When USAF Security Forces deploy to guard Air Force aircraft, they usually do so with guns in hand. Not so for members of the 48th Security Forces Squadron, RAF Lankenheath in Britain, who were sent to secure the eight aircraft and their flight and maintenance crews at the Moscow International Air Show. Per an agreement between the US and Russia, the Security Forces airmen “have no weapons, no type of defense equipment,” said MSgt. Kenneth Blair. He was not concerned, though, because he said the airmen have gotten great cooperation from their Russian counterparts, one of whom, by the way, has taken a shine to the airmen’s berets. “I like the Americans,” said Dmitry Chenstvov, of the Russian police squad. “I especially like the berets.”
The emphasis on speed in the Pentagon’s newly unveiled slate of acquisition reforms may come with increased near-term cost increases, analysts say. But according to U.S. defense officials, the new weapons-buying construct provides the military with enough flexibility to prevent runaway budget overruns in major programs.
