The 36th Contingency Response Group recently left Andersen AFB, Guam, to participate in this year’s Balikatan 06 exercise, scheduled to run from Feb. 20 to March 5. Balikatan, a Tagalog word for “shouldering the load together,” is a yearly bilateral exercise between Philippine and US forces that began 22 years ago. Air Force participants include the 36th CRG, the 291st and 293rd Expeditionary Combat Communications Flights, the 31st and 33rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadrons, and the 36th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron.
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.
