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LAS
Even when it does everything right, the U.S. Air Force cannot seem to catch a break. All it was trying to do was acquire a handful of cheap, simple, reliable and capable light attack/support airplanes (LAS) for the Afghan Air Force. Because of time pressures -- the United States is leaving Afghanistan
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Date:
3/11/2013
Airpower is central to any counterinsurgency campaign. This is nowhere more evident than in Afghanistan with its combination of difficult geography, a lack of infrastructure, dispersed population and uncontrolled borders. Carrier-based F/A-18s as well as B-1, B-2 and B-52 strategic bombers played
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Date:
2/28/2013
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
A few years back when counterinsurgency was all the rage and building the security capacity of partner countries was considered an important U.S. strategic goal, the Air Force came up with a plan to acquire a fleet of light attack and transport aircraft. This notional force would consist of low
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Date:
1/4/2013
It is becoming clearer with the publication of each e-mail, transcript of telephone calls and time line related to the tragic events in Benghazi on September 11, that the U.S. lacked the appropriate forces to deal with this kind of situation. In particular, what was missing was responsive air power.
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Date:
11/5/2012
Several years ago, the Air Force recognized that it needed to have on hand a new type of aircraft designed expressly to support counterinsurgency missions and to be operated and maintained by allies and partners. The "test case" was the new Afghan Air Force. The U.S. Air Force published a request
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Date:
7/10/2012
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
The U.S. Air Force recently announced that it was going to reissue a request for proposals for the Light Air Support (LAS) aircraft. This was supposed to be a relatively simple, off-the-shelf aircraft that could be used by U.S. allies such as the fledgling Afghan Air Force. To allow enough time
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Date:
4/9/2012
A couple of years ago, the Air Force got the idea of acquiring a fleet of light air support (LAS) aircraft to use in low intensity conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan where operating conditions were relatively primitive and the air defense environment benign. The LAS could be provided to other
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Date:
2/29/2012