2017 Forecast: Air Force Faces Intense Trump Scrutiny

2017 Forecast: Air Force Faces Intense Trump Scrutiny
2017 Forecast: Air Force Faces Intense Trump Scrutiny

ARLINGTON: The Air Force got blasted from Donald Trump’s bully pulpit before the President-Elect was even inaugurated. It looks like 2017 — the youngest service’s 70th year — will be full of presidential turbulence. [We rolled out our crystal balls for our 2017 forecast. Click to read the whole series.] Outgoing Air Force Secretary Deborah…

‘Let It Be An Arms Race’: Our Nuclear Adversaries Have Already Started

‘Let It Be An Arms Race’: Our Nuclear Adversaries Have Already Started
‘Let It Be An Arms Race’: Our Nuclear Adversaries Have Already Started

President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter on December 22 to say “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” He later called MSNBC TV host Mika Brzezinski and reportedly said, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them…

SecAF James: Lessons From The Pacific

SecAF James: Lessons From The Pacific
SecAF James: Lessons From The Pacific

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James traveled through Asia, visiting Indonesia, India, Singapore, and the Philippines at the end of the summer. We didn’t hear a great deal about the trip in the US at the time but her meetings with her defense counterparts clearly impressed. In this op-ed, James shares the lessons she learned. China…

Keep The Pilots For B-21: Former B-2 Fliers

Keep The Pilots For B-21: Former B-2 Fliers
Keep The Pilots For B-21: Former B-2 Fliers

CAPITOL HILL: The B-21 will be America’s next bomber and the Air Force says it will be “optionally manned.” That’s fine, say some of America’s most experienced B-2 pilots. Just keep the pilots. You’ll want them for those rare moments when everything goes wrong and a human being needs to take the controls and make…

New ICBMs Could Cost Way Above $85B: CAPE’S Morin

New ICBMs Could Cost Way Above $85B: CAPE’S Morin
New ICBMs Could Cost Way Above $85B: CAPE’S Morin

CAPITOL HILL: The Pentagon’s official estimate of $85 billion to replace the Minuteman III ICBM — already 37 percent above the Air Force’s $62 billion figure — is itself a low-end estimate, the head of Cost Assessment & Program Evaluation says. CAPE almost never offers alternative estimates of a program’s cost, said director Jamie Morin,…

Airmen First, Weapons Second: SecAF James

Airmen First, Weapons Second: SecAF James
Airmen First, Weapons Second: SecAF James

 AFA: For the foreseeable future, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told me today, when push comes to shove, personnel funding should win and modernization must wait. “If you’re asking me if I have to choose between the two, then I vote for people,” she said. “I’m going to protect people.” Of course, the Air…

B-21 Bomber Estimate By CAPE: $511M A Copy

CORRECTED: Attribution of Air Force Buying New Advanced Fighter NATIONAL HARBOR: The Air Force’s new bomber, the B-21 Raider, should come in almost $40 million below the official $550 million a copy official estimate, says Randall Walden, director of the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office. So, $511 million is the new $550 million. After his…

Arsenal Plane Pick Still In The Air: SCO’s Roper

Arsenal Plane Pick Still In The Air: SCO’s Roper
Arsenal Plane Pick Still In The Air: SCO’s Roper

DARPA HQ, ARLINGTON, Va.: Reporters must stop asking Will Roper about the Arsenal Plane, because he hasn’t picked which aircraft will be rebuilt as a high-tech truck for long-range missiles and other weapons. Speculation has centered on the Air Force B-52, but the Strategic Capabilities Office director made clear that choice is, well, up in the…

How Many B-21s? Answer Pending, Says AF Global Strike

How Many B-21s? Answer Pending, Says AF Global Strike
How Many B-21s? Answer Pending, Says AF Global Strike

CAPITOL HILL: Gen. Robin Rand, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, made it pretty clear he’d like more than the 100 B-21 bombers to which the service is currently committed. He would probably like close to half again that many. Rand told a Mitchell Institute breakfast that the US currently has 156 bombers “in our…

New Cruise Missile Crucial To Nuclear Deterrence

New Cruise Missile Crucial To Nuclear Deterrence
New Cruise Missile Crucial To Nuclear Deterrence

Critics of US nuclear modernization claim the Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) weapon — an aircraft-launched nuclear cruise missile — can be eliminated without harming America’s security interests. But the LRSO provides America with a unique capability to deter adversaries from using nuclear force and projects credible power while keeping US forces safe. Updated standoff weapons ensure…

B-21 Costs Must Stay Secret, Insists Air Force RCO Head

The classified costs of the B-21 bomber should remain secret because revealing the figure would be “too insightful for the adversaries to get a sense of what they can do (and) what the U.S. can do in building that next generation bomber,” the official in charge of the program said Tuesday. The bomber’s Engineering and Manufacturing…

Presumptive Air Force Chief Appears To Shift On B-21 Cost Info

Presumptive Air Force Chief Appears To Shift On B-21 Cost Info
Presumptive Air Force Chief Appears To Shift On B-21 Cost Info

UPDATED: Adds Air Force Statement  WASHINGTON: The administration’s nominee for Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David Goldfein, came before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning promising to improve Air Force relations with Congress. And Goldfein delivered, to the point of apparently agreeing with a pleased SASC chairman John McCain that the service should…

Change How Air Force Buys Compass Call, JSTARS

Change How Air Force Buys Compass Call, JSTARS
Change How Air Force Buys Compass Call, JSTARS

The 21st century is defined by connectivity, from our iPhones to the networks that power our economy. The US military is not immune to this. Either it seizes opportunities presented by the information age, or risks precipitating problems if it retreats into anachronistic paradigms. Well into the late 20th century, combat power was largely measured…

The Nuclear Bomber: Fighting Conflated Deterrence in the 21st Century

The Nuclear Bomber: Fighting Conflated Deterrence in the 21st Century
The Nuclear Bomber: Fighting Conflated Deterrence in the 21st Century

Our coverage of deterrence and the roles of using weapons for signaling continues to elicit strong and pertinent reactions from readers and practitioners in these days when North Korea, China and Russia so robustly challenge the United States and its allies. As you read on, you’ll see the author of this latest piece is a…