Because decisions are being made by a cabal of clowns who fired a good number of qualified leaders.

apparently, these things cost $300 million. That’s a lot of money for an old plane like that.

I wish there was a way to see our “points” total. I’m doing my best to win whatever game we’re playing.

Yeah I mean questioning the mods here lately is so edgy.

Based on the attempt at Diego Garcia striking range for their missiles is about 4000 km.

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That pretty well takes in the whole Middle East, most of Europe, half of Africa, etc.

Replacements coming:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i0F0eYE_krg

But they aren’t cheap either.

lol

Imagine the disappointment when they found out their upgrade from their 707 was....a 737

What’s the actual acquisition timeline though? I don’t keep up anymore, but haven’t we seen it get pushed back several times (probably due to the cost). Is it even in the FYDP?

Last I heard, USAF was attempting to dump it, citing new capes that have yet to be fielded. Brilliant. Our ability to field weapons systems and adapt to new threats has got to be one of our biggest weaknesses.

Weapons procurement has become nothing more than a giant teat for contractors. Boeing and Lockheed could literally care less if the products they sell taxpayers are actually effective and useful. Their executives continue to get their bonuses and pat each other on the back for doing nothing other than effectively screwing the American taxpayer.

Can you imagine how absolutely forked we’d be if we were fighting the Taiwan conflict right now against an enemy with far better resources and tech than the Iranians? Holyforkingsheetballs we need to start getting our ****e together.

That's always been the risk for the US of being involved in a major contingency operation (regardless whether you chose the conflict, or it chose you)... the usual suspects on the other side of world might decide to take advantage of the situation while you're distracted.

Yes we plan for that as well. Immediately post cold war, the force structure plan was to be able to fight two such conflicts at once.

After enough drawdown, the philosophy shifted to "Fight One, Hold One". Idea being fight one conflict to a suitable resolution while preventing the other enemy from winning. Then shift forces from the first conflict to the second. Sounds challenging, and yes it is.

But in this case China is *very* deliberate about how they proceed.

1. They *really* like to watch, learn and take notes when we engage in major operations. As opposed to going off half-cocked on their end.

2. They like to do things on their own timeline, and they think long-term.

So I don't think they're going to start a war just because something else popped off on our end.

Now that's not absolutely saying that they might not have a plan ready, and their Go Criteria *requires* us to be involved elsewhere. Or even hypothetically that they arrange for the distraction to go down. But no sign of that in this case, I suspect this was probably instigated by IL one way or another.