The Air Force has inactivated the Force Protection Battlelab at Lackland AFB, Tex., as part of a money-saving effort that targeted all seven of its battlelabs. The Force Protection Battlelab, created in 1997, completed some 200 projects, including a pathogen detection device, credited with saving thousands of lives, reports Carolyn Lyon. A newly formed Force Protection Innovation Division under the Air Force Security Forces Center is expected to carry on some of that work.
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.
