AFA Member Advocates Airpower in Guest Column

March 30, 2010

In a guest column in today's Des Moines Register, AFA member Marvin L. Tooman advocated for airpower. The Register titled the piece "Air, Space & Cyber Power -- Who will dominate?"

"Most wars of the past century share a common characteristic: They were not widely predicted. Even more to the point, the weapons systems and tactics that won them also were not well predicted," Tooman says, advocating broad airpower capacity to provide flexibility.

"The Department of Defense has taken the approach of focusing on today's fight at the expense of the future. The signs are there: Fighter aircraft older than the pilots flying them; bombers and tankers older than the fathers of the pilots flying them. Acquisition rates of new aircraft have put the U.S. Air Force on a replacement rate approaching 90 years. And the broad capabilities needed to deter future conflicts are being delayed and, in some cases, canceled. All while present military equipment is being worn down by the wear-and-tear of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq," he continues.

Read the entire article here.