Moderadores: Lepanto, poliorcetes, Edu, Orel
US Air Force leaders stress importance of air dominance in countering rising threats
19 September 2022
Secretary of the US Air Force (USAF) Frank Kendall is unequivocal about where his service is focusing its energy and budget: “China, China, China,” Kendall said on 19 September during an event near Washington hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association. “I have been beating the drum on China’s military modernisation for many years.”
His comments come amid increasing tension between the USA and China, which just days ago levied sanctions on top executives at Boeing and Raytheon Technologies.
Kendall says threats posed by China are finally receiving appropriate concern in Washington following years of disinterest. The USAF, he adds, is orienting its budget and strategic focus toward the Indo-Pacific theatre – a shift aligning with broader Department of Defense (DoD) strategy.
The USAF’s Fiscal Year 2024 funding will reflect changes necessary to meet threats from advancing authoritarian powers, Kendall says. That budget remains unsettled, but USAF development projects include procurement of a new strategic bomber – Northrop Grumman’s B-21 Raider – and the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) programme to develop a sixth-generation aircraft. Kendall describes those modernisations as necessary to counter a “rapidly changing and competitive threat”.
Tension in Indo-China escalated in recent weeks after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August. China responded with military drills. In an interview aired on 18 September by news programme 60 Minutes, President Joe Biden confirms the US would respond militarily to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
A recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded the USA would succeed at keeping China out of Taiwan – but at extraordinary cost. The study warns the USA and allies could lose up to 900 aircraft. Of those, 90% could be destroyed on the ground, and USAF bases in Japan and Guam would be especially vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes, says Mark Cancian, who led the analysis.
Still, Washington appears more focused on deterring China than bracing for an inevitable conflict.
“China would be making an enormous mistake in invading Taiwan,” Kendall says. He sees no evidence any such action is imminent but notes the risk of war increases as China’s People’s Liberation Army continues its multi-decade modernisation campaign.
The secretary also cautions Beijing about pitfalls encountered by Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Those include economic sanctions and unreliable assessments by Russia of its own military capabilities and those of Ukraine.
Kendall draws a clear connection between Beijing’s aggressive military drills and Russia’s attack against Ukraine, describing the Moscow and Beijing governments as “aggressive authoritarian powers”.
Kendall and his top generals say air power is decisive in countering such threats.
“If Russia would have had air superiority, we would not have been able to resupply Ukraine,” General James Hecker, commander of US Air Forces in Europe, said on 19 September, also during the AFA event.
The Pentagon has provided Ukraine more than $15 billion of equipment, ranging from precision munitions to aircraft spare parts.
Hecker, an Boeing F-15 pilot by training, says if either Ukraine or Russia had air dominance, the outcome would have been decisive. “If you had air superiority, a lot of this war we’re seeing wouldn’t be happening”.
Still, generals caution that air dominance will not come easily to NATO or any US-led coalition in the Indo-Pacific. Advanced air defences like Russian’s SA-10 and SA-11 missiles pose substantial challenge to radar-seeking High Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs) and fighters like Lockheed Martin F-35s.
“These integrated air defences are very hard to get through”, says Hecker. “We in NATO would have a very hard time”.
Heckler says Ukrainian air defence troops, who operate the same Soviet-era systems as Moscow, downed an estimated 55 Russian jets during the opening weeks of the war.
Secretary Kendall also stresses the need for the USAF to address recruiting challenges, saying the service will meet enlistment goals this year but by a thinner margin than typical.
The USA’s FY23 defence budget includes the largest pay increase in decades, which should help. The USAF is also cancelling plans to eliminate pay bonuses for speciality jobs like recruiters, and is seeking to offer improved child care at its bases.
Those efforts come as the USAF’s operational fleet has reached its smallest size in decades, according to analysts.
https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing ... 45.article
[Un aparte: como estoy a favor de la OTAN, y de Ucrania en la guerra actual, a veces se me acusa de pro-yanqui, de dejarme llevar por sus intereses, etc. Pues no, además de que siempre he apoyado también tener una buena defensa propia y una defensa europea y centrarnos en nuestro flanco Sur, vemos que la USAF se centra muchísimo en China... pues tampoco comparto para nada ese enfoque para nuestras FAS.]
Atticus escribió:[Un aparte: como estoy a favor de la OTAN, y de Ucrania en la guerra actual, a veces se me acusa de pro-yanqui, de dejarme llevar por sus intereses, etc. Pues no, además de que siempre he apoyado también tener una buena defensa propia y una defensa europea y centrarnos en nuestro flanco Sur, vemos que la USAF se centra muchísimo en China... pues tampoco comparto para nada ese enfoque para nuestras FAS.]
De hecho, una de las derivaciones de la orientacion pacifica (que no pacifista) de la USAF es que por estos lares tendriamos que aumentar nuestro liderazgo en el campo aereo. Lo curioso es como cambia el niño. Hace seis meses era el apocalipsis, con el oso ruso llamando a la puerta. Al dia de hoy, con las fuerzas aereas rusas compitiendo entre si para ver cual es mas irrelevante, pareceria que podemos dormirnos otra vez en los laureles... Mis veinticinco rublos a que lo haremos. Y estara mal. De hecho, tal como estan las cosas seria el momento de decirle a la USAF que puede centrarse donde quiera porque de esto nos podemos ocupar nosotros. Por otra parte, la irrupcion del F35 en los "paniaguados" del aire lo impediria de facto.
...Al dia de hoy, con las fuerzas aereas rusas compitiendo entre si para ver cual es mas irrelevante, pareceria que podemos dormirnos otra vez en los laureles... Mis veinticinco rublos a que lo haremos. Y estara mal...
Top US commander calls for adding 12 fighter squadrons to USAF
26 September 2022
Mark Kelly, the four-star general in charge of Air Combat Command, says the USAF currently does not have enough multi-role fighter squadrons to meet the missions it has been assigned.
https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing ... 32.article
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The summer of 2022 should have found the Air Force all but fully recovered from the effects of COVID-19. Readiness levels as measured by operational sortie rates and flying hours should have been well above the historic lows reached during the pandemic; instead, they have grown only marginally. The service’s ability (or willingness) to fund and then generate sorties and flying hours for training has now spiraled well below the hollow-force days of the Carter Administration with equally dismal readiness levels. Training pipeline capacity for basic military training, officer accessions, and pilot training are back up to pre-pandemic levels, but a vibrant job market and steadily increasing civilian wages have stymied recruiting, and while the Air Force met its recruiting goals in 2021, it will struggle to meet accession requirements for fiscal year (FY) 2022.2 Moreover, in spite of more than 30 years of reductions in force size that left the Air Force 25 percent below the capacity level required for a fight with a peer competitor,3 the service has conveyed its intentions to reduce the fighter force by almost 20 percent over the next five years.
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