|
|
In Retrospect
In Retrospect:  The nearly set-in-stone decision to cap F-22 production at 187 aircraft “will leave the United States with, at best, a high-risk F-22 force” and jeopardize the ability of the US military to attain rapid air dominance in future conflict, argues Barry Watts, senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. In a new CSBA backgrounder, The F-22 Program in Retrospect, issued Tuesday, Watts writes that the capped F-22 force “may not be enough through mid-century,” given the proliferation of sophisticated Russian air defenses and modern Russian and Chinese combat aircraft and coupled with “inherent uncertainties of the future.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ “big bet” of accepting this risk with the F-22 force by banking on the F-35 is “surely also questionable” without “solid evidence that the F-35 would not ... encounter major delays, costs increases, or related developmental problems,” Watts writes.
9/9/2009
|
Verbatim
Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010. |
|
Verbatim
Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.
|
|
|