The future is always very hard to see from the present. However, I am worried about some growing trends. In WWII there were thousands and thousands of fighter planes; no there are nearly so many. Present planes are much more complex and expensive than older planes; therefore there are less of them. This is a trend I see in the military. There are more and more complex and expensive and less and less actual units. It is a rule of thumb that the more complex something is the more it costs to make. Current engineers use costume parts and tinker with products forever before releasing them. Will this trend continue to grow? Could we make weapons that are modern but not incredible complicated? If so what would some possibilities?

Now that Buzz Lightyear can be left on the ground, aerial weapons can become dramatically cheaper, tougher, more agile, and more lethal. The pork-barrel inertia of the American defense sector is likely to continue development in the old paradigm even as thousands of cheap and lethal UAVs will be single-mindedly awaiting meathaulers in their killboxes. American planners know this too, but our fighters and carriers still have symbolic value, at least until they meet an enemy swarm.

Not really that relevant to the topic. Do you think that missiles are far simpler than planes and therefore cheaper to mass produce or use?