A 21st Century Approach to Airpower: The Italian Air Force and the F-35

12/09/2013
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…

The Future is Now: Rapid Raptors, the CBG and the SSGN as Scalable Forces

12/08/2013
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…

Shaping a Defense Quadrangle for Pacific Defense: Allies Shape a “Flying Air Tanker Infrastructure”

12/03/2013
2013-12-03 by Robbin Laird The challenge of reshaping Pacific defense to deal with the various strategic challenges of the 21st century – the Arctic opening, SLOC and maritime trade conveyer belt security, North Korea and the dynamics of the second nuclear age, and the reaching out into the Pacific by…

The Re-Shaping of Pacific Defense: The USAF and Building Out from Today’s Force Towards Tomorrow’s Capabilities

11/26/2013
2013-11-26 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake We had a chance to sit down with General Hawk Carlisle, Commander, Pacific Air Forces, at the Air Force Association Pacific Forum, recently held in Los Angeles, California.  Earlier in the day, the General addressed the Forum and we were able to build upon…