More than 600 U.S. Air Force guardsmen, reservists and active duty Airmen completed a new fighter exercise Feb. 7, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, featuring the integration of the world’s most advanced, fifth-generation airframes. This first iteration of Pacific Raptor began on Jan. 23, and entailed twice-daily takeoffs of F-22 Raptors and F-35A Lightening IIs, […]

DefenceTalkIn fact, it takes a lot of everything to conduct even one air operation much less meet the requirements of a global superpower. By the standards of modern air warfare, the campaign against ISIS (Operation Inherent Resolve) is not a big affair. Nevertheless, this small war against an adversary with no air force or even […]https://www.defencetalk.com/it-takes-a-lot-of-the-right-aircraft-to-be-a-superpower-66363/

DefenceTalkBetween March and October 2011, a coalition of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states and several partner nations waged a war against Muammar Qaddafi’s Libyan regime that stemmed and then reversed the tide of Libya’s civil war, preventing Qaddafi from crushing the nascent rebel movement seeking to overthrow his dictatorship and going on to […]https://www.defencetalk.com/precision-and-purpose-airpower-in-the-libyan-civil-war-64864/

DefenceTalkAs the Air Force prepares for new challenges and opportunities of the coming decades, it faces sobering 21st-century realities: global centers of power have become more distributed and the terrorism threat more dispersed. Most importantly, the emerging environment is demonstrating a trend that could prove to be the defining one of current times: the accelerating […]https://www.defencetalk.com/strategic-agility-is-the-future-of-the-air-force-60287/

DefenceTalkThe Air Force’s $114.1 billion fiscal 2014 budget request will provide for the most capable airpower arm possible, the Air Force chief of staff said here today. Testifying with Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III told the House Armed Services Committee his service’s portion of DOD’s fiscal 2014 […]https://www.defencetalk.com/budget-request-provides-for-best-air-force-possible-welsh-says-47492/