10 Reasons The US Should Build New Nuclear Missiles, GBSD

10 Reasons The US Should Build New Nuclear Missiles, GBSD
10 Reasons The US Should Build New Nuclear Missiles, GBSD

CORRECTED: Minuteman Was First Solid-Fueled ICBM; Jon Wolfsthal’s name The first solid-fueled InterContinental Ballistic Missile, Minuteman 1, was deployed some 55 years ago on the same day that President Kennedy announced that Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba. At the end of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy credited the newly deployed Minuteman ICBM as his “ace…

No Nuke Bombers On Call 24/7, But Alert Centers Being Upgraded

No Nuke Bombers On Call 24/7, But Alert Centers Being Upgraded
No Nuke Bombers On Call 24/7, But Alert Centers Being Upgraded

WASHINGTON: The Air Force Chief of Staff appeared to be talking about putting nuclear-armed bombers back on 24-hour alert, but the man who’d make the decision, the head of Strategic Command, wasn’t. After my colleague Marcus Weisgerber reported that Gen. David Goldfein said the Air Force was considering putting bombers back on alert, I checked with…

Boost The US Bomber Force: Dollars vs. Operational Needs

Boost The US Bomber Force: Dollars vs. Operational Needs
Boost The US Bomber Force: Dollars vs. Operational Needs

The United States Air Force should consider shifting its balance of its strike forces from fighters to long-range bombers. At the end of the Cold War, the Air Force’s combat aircraft inventory included 411 bombers. Today, it has a total of 158 B-1, B-52, and B-2 bombers, of which only 96 are designated as Primary…

Chinese Sanctions On North Korea? Expert Doubts They’ll Bite

Chinese Sanctions On North Korea? Expert Doubts They’ll Bite
Chinese Sanctions On North Korea? Expert Doubts They’ll Bite

WASHINGTON: President Trump was pretty excited when he announced that the central Chinese bank ordered the cessation of all financial business with North Korea. Dean Cheng, the Heritage Foundation’s expert on China and its military, is much less excited. Cheng’s much more skeptical that this latest Chinese move will make any long-term difference in the…

Rapid Capabilities Office Watching B-21 Stealth Costs ‘Closely’

Rapid Capabilities Office Watching B-21 Stealth Costs ‘Closely’
Rapid Capabilities Office Watching B-21 Stealth Costs ‘Closely’

AFA: In what may be a hint of things to come, the head of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office says his office is keeping a close eye on the B-21 bomber’s stealth costs. While he didn’t indicate there were any cost overruns or scheduler problems, the fact that RCO Director Randall Walden mentioned this…

What War With North Korea Would Look Like: 20K NK Dead A Day

What War With North Korea Would Look Like: 20K NK Dead A Day
What War With North Korea Would Look Like: 20K NK Dead A Day

Relatively few Americans know many details about how a war between North Korean, the US, South Korean and United Nations force would look. One of them is Rob Givens, who served as the deputy assistant chief of staff for operations of U.S. Forces Korea and as special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of…

Why America Needs A Nuclear Air Launched Cruise Missile

Why America Needs A Nuclear Air Launched Cruise Missile
Why America Needs A Nuclear Air Launched Cruise Missile

UPDATED: We Run Op-Ed; Pentagon Announces LRSO Contract The Pentagon just awarded the third major contract in the modernization of the nuclear triad. First came the B-21 bomber. Then the Columbia-class submarine, to replace the Ohio class boomers. Two days ago they awarded Boeing and Northrop Grumman contracts to begin work on the new version…

Stealth Necessary But Not Sufficient: Add EW, Intel, Tactics

Stealth Necessary But Not Sufficient: Add EW, Intel, Tactics
Stealth Necessary But Not Sufficient: Add EW, Intel, Tactics

CAPITOL HILL: Stealth was sold as something close to magic when it first appeared. And, as usually happens when extraordinary claims are made, the blowback was intense. Skeptics pointed to its vulnerability to large-scale, land-based radars, to the fact it wasn’t invisible to the naked eye, to the costs and difficulties of maintaining the expensive…

America’s Air Superiority Crisis

America’s Air Superiority Crisis
America’s Air Superiority Crisis

  The Air Force already has a big hole in its capabilities for the future: it needs what it is calling Penetrating Counter Air, a very fast, long-range, sensor-loaded and furiously lethal aircraft. But that effort is designed to fill a need in 2030. Dave Deptula, head of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute and…

Navy Must Boost Carrier Air Wings’ Range, Size & Lethality

Navy Must Boost Carrier Air Wings’ Range, Size & Lethality
Navy Must Boost Carrier Air Wings’ Range, Size & Lethality

Paris Air Show attendees take note. The Navy needs more new strike fighters to cope with falling readiness rates. Will they be Super Hornets, F-35s or Block III Super Hornets? What mix does the US Navy need as it grapples with boosting the size of the fleet to 355 ships? And what about the MQ-25…

KC-46 Delayed Two More Months Into 2018: SecAf & CSAF

KC-46 Delayed Two More Months Into 2018: SecAf & CSAF
KC-46 Delayed Two More Months Into 2018: SecAf & CSAF

CAPITOL HILL: The Air Force’s troubled KC-46 fuel tanker will probably be delayed “a couple of months” more, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told the Senate this morning. An Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense that this means they expect contractor Boeing to miss the December deadline to deliver…

A-10 To Fly Til 2021; Plans To Buy More F-35As: Goldfein

A-10 To Fly Til 2021; Plans To Buy More F-35As: Goldfein
A-10 To Fly Til 2021; Plans To Buy More F-35As: Goldfein

WASHINGTON: Congressional supporters can heave a sigh of relief with word from Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein that the ugly and effective A-10 will keep flying through 2021. But Goldfein seemed to make pretty clear that the plane will probably be retired after that because Close Air Support missions can be carried out by…

Coatings Plant Offers Hints On B-21 Production

Coatings Plant Offers Hints On B-21 Production
Coatings Plant Offers Hints On B-21 Production

WASHINGTON: A little Pentagon contract announcement offers the latest indication of the course of the secretive B-21 program. The announcement last Tuesday of a $36 million modification to an existing contract is the key. It’s for a new 45,900 square foot “coatings facility” at Northrop Grumman’s facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, CA.…

Long-Range Strike: ‘More Potent,’ More Survivable & Cheaper

Long-Range Strike: ‘More Potent,’ More Survivable & Cheaper
Long-Range Strike: ‘More Potent,’ More Survivable & Cheaper

On January 19, the Air Force struck Libya to halt terrorist activity using B-2 stealth bombers. This was not the first strike against Libya. A mix of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy fighters conducted strikes 30 years ago against Libya in response to terrorist acts in Europe. A comparison of the two raids illustrates the…