The potential future threat posed by China and the existing war against Islamic extremist terror present very different airpower problems, said Air Force Col. Tom Ehrhard, at an American Enterprise Institute forum. Unfortunately, he said, the Air Force has met neither challenge adequately. The Air Force must adopt a “split personality” to meet the different needs. Ehrhard, who serves as the military assistant in Andrew Marshall’s Net Assessment Office at the Pentagon, believes in the case of China USAF faces an access challenge that requires a wide range of cooperative security arrangements. However, he believes for the Global War on Terror, the primary challenge is to develop “manhunting” persistent tracking and strike, and long-endurance intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance platforms. Ehrhard says this area suffered from “endemic neglect” in the past, and today’s efforts are still too reconnaissance-centric.
A new Navy missile could fill a long-range air-to-air need for the U.S. Air Force’s fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at the service’s…