The United States Navy’s public unveiling of the AIM-174B ultra–beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile during the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2024 exercise marked a rare and deliberate disclosure of a capability normally kept shrouded in ambiguity. Far from a routine weapons debut, the appearance of the missile beneath F/A-18E Super Hornets signalled a strategic message aimed squarely at Beijing: Washington is no longer willing to accept a disadvantage in very-long-range air combat.
The move reflects an accelerating arms race between the United States and China over control of extreme-range air engagements—an increasingly decisive domain in the Indo-Pacific, where geography, distance, and the vulnerability of airborne enablers now shape military planning as much as fighter numbers or stealth characteristics.
Over the past decade, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has steadily eroded what was once an overwhelming American advantage in beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles. The deployment of China’s PL-15 and the emergence of the even longer-ranged PL-17 have forced US planners to confront a reality in which American aircraft, tankers, and airborne command platforms could be targeted hundreds of kilometres from the frontline. The AIM-174B represents Washington’s most direct response to that challenge.
Modern air combat is no longer defined primarily by fighter-versus-fighter engagements. Instead, it has evolved into a contest over the survival of the systems that make sustained air operations possible: airborne early-warning aircraft, aerial refuelling tankers, and command-and-control platforms. Destroy or drive away these assets, and even the most advanced fighters quickly lose effectiveness.
“The last decade has seen a renewed emphasis on the demands of peer-on-peer air combat, with multiple Chinese air-to-air missile programmes acting as the baseline driving US and allied developments,” one defence analyst noted, capturing how Chinese advances have become the pacing threat for American airpower planning.
This shift is particularly pronounced in the Indo-Pacific, where the distances involved routinely exceed the unrefuelled combat radius of fighter aircraft. In such an environment, the ability to strike targets at ranges of 300 to 400 kilometres—or more—can determine whether air forces can protect their own enablers while denying the same to an adversary.
The AIM-174B is the US Navy’s answer to this new reality. Derived from the SM-6 surface-to-air missile family, the weapon has been adapted for air launch by removing its booster stage and modifying it for carriage on carrier-based fighters. The result is a missile under five metres long, but with kinematic performance far exceeding that of existing US air-to-air weapons.
First observed during RIMPAC 2024, the missile’s appearance was carefully choreographed. Mounted under F/A-18E Super Hornets, the AIM-174B demonstrated that it can be integrated into frontline naval aviation without requiring a new airframe. Its estimated engagement range exceeds 400 kilometres, with terminal speeds approaching Mach 3.5—placing it firmly in the same class as China’s longest-ranged air-to-air weapons.
Strategically, the missile restores a capability the US Navy has lacked since the retirement of the AIM-54 Phoenix in 2004. Like the Phoenix, the AIM-174B is designed not for dogfighting but for air denial: striking high-value targets at extreme range to dismantle an adversary’s air operations before they can gather momentum.
Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute, has highlighted the urgency behind the programme. “China already deploys the PL-15 missile, which has better kinematics than the AIM-120D3, so there is an incentive,” he said, referring to the need for the United States to re-establish credible long-range air denial.
Unlike earlier generations of air-to-air missiles that relied largely on the firing aircraft’s radar, the AIM-174B is optimised for network-centric warfare. It is designed to draw targeting data from a wide array of sensors, including E-2D Hawkeye airborne early-warning aircraft, surface combatants, space-based assets, and distributed intelligence nodes across the battlespace.
This approach reflects a broader doctrinal shift within US airpower, often described as a move from “kill chains” to “kill webs.” Rather than a linear sequence of detection, tracking, and engagement, modern operations emphasise distributed sensing and cooperative targeting, allowing any shooter to exploit the best available sensor.
In theory, this enables US fighters to remain emission-controlled while prosecuting engagements far beyond their own radar horizon, reducing exposure to detection and electronic attack. In practice, it also raises the stakes for protecting the sensors and networks that make such engagements possible.
The missile’s size and weight—approximately five times heavier than an AIM-120 AMRAAM—impose real tactical trade-offs. An F/A-18E can carry only two AIM-174Bs, and doing so affects speed, altitude, and payload flexibility. As a result, the weapon is intended for selective, high-impact engagements rather than mass use against fighter formations.
Cost reinforces that reality. Each AIM-174B round is estimated to cost several million US dollars, potentially exceeding USD 4–5 million (roughly RM18.8–RM23.5 million), underscoring its role as a strategic rather than purely tactical asset.
The catalyst for the United States’ renewed focus on extreme-range air-to-air missiles is China’s PL-15. Developed by the China Airborne Missile Academy, the PL-15 represents one of the most significant shifts in global air combat dynamics in decades.
The missile incorporates a dual-pulse solid-fuel rocket motor and an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar seeker, allowing it to sustain high-energy flight profiles while maintaining resistance to electronic countermeasures. Open-source assessments suggest that the domestic version has a range exceeding 200 kilometres, with some estimates approaching 300 kilometres, and terminal speeds above Mach 4.
