For some 60 years, the Air Force—because it possessed heavy bombers—has dominated conventional long-range strike, but that could change. The QDR report made it abundantly clear that the Pentagon would like to see the Navy enter the LRS arena. It has ordered a change of course in the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program, the goal being the development of “an unmanned, longer-range, carrier-based aircraft capable of being air-refueled to provide greater standoff capability, to expand payload and launch options, and to increase naval reach and persistence.” Presumably, such systems could operate from either big deck carriers or submarines.
A little less than three years after then-U.S. Strategic Command boss Adm. Charles Richard warned of China’s nuclear forces experiencing a “strategic breakout,” the Space Force’s top intelligence officer says the People's Liberation Army have done the same in space. “The PLA has rapidly advanced in space in a way that few…