US Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, sent a letter to all 26 NATO defense chiefs asking them to drop troop restrictions in Afghanistan, reports Stars and Stripes. Jones says that some countries restrict which areas their troops can be used in while others have imposed strict rules about combat participation. He likened the situation to NATO’s early problems in Kosovo, when initially “commanders spent more time deciding what they couldn’t do with their forces rather than what we could do.”
After years of experiments and tests, senior Air Force leaders say they're on the verge of using C-17s and other cargo aircraft to launch cruise missiles via airdrop, touting the development as a way to bolster the combat fleet and a major shift in the service’s mindset.