Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asked South Korea to pony up more for US forces on the peninsula as Seoul pushes for greater control in a new command relationship. The Korea Times reports that Rumsfeld wrote in a letter to South Korean officials that Seoul should shoulder an “equitable” portion of the country’s defense. Rumsfeld also noted that the US would prefer to shift operational control by 2009, but Seoul wants to wait until 2012.
The Air Force’s nascent KC-Z program, aimed at developing a next-generation family of systems for aerial refueling, will look to launch its analysis-of-alternatives study in 2024, years earlier than originally planned. Originally, the analysis of alternatives for KC-Z was set for “maybe in the 2030s,” Paul Waugh, program executive officer…