do their own sensor models, their own control models, 
and place it in an open architecture environment to create their own version of the equivalent Apple iPhone, if that makes sense.

We talked earlier about the differentiation between what we're doing and maybe other programs. It's really important for customer nations or partner nations these days to have a sense of sovereignty. They want to be able to modify capabilities to meet the threat and sometimes the technologies that they have. And I think GCAP, 
with that open system architecture Herman describes, gives us, and them, the opportunity. No, they don't have to have all of the fundamental skills that we have provided, but they can achieve a degree of sovereignty that's much greater than if they were just a customer.
Now, this program, of course, is incredibly significant and also incredibly complex. Now, the timeline set for the program, I believe, is 2035. Am I correct?

Yeah, we're using 2035 as a target date. We're still in the middle, of course, of defining the programme, but we aim to shoot as close to 2035 as we possibly can. There's still a lot of work to be done to understand in intimate detail on how the schedule will pan out as we go forward.
So what is the recipe when it comes to succeeding and delivering on time and within the budget that you've got planned for this programme?
Well, I think it comes back to what I said in the past before. So we've done a lot of analysis and having the right construct typically accounts for about 60% of the success. So Richard, as he described, the JIGO of the Government International Organisation, us, the joint venture in Edgewing, are a critical part of making that happen.
And I have the fortunate and unfortunate experience from Typhoon. I was the CEO of Eurofighter. I sat in Munich, the top of the tree by figure of speech, managing the program. And it was challenging to find all the levers to control the program. Eurofighter had an incredibly successful program, but I clearly observed 
that for a next generation and exactly as you described, how do we keep time and cost? There's an opportunity for an evolution in that construct and that's exactly what we're implementing. We learned a lot from others, from the London Olympics, from the nuclear environment, from other big joint ventures and collaborations we've set up to create this one.

So that's a very, very important part of achieving time and cost. I mentioned earlier the digitization. This has phenomenal opportunity. We're running demonstrations at the moment whereby we can do from requirements to certification potentially in hours instead of months. and there's other examples like that that allows us to really shorten the time.
It is challenging to implement in this highly secure environment but we're making some good strides and we have a really strong plan and a very big ambition to achieve that. And of course there's technologies and we've been very privileged I would say in the UK compared to other nations thanks to the UK government also thanks to 
industry investments to really get the core technologies for a sixth generation program in place. I mentioned earlier the Taranis program, a low observable unmanned combat aircraft that flew more than 10 years ago, but the technologies are absolutely still relevant today. And the engineers who design GCAP today learned their traits on that program 10 years ago.

And that's just one example of the investments we're making. There are many others in the engine domain, in the sensor domains, as well with our partners in Leonardo and Rolls-Royce that allows us to control the risk of the program going forward. But it remains an incredibly challenging program. But I think we've made some fantastic first steps.
If you look at where we are today on the program on GCAP and compare it to the equivalent point of Typhoon, is about half the time. And we, of course, will endeavour to continue to keep that half a time mantra alive as we go forward.
Your description of the recipe required to achieve pace in the programme is a good one. And there are so many ingredients required to make the recipe work. how we define our requirements and when we try to achieve them, ensuring an incremental approach to capability delivery rather than trying to do everything in the first iterations of a program.

The technology allows us to have a block strategy that can genuinely apply different capabilities over time. The sort of government and industry structures empowered structures that can actually allow decision making to be done by the programme and not have to rely, as Herman and his experience in other programmes, always having to go back to partner governments, 
always having to go back to partner companies for even quite simple decisions. We've put the GCAP agency and Edgewing's headquarters together so that they are literally working day in, day out in each other's company, solving problems together. It's just a collection of some really profound ingredients like digital engineering, model-based system engineering and certifications are really critical.

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