2013-12-16 Shortly after the return of the 36th Contingency Response Group from the Philippines, we had a chance to talk with the Commander of the Group. The 36th CRG and the USMC worked closely together at the Tacloban Air Base to re-open the base to allow for insertion of relief…
We have argued for some time that the introduction of fifth generation aircraft into legacy fleets was part of a process we have called the “re-norming” of airpower. We have even published a book with that title. When we discussed the time when Lt. Col. “Chip” Berke came to Nellis…
2013-12-13 In a phone interview with Lt. Col. Berke, the Commanding Officer, VMFAT-501, the continued progress of the F-35B towards its initial operating capability or IOC in 2015 was underscored. Recently, the 33rd Fighter Wing, highlighted a four hour sortie generation training exercise. According to the 33rd FW the F-35 enterprise…
2013-12-09 By Robbin Laird Recently, Lt. General (Retired) Deptula chaired a key fighter conference in London. He underscored that a new innovative approach to thinking about the future of airpower was needed. According to Deptula “the future needs an agile operational framework for the integrated employment of allied military power.” And he…
2013-12-05 We first met with Captain Hall at the time of the christening of the latest large deck amphibious ship for the USN-USMC team. Recently, we were able to discuss the progress of the ship and the next phase of the ship’s preparation for deployment. The Captain is an experienced CRUDES…
2013-12-08 by Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake In our book on shaping a 21st century Pacific defense strategy, we have focused on the emergence of a template for distributed operations. Forward presence, indeed persistent presence, with an understanding that the allies are always forward deployed, with scalable forces with significant…
2013-12-05 The USAF and the USMC are clearly working more closely together in shaping scalable expeditionary forces in the Pacific and elsewhere. And the two services will be deploying F-35s in Japan in the next few years along with the Japanese, which will allow them to work through further innovations…
2013-12-04 by Ed Timperlake The Peoples Republic of China by asserting an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea has just defined an air engagement zone outside of territorial Mainland China and over international water. The PRC Air Defense Identification Zone may seem an anomaly or an…
