Army and Marine Corps divisions ought to be joint commands, “and the number two guy” in each should be an Air Force one-star general,” Barry McCaffrey, ex Army general and national drug czar, said at a Capitol Hill seminar March 12 (see above). “Because, if you look at an Army division, 600 [to] … 900 Air Force guys operate in support of a division—inside, never mind flying ‘in support of.’ We gotta have one person run that airspace.” The Army and Marine Corps have to get past their “huge sense of mistrust” that the Air Force won’t be there when called for. McCaffrey said such a notion is foolish, given that in today’s war, a single Army platoon “can have a B-1 bomber overhead in 20 minutes” to do its close air support.
With a new policy in hand, the Air Force’s Foreign Military Sales enterprise is looking to go beyond selling USAF systems to allies and partner nations—and instead help them develop their own capabilities. Such an approach, deemed “non-program of record acquisitions,” is part of a larger shift in FMS toward…