If an aircraft like the B-1 was taxed so hard due to high demand, the appropriate lesson is that the nation needs more bombers, not less.

“Kill webs,” not kill chains. Instead of exquisite platforms like the F-35 fighter, exquisite functional technology nodes (such as an advanced infrared sensor) that can be mixed and matched via AI-enhanced networks.

Fifth gen or fourth gen? F-35A or F-15X. Stealth, sensors and fusion or lots of missiles? Lockheed or Boeing? See what the Mitchell Institute says.

PENTAGON: The Air Force has eked out a victory in the Pentagon’s latest proposal for a Space Force. While many in the Air Force would prefer to keep their current preeminent role in space operations and not create a new service at all, the current plan — to be submitted by year’s end for inclusion… Keep reading →

Double the buy rate on F-35A starting in 2020 and plan on a minimum of 200 B-21 bombers built in rapid fashion. That will begin to get to the Air Force that America needs to meets the challenges of the future.

The stakes are high for President Trump’s nascent Space Force because a poorly integrated service is a price America cannot afford to pay. This means a careful, thoughtful, conditions-based approach must be followed to assess if and when an autonomous military space organization will provide the best path forward. All four services will contribute to… Keep reading →

When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives in Ankara on Thursday, he will find Turkey unrecognizable as the ostensibly Muslim democracy and close ally that U.S. officials once held up as a model for the Islamic world. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is poised to complete his long transformation of Turkey from a raucous — if imperfect democracy — to an autocracy, one ruled by caprice and fear.

CAPITOL HILL: The Air Force is finalizing a high-tech “flight plan” for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance investments, the deputy chief of staff for ISR said here. The service can’t keep buying more and more drones to collect more and more data and then hiring more and more human analysts to plow through it, Lt. Gen.… Keep reading →

  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… Keep reading →

Drones are designed and bought by the four services, as well as DARPA and, we suspect, an intelligence agency or two. There’s duplication of effort and requirements overlap and that means wasted money and time. Many moons ago in 1993, when drones were just becoming a thing in the US military, some visionaries created the… Keep reading →