The Marine Corps declared in July 2015 that the F-35B was ready to fly operations, but the plane still needs several improvements. Until it gets new software staring next year, it will be able to carry only AIM-120 missiles and certain laser- and GPS-guided bombs, said Jesse Sloman, an analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington.
Right about then, America named a new ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney who to many Turks was the embodiment of what they saw as America's “my way or the highway” approach to Mideast policy.
Peter Haynes of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment discusses what appears to be an inflection point in the fight against ISIS.
The Air Force is off to a good start, but still has much work to do in terms of establishing what performance variables will take priority, said Mark Gunzinger, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Affairs (CSBA), “anti-access (A2) strategies aim to prevent US forces from operating from fixed land bases in a theater of operations,” while “area-denial (AD) operations aim to prevent the freedom of action of maritime forces operating in the theater.”
These “are going to be priority areas of focus for what I think are going to be relatively small investments over the near term … for cumulatively $12 [billion] to $15 billion of investment over the next five year,” Katherine Blakeley a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said.
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