America is waging two very different wars at once. New data from the Defense Department shows the air campaign against the Islamic State escalating back to near-record intensity after a four-month (relative) lull. Meanwhile, airstrikes in Afghanistan are down to a tiny fraction of the bombardment in Iraq and Syria, but Afghanistan’s vast and rugged wastelands… Keep reading →

Dave Deptula, dean of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Power Studies, was the first general charged with overseeing drones and the Air Force general in command of the Air Operations Center when the first Predator fired a Hellfire missile. Dave knows drones, their capabilities and the laws and policies governing their use. He provides a… Keep reading →

Budget battles between the Army and what would become the Air Force date back to the court-martial of Billy Mitchell in 1925. In the late 1990s the two services hurled imprecations, arguments and doctrine at each other as they fought over a shrinking pool of money, a situation not unlike what we face today. Those stresses are… Keep reading →

The authors are with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster issued a warning April 5 to the Senate Armed Services Airland subcommittee saying that the service will be  “…outranged and outgunned by many potential adversaries in the future….” This statement garnered much attention in the media, but it artificially assesses Army capabilities… Keep reading →

Dave Deptula was arguably the key player in air power during the world’s first precision guided war, Desert Storm. He offers the principal lessons learned during that war on its quarter-century anniversary. He takes those lessons and applies them to the current fight against the terrorists, murderers, thugs and rapists who comprise ISIL, which we call… Keep reading →

Tuesday’s bomber award announcement by the US Air Force marks a critical achievement for US national security. Global Vigilance, Global Reach, and Global Power—the ability to find and strike targets anywhere in the world at any time—is a core capability for our nation. When North Korean provocations occurred in 2013, an Air Force B-2 flew over the Korean peninsula to deter hostile action. When Russia recently invaded Ukraine, B-2s and B-52s deployed to England to reassure NATO allies.

WASHINGTON: Do dogfights matter in the age of tactical stealth? If an F-16 can outmaneuver an F-35 in a dogfight, does it matter? Does it matter if the earliest generation F-35 can’t outmaneuver an advanced model of the F-16 in an early test? So many questions. We’ll try to answer them because the folks at… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: Star Wars fans, calm down. The US Air Force wants to fire a 100-plus-kilowatt laser from a small plane. And not just any airplane, Air Force Research Laboratory officials. The last laser on an airplane — the megawatt Airborne Laser, which filled a converted 747 and cancelled in 2011 — the 2022 demonstration will be… Keep reading →

Airpower sounds swift and surgical, but sometimes it’s really closer to trench warfare with wings. Earlier this week, with the smoke still rising from the retaken Iraqi city of Tikrit, Central Command released detailed data on air strikes against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. We’ve crunched the numbers, and it’s clear the eight-month-old campaign is becoming… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Official Confirmation F-22s Were Used. Flew From Regional Base.  WASHINGTON: While we don’t yet have much detail on how many were used, what munitions were used or what targets they hit, F-22s were used in last night’s air strikes in Syria against ISIL and al Qaeda. F-22s flew in the second of three waves… Keep reading →