“The Air Force has about the right structure except for the need to add long-range strike—more long-range strike,” former Defense Secretary William Perry testified last week on Capitol Hill. Perry was highlighting one of the Congressionally chartered Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel’s Air Force-related recommendations for defense policymakers. Perry specifically told the House Armed Services Committee July 29 that the review panel thinks the Air Force should move forward with “another deep strike [platform]” as a follow-on to the B-2. This platform, he continued, should “have the kind of stealth capabilities that the B-2 has.” Such stealth attributes are a “unique capability that the United States has today and one which will be very important . . . in any new deep-strike bomber,” said Perry. He co-chaired the bipartisan 18-member panel with Stephen Hadley, national security advisor to President George H. Bush. Continue
The Air Force has launched yet another new squadron dedicated to electronic warfare as part of its effort to expand expertise in the field. The 23rd Electronic Warfare Squadron stood up at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., home to the service’s sole wing focused on EW, the 350th Spectrum Warfare…