Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) believes the Pentagon over the past two years has strayed from its long-run effort to introduce stability in major acquisition efforts by laying out procurement plans for USAF’s new F-22A stealth fighter that “have been anything but stable.” At a March 16 House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on tactical air, Chairman Weldon asserted in his opening remarks that the 2007 budget proposal deviates “significantly” from what Congress had expected last year. He wanted answers to how the new plan would “affect Air Force capabilities, costs of F-22s, and the industrial base that supports this production.”
The U.S. military needs to wake up and smell the multi-polarity, according to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash) told the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute on April 22 the era of a single superpower was over, ended by asymmetric strategic capabilities like drone swarms…