The Air Force says the U.S. bombing campaign against Islamic extremists is exacerbating its shortage of plane-maintenance experts—a gap that is rekindling tensions with Congress about how to manage the nation’s combat aircraft.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made waves earlier this month when he said the Army should consider a new mission: defending coastlines. In a report out today, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says the idea makes perfect sense as the Army seeks to reinvent itself amid the pivot to the Pacific and the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Army is embracing a more expeditionary identity, but earlier this month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recommended it return to an old mission on the home front: coastal defense.
The Pentagon has revised its estimate of the cost of the US air war in Iraq and Syria, saying the price tag for the campaign against the Islamic State group comes to about $8.3 million a day.
Are subs the best answer to China’s growing military power?
/…/ Todd Harrison, senior fellow for budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, called the fixation of Army leaders on protecting end-strength, “misguided.”
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