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Air Force
It has been almost twenty years since the topics of U.S. national security strategy and defense policy were seriously discussed. For the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. defense establishment was preoccupied with managing the drawdown and – marginal – recasting of the
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Date:
5/23/2013
As part of its ongoing effort to address the twin challenges of declining defense budgets and increasing threats, the U.S. Air Force has begun a conceptual study to define the future force of 2023. It chose that point in time because that would mark the end of the period of budget sequestration
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Date:
5/21/2013
The U.S. Air Force thinks it is facing an identity crisis. Despite having, arguably, the best people, equipment and practices and having performed well through two wars and numerous crises, it doesn’t know who it is. It has demonstrated superb technical and tactical capabilities over the past decade,
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Date:
5/17/2013
The problem with the news is that it is always about what's happening today. It's almost never about underlying trends or larger meanings. So if you peruse the archives of major newspapers over the last few decades, you'll find their front pages were full of stories that turned out not
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Date:
5/9/2013
U.S. Air Force leaders today released information indicating that America's global edge in air power will begin rapidly ebbing away in March if Congress fails to avert planned spending cuts. Documents prepared by the service predicted it will be "substantially less able to respond on short notice"
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Date:
2/7/2013
As the international coalition prepares to exit Afghanistan it is critical that it leaves behind indigenous security forces capable of preventing a Taliban “Reconquesta.” A great deal of attention, training equipment and money has gone into creating an Afghan military, police, and local security
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Date:
1/28/2013
Considering how old it is, the Air Force's dwindling fleet of long-range bombers is performing remarkably well. All of the bombers including the venerable B-52 now carry precision weapons that enable them to destroy multiple targets in a single flight. Airframe structures are being reinforced,
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Date:
1/15/2013
In the aftermath of Vietnam, the U.S. Army had to redefine its identity and build a new force structure. It found that identity at the Fulda Gap in a new doctrine for maneuver warfare designed to defeat a structured offensive against NATO by the massed conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact. The
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Date:
12/3/2012
Most assessments of a nation’s military power focus on the “pointy end of the spear,” the combat platforms, weapons systems and munitions. Less publicized and often poorly understood is the contribution of the rest of the spear, the shaft, to the overall mission which is successful delivery of the
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Date:
11/9/2012
Here's a quick quiz about U.S. air power. Question One: What do the Air Force's F-15, F-16, and F-22 fighters all have in common? Answer: They are all operated by pilots who learned to fly jets on the T-38 Talon trainer. Question Two: What else do they do they have in common? Answer: They
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Date:
10/16/2012
This week the Air Force held one of its periodic meetings of four-star officers to discuss high-priority challenges facing the service. One of the agenda items was figuring out how to integrate and exploit the diverse array of intelligence that its various sensor systems are collecting. In addition
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Date:
10/4/2012
I have always believed that no one is born great. They achieve greatness by how they respond to major challenges and life decisions. No one would have called Harry Truman a great man when he was a Senator or even Vice-President. But it was the way he responded to challenges of being President at
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Date:
9/18/2012
Anyone who has studied air accidents knows that seemingly minor problems can cause catastrophes. Air France suffered the worst crash in its history three years ago when malfunctioning air-speed indicators on a Paris-bound Airbus A330 flying over the South Atlantic set in motion a series of cockpit
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Date:
8/8/2012
There was a time when the Air Force wasn't just co-equal with the other military services in the Department of Defense, but first among equals. That time is now long gone. After a smashing success in the 1999 Balkan air war -- it defeated Serbia without assistance from ground forces -- the Air
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Date:
8/6/2012
After lengthy delays, the Air Force has begun orbiting a new generation of heat-detecting satellites designed to provide early warning of hostile missile launches anywhere on the Earth's surface. The program, called the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), pairs scanning and staring sensors on
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Date:
5/23/2012
There's a story in the May 14 issue of Defense News that helps explain why Air Force modernization since the end of the Cold War has been largely a chronicle of missed opportunities. The story by reporter Jeff Schogol quotes Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz as saying that he doesn't think
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Date:
5/18/2012
As the U.S. military prepares to turn over security responsibilities in Afghanistan to indigenous forces, a key issue for planners is assuring those forces have adequate air power. Once U.S. pilots are gone, the Afghans must be able to provide air cover for their troops on the ground, delivering
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Date:
5/2/2012
Facing severe budget cuts over the next decade, the U.S. Air Force faced some extremely difficult choices. More than the other services, the Air Force needs to modernize. The average age of its tanker fleet is 45 years, the strategic bomber force is 35 years and the tactical fighter fleet is around
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Date:
4/18/2012
One of the worst facets of the federal management culture is the way that politicians and policymakers devalue past investments. That's especially true with regard to Pentagon technology accounts, where every program termination is considered "savings" regardless of how much money was spent on
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Date:
12/19/2011
The mantra of the day around Washington is that the Pentagon will have to make hard choices when it comes to allocating increasingly scarce defense dollars. In truth, the Defense Department has made a lot of hard choices over the years, some willingly and others under the pressure of changes in
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Date:
12/2/2011
If you need evidence that the Joint Chiefs of Staff weren't exaggerating when they told Congress that budget cuts threaten military modernization, just look at what's happening inside the Air Force. The service is proposing to kill a next-generation weather satellite, which would leave U.S. warfighters
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Date:
11/15/2011
Even if politicians don't notice how many of the Air Force's major commands are located in "swing" states like Colorado, Illinois and Virginia, there's good reason to believe the service will experience a renaissance in the years ahead. First, the locus of global security concerns is shifting to
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Date:
11/14/2011
Over 2,000 years ago, Chinese strategist Sun Tzu cited the five fundamental factors in warfare on the first page of his seminal treatise, The Art of War. They were (1) morale, (2) weather, (3) terrain, (4) command, and (5) doctrine. If you've ever tried to fly a plane in fog or drive a
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Date:
11/3/2011
Why does the Air Force need a new bomber? There are three parts to that answer, one geostrategic, one operational and one technological. Geostrategically, unless Mexico or Canada become major threats, the United States is a long way from virtually all likely zones of conflict. Access to overseas
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Date:
9/23/2011
After months of debate, the U.S. Air Force has decided to conduct a competition that will determine what rotorcraft replaces the decrepit helicopters protecting its strategic missile installations. The service operates three sprawling bases in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming where 450 Minuteman
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Date:
4/27/2011
The World Trade Organization today released a final ruling on commercial transport subsidies received by Boeing. The ruling will remain confidential until translated into variety of languages, so only the parties to the case brought by European governments have seen it. However, the ruling probably
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Date:
1/31/2011