In a new diatribe on Pentagon foibles, the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson hammers the decision to stop producing C-17 airlifters. He calls it the “dumbest weapons decision of the decade.” (He may be right.) In describing how the Pentagon could be so wrong about airlift, Thompson asserts that Pentagon officials simply made up assumptions to produce desired results for last year’s so-called Mobility Capabilities Study. He then says, “And, just to be on the safe side, you keep almost everybody from the Air Force’s mobility community out of the room.” Ouch.
The Air Force has picked Northrop Grumman over L3Harris and Lockheed Martin to develop and build the Stand-in Attack Weapon, meant to swiftly destroy enemy air defense sites and other high-value targets.