Its integration across multiple platforms—including the J-20 stealth fighter and the J-16 multirole aircraft—has allowed the PLAAF to standardise long-range engagement tactics across its fleet. Crucially, the PL-15 can be carried internally by the J-20, preserving the aircraft’s low-observable profile while enabling long-range engagements.
A Royal United Services Institute assessment concluded that the PL-15 “outranges the US-made AIM-120C/D AMRAAM series,” a finding that has forced Western air forces to rethink long-held assumptions about engagement geometry and survivability.
Reports of the missile’s use by Pakistan during an air engagement with India—though contested and politically sensitive—further elevated its profile, marking a symbolic milestone for China’s defence export ambitions and reinforcing perceptions of its operational credibility.
If the PL-15 challenged US fighters, the PL-17 targets something even more critical: the airborne assets that underpin Western airpower. Estimated to be around six metres long with a range exceeding 400 kilometres, the PL-17 is designed specifically to destroy airborne early-warning aircraft, intelligence platforms, and aerial refuellers.
Optimised for carriage on larger fighters such as the J-16, the missile extends China’s anti-access and area-denial strategy into the air domain. By threatening enablers far from the frontline, it aims to collapse an adversary’s command, control, and sustainment architecture at the outset of a conflict.
Justin Bronk has observed that “the PL-17 is probably most comparable to the AIM-174B, but the Chinese weapon might have a longer range,” highlighting concerns that Beijing may still hold an edge in very-long-range aerial engagement.
The missile is believed to employ a sophisticated guidance system combining AESA radar with additional passive or infrared sensing, enhancing resilience against jamming and enabling mid-course updates from off-board sensors such as the KJ-500 airborne early-warning aircraft.
Speculation about even more advanced Chinese systems—including a notional “PL-XX” with hypersonic performance and ranges approaching 800 kilometres—suggests that Beijing views extreme-range air combat as a cornerstone of future air dominance.
Range alone, however, is no longer the decisive factor. The true contest lies in whose targeting network can survive in a battlespace saturated with electronic warfare, cyber attack, and kinetic strikes.
The AIM-174B is designed to exploit America’s strengths in multi-domain data fusion, but that reliance on networks also creates vulnerabilities. Space-based sensors, airborne command platforms, and data links become high-priority targets for adversaries seeking to dismantle the kill web at its source.
China has pursued a parallel approach, integrating the PL-15 and PL-17 into a network linking airborne early-warning aircraft, ground-based radars, and satellites. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence-enabled sensor fusion threaten to narrow traditional Western advantages in information dominance, compressing decision-making cycles during high-intensity conflict.
In such an environment, the first effective missile shot may be decisive. At engagement ranges exceeding 300 or 400 kilometres, pilots may never visually acquire their adversaries before lethal exchanges are concluded.
The proliferation of extreme-range air-to-air missiles has profound implications for contingency planning around Taiwan. Control of the air would be essential to any major operation in the Taiwan Strait, and both sides now possess the means to contest that control far beyond the immediate battlespace.
PL-17-armed Chinese fighters operating from mainland bases could threaten US and allied tankers and early-warning aircraft well beyond the First Island Chain, complicating efforts to sustain continuous combat air patrols. Conversely, AIM-174B-armed Super Hornets give US carrier air wings a means to contest Chinese airpower at standoff distances, potentially disrupting Beijing’s ability to mass forces.
In the South China Sea, the vulnerability of forward-deployed aircraft operating from austere island bases is magnified by the presence of very-long-range missiles, where limited infrastructure constrains dispersal and regeneration.
Allied air forces may also be drawn into this new regime. Australia’s F/A-18F Super Hornets, for example, could theoretically integrate AIM-174B-class capabilities in coalition operations, enhancing interoperability but also increasing dependence on high-end, costly munitions.
The financial burden of sustaining such capabilities is substantial. Missiles costing USD 4–5 million each impose real constraints on stockpiles and raise questions about expenditure rates and industrial surge capacity during prolonged conflict.
China’s state-backed industrial base may allow it to field large inventories of PL-15 and PL-17 missiles, potentially challenging Western stockpile resilience. This asymmetry complicates deterrence calculations and underscores the strategic nature of long-range air-to-air weapons.
Douglas Barrie has noted that “the US Navy has entered into service a very long-range air-to-air missile aimed at countering developments in Chinese air power,” highlighting the reactive nature of the competition.
Looking ahead, both sides are exploring hypersonic air-to-air missiles, autonomous sensor platforms, and space-enabled targeting that could push engagement ranges even further. US Air Force forecasts suggest that future adversary missiles could reach ranges of up to 1,000 miles by mid-century—a prospect that would fundamentally redefine air combat and strain escalation control.
In this emerging environment, extreme-range air-to-air missiles are both deterrents and potential destabilisers. They offer the ability to neutralise critical assets early in a conflict, but they also increase incentives for pre-emptive action.
As the AIM-174B makes clear, the skies over the Indo-Pacific are becoming a contested strategic high ground. Dominance will depend not just on who has the longest-ranged missile, but on who can integrate, protect, and sustain the complex networks that make such weapons effective in the first place.
