The Air Force hasn’t dedicated any of its scarce funding to upgrading the radar and other onboard systems for its fleet of E-8C Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System aircraft, says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. And, that asserts the long-time defense analyst puts in jeopardy the ability of fighter aircraft “to find the enemy.” The Air Force acknowledged earlier this year that it had pushed development of the new radar destined for the now-dead E-10 radar aircraft as far as its 2007 fiscal resource would permit, and it had no wiggle room in its 2008 budget. Thompson has a point that something is off, but we think it’s the topline.
Just days after a Defense Intelligence Agency report predicted new ballistic missile testing by North Korea, the Pyongyang regime fired a a submarine-launched ballistic missile which landed in the Sea of Japan. While U.S. Indo-Pacific Command downplayed the test as representing no new threat to the U.S. or regional allies,…