The Congressional newspaper, The Hill, reports that key lawmakers in the House believe the Senate is on the right track with its push to get the Administration to put funding for the war on terror into the DOD budget. They want to stop the seemingly endless run of “emergency supplementals.” There is clear precedent for stopping the use of supplementals for a protracted war, as seen in a recent Congressional Research Service recap of funding over the years for the wars in Korea and Vietnam. There was a large supplemental in the first year for Korea, then the preponderance of funding shifted to regular appropriations. For Vietnam over the course of 11 years, there were five supplementals of greatly decreasing amounts from 1966 on.
U.S. Air Force F-35s and F-22s regularly deploy deep into the Pacific region from Alaska, Utah, and Hawaii. In the future, though, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command would like to see the Air Force permanently station fifth-generation aircraft west of the international date line—closer to China.