During a background briefing Friday, a senior Air Force official revealed that the 2008 defense budget cuts the number of Combat Wing Equivalents—a 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review construct—from the 86 CWEs mandated in the QDR to 78 CWEs. It would seem that the lawmakers and defense analysts who decried the QDR as a cost-cutting exercise that used no strategic analysis to determine force structure requirements were right on the money.
The U.S. sent Air Force F-16s over central Syria in a show of force following the Dec. 13 killing of two U.S. Army Soldiers and one American civilian interpreter by a gunman linked to the Islamic State group.
