Michael Wynne, the Air Force’s top civilian, said the Air Force is now mostly reactive in its posture in Iraq, having shifted away from “scheduled air operations to on-call air operations.” However, he noted that US ground forces now expect fast-reaction close air support. Wynne said that the Army has gotten so accustomed to having CAS on demand that if it takes 10 minutes “they think their radios don’t work.”
The Pentagon announced new long-term agreements with four defense companies May 13 to develop and produce large numbers of low-cost cruise missiles. And while the effort will focus mostly on the Army to start, it pairs with Air Force efforts to find more affordable munitions.