Operation Noble Eagle—the long-running homeland air defense mission that has consumed some 43,000 sorties since the 9/11 terrorist attacks—is a stateside endeavor but that doesn’t mean it can sustain itself without deployments. NORAD reports that several thousand airmen deploy each year to support ONE.
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.
