Responding to questioning by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, the Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Michael Moseley, acknowledged that a new long-range strike platform is “a long time” away. Hunter believes the Air Force move to retire 38 B-52s comes down to money not a desire to eliminate non-performers. His concern, said Hunter, is that “the strength of [the Air Force’s] argument is also the weakness of [its] argument” because the service plans to eliminate its attrition reserve based on the rationale that the B-52s are becoming more vulnerable. Hunter maintains, “We may be at the point where we simply have to get more money if we’re going to modernize.”
The Pentagon could have the option to create a new combatant command devoted to unmanned and autonomous systems if a provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s annual defense policy bill becomes law. The legislation is one of several moves lawmakers have proposed in recent weeks to both bound and…