T
he Pentagon will request more F-22s than the 183 now on order, but through supplemental war funding, not the regular budget. The news comes from Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, in a Jan. 14 letter to Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Air Force Caucus. Congress had asked England to provide, by Jan. 15, his “thoughts and analysis” on tactical aviation and a justification as to why the Pentagon has stonewalled buying more F-22s when studies show at least 250 are needed. England wrote that “in depth” reviews by the Pentagon show that buying F-35s for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps “provides more effective capability to the joint force commander than concentrating investments in a single service by buying more F-22s.” (So far as we know, it has never been an either-or choice.) He went on to say that the current multiyear F-22 purchase program would provide “sufficient numbers” of Raptors. England said it would be up to Congress to choose whether to fund additional F-22s in the 2009 supplemental. He also offered a briefing “on these issues, including the “department’s rationale for the programmed number of F-22s and the studies that underpin this decision.” Stay tuned.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…