The armed services are all facing a quantity versus quality problem, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “Quantity does have a quality all along in our business,” Welsh said, noting that the US “can have the coolest ship on the planet,” but it can’t be in two places at once. “Numbers matter in our business,” Welsh said, noting that all of the services have gotten smaller, but the demands on the military have not decreased at the same rate. “We just don’t have enough to do everything we’re asked to do and everything we could potentially be asked to do,” he said. “If the term simultaneity enters the discussion, we have a problem.”
The use of a military counter-drone laser on the southwest border this week—which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas—will be a “case study” on the complex web of authorities needed to employ such weapons near civilian areas and the consequences of agencies…
