The Defense Department’s modernization plan for fixed-wing airpower as it exits now—especially for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program of record—is going to be “substantially unbalanced in favor of short-range stuff in an era when you increasingly need long-range stuff,” according to Barry Watts of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Watts and co-author Steve Kosiak met with defense reporters Wednesday to discuss their newly released treatise on fighter modernization plans. CSBA analysts have flogged this particular donkey for several years, while others point out that it doesn’t really have to be an either/or situation. The nation, they say, can afford and needs both capabilities. Watts and Kosiak do acknowledge that canceling the “most costly single aircraft program in DOD history” would not be “prudent.”
The Air Force’s study of possible links to elevated rates of cancer among personnel who worked on intercontinental continental ballistic missiles has begun, the commander in charge of the U.S. ICBM fleet confirmed March 28. The initial phase of that study will mine cancer registries for information and compile a…