The Air Force may want to award only one contractor to build its new fleet of air refueling aircraft, so Boeing VP for tankers Mark McGraw told reporters Wednesday. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, McGraw gleaned that insight from reading USAF’s preliminary systems requirements. The Post-Dispatch also notes that “top Pentagon officials” had been considering splitting the buy between Boeing and the Northrop Grumman-EADS team. However, we noted this past spring that the Air Force’s top military acquisition official, Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, said it would be less expensive to have just one vendor, at least for the first 100 aircraft.
As the Pentagon increasingly pivots its focus to strategic competition with China, the U.S. will look to expand its partnership with South Korea to increase security across the entire Indo-Pacific region, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said Dec. 2 during a visit to the northeastern Asian nation.