The Air Force needs to reconsider its plans to retire the MQ-9 Reaper by 2035, given the drone’s capabilities and potential uses when measured against financial constraints and mission demands, defense analysts from four different think tanks argued Nov. 19. Experts from the Mitchell Institute for ...
Air
An initial team of Parsons employees arrived at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Nov. 15, and its members are now working daily with U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa, designing a plan to better defend U.S. air bases in the European and African theaters. ...
Australia is declaring its allegiance to the “global rules-based order,” the U.S. Defense Department’s code for keeping China in check, with a host of joint military capability development plans that go beyond the recent high-profile sharing of nuclear submarine technology. “China has risen, and the ...
The Defense Department may change its policies to hold leaders accountable when military strikes go awry and innocent civilians are killed, said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Nov. 17. During a rare press briefing by Austin at the Pentagon, he also questioned Putin’s ...
The Air Force’s mantra under Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has been to “accelerate change or lose,” but the most recent wargaming indicates, so far, the latter, according to Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the Air Force’s futurist. The corrective action is to speed up ...
As Russia threatens U.S. partners in Eastern Europe with another unexplained troop buildup, the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron completed a six-week bomber task force mission Nov. 15 across the North Sea, Baltics, and Black Sea region, integrating coalition capabilities and practicing agile combat employment. The ...
The first battle-ready U.S. hypersonic weapon will be fielded within a year or two by the Army, and the Navy is not far behind, according to the Department of Defense official overseeing research into the emerging and disruptive technology. The Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon ...
The arrival of two KC-46 Pegasus refuelers to the 305th and 514th Air Mobility Wings on Nov. 9 proved both joyous and bittersweet for Airmen as the new capability signaled the end of the KC-10 era at the base even amid continued concerns about air ...
Pratt & Whitney has opted not to protest the Air Force’s sole-source contract to GE Aviation to power all the service’s F-15EX fighters, a contract worth $1.58 billion. Although the Air Force said Pratt & Whitney was a “qualified bidder,” neither it nor the company ...

