Zoellner, the KC-135 pilot, bristled at the idea his Stratotankers aren’t safe. He said they “fly like a champ.”
But Loren Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank, said the graying Air Force is evidence of how Washington has failed to keep its eye on the ball.
“The reason the fleet is so decrepit is because for the first 10 years after the Cold War ended, policymakers thought the United States was in an era of extended peace,” he said. “Then it spent the next 10 years fighting an enemy with no air force and no air defenses. So air power was neglected for 20 years, and today the Air Force reflects that fact.”
Former Air Force Col. Robert Haffa, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, added that although ground forces were the primary concern in Iraq and Afghanistan, air power will be a key to future security requirements as the United States turns its attention to the Pacific and a strengthening China.
Unlike America’s more recent adversaries, China has a credible air force that could conceivably strike U.S. bases in the region, requiring a deterrent force that is based farther away, out of range. America’s bases in Japan — and possibly Guam — also are within striking distance of a North Korean missile attack.
“As the nation looks to increased focus in the Pacific, these long-range strike platforms will be especially important,” Haffa said. “Planes like the B-52 simply cannot survive.”
